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MARCH UPDATE
Every day that is born into the world comes
like a burst of music and rings the whole day through,
and you make of it a dance, a dirge, or a life march, as you will.”
Thomas Carlyle
Sixth Grade
In March we move from our study of the novel to non-fiction essays! We
will be reading about a snowball fight from Annie Dillard, a rattlesnake
hunt with Ross Allen and a personal favorite for students, James
Thurber’s essay “The Night the Bed Fell!” We will focus on becoming more
critical readers by learning the tools to evaluate this genre. Parts of
speech have been viewed and reviewed and we move into the study of their
functions within the sentence structure. In Vocabulary we used graphic
organizers to review sixty words in a cumulative review.
Seventh Grade
We caught that fish in The Old Man and the Sea and this week we will
finish our novel. With success in failure, stoical perseverance, and
always courage, Santiago refused to give into the challenges that the
world threw at him. He is the seminal “code hero” symbolizing grace
under pressure. I think Hemingway would be pleased to see students of
2010 find the meaning in his novella. We now move into a most unusual
docu-drama novel, Nothing But the Truth by Avi. Written in script form,
it explores the manipulation of truth in our world today. What is the
truth and how can one be sure? It is a novel that resonates with today’s
teens and always creates a strong response.
Eighth Grade
Poetry, the distillation of emotions, images, and thoughts into the most
elegant of language, is our next genre. We live in such a visual world,
so we begin by just listening to poet laureates for the simple pleasure
of their words and how they connect in sound and rhythm, and meter, and
ever so much more. Poetry is a breath of freshness, the art of
specificity and no student fails to respond to the depth of meaning in
so few words. We begin with Emily Dickinson’s poem below…and end with
original poems of our own.
There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!
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