MSA is almost here!

MSA is quickly approaching. The Reading MSA is scheduled for March 9th and 10th (Tuesday and Wednesday!).

While I know that all of our students can score proficient or advanced, many of them are still scoring basic. Please encourage your student to take the MSA seriously and to not give up on it--it's important for students, teachers, our school, our county, and our state!

Here are a few tips to help prepare your student for the MSA:

• Log onto Study Island. Many of the students are completing math problems on Study Island, but not enough are going onto the Reading sections. Study Island is designed to ask questions similar to those on the MSA. Moreover, the questions are broken down by skill. Please make sure that your student is completing skills related to fiction or non-fiction. There are some (like a dictionary or thesaurus section) that are not on the MSA.
• Schedule a conference or send me a personal email regarding your student's specific data. While I would love to call each of you or email each of you, it is nearly impossible time-wise. Please email me to know your student's current expected score and what he or she can work on to bring his or her score UP!
• I will be sending home some extra homework assignments over the next two weeks to help students prepare. Please ask about these extra assignments and look for them on schoolmax.

I will be working with students at school on the specific skills they need, let's work together to reinforce those skills at home! Again, please contact me with any questions, concerns, or comments.

One More Thing!

Unfortunately, the tutoring program with Advocates for Children at the University of Maryland will be on hold until further notice. There have been some logistical issues with the tutors that I am trying to work out. Please stay tuned for updates.

Welcome to the 3rd Quarter!

Welcome to the 3rd Quarter, parents, families, students, and friends!

At this point, it looks like the 2nd Quarter report cards will be given out on Wednesday, February 3rd. Overall, there were more poor grades this quarter than there were the first. These are the factors that I have identified that have been hurting students' grades:

1. HOMEWORK! Not enough students are completing the daily homework. On average, there are 5-10 students who turn in homework each class period. Make sure that your student is reading for 30 minutes every night and recording the requested response in his or her journal.
2. STUDYING! For our last test, about 4 students per class period turned in a completed study guide. Those who did turn in a completed study guide saw, on average, a 10% increase in his or her score. Those students also have the opportunity to retake the test if they so choose.
3. BEHAVIOR! While a student's behavior might not directly affect his or her grade, there is a direct correlation between behavior and grade results. We need to make sure that we are encouraging students to put education first. Being in middle school, many students are putting socializing first when they need to be considering school their job!
4. PROJECTS! There were multiple students who had been completing homework and classwork and doing fairly well on assessments whose grades went down dramatically because he or she forgot to turn in either the narrative writing project or author study project.

Overall, those are the four factors that seem to be affecting students who are earning lower grades. Please do not hesitate to contact me through email or phone if you have a specific question. Please also do not hesitate to call the school and schedule a conference with the whole team of teachers. That's what we're here for!

Other news:

• Our next test will be Friday, February 12, 2010.
• Study guides for that test will be given out Friday, February 5, 2010.
• The test will be on informational or non-fiction texts. It will cover reading strategies, main idea, author's/text's purpose, author's argument, text features, characteristics on non-fiction, organizational patterns in non-fiction texts, and determining information that would help strengthen the author's argument.
• To help students reading non-fiction further, they need to practice it! Look for articles in your local newspaper or even online at sites like Timeforkids.org. This website also has comprehension questions and activities to help students read non-fiction.

Again, please don't hesitate to get in touch!

Author Study Essay Due Dates and the RELA FAST

The rough draft of our current writing project is due on Monday. Students should bring drafts ready to revise and edit. I will be conducting writing conferences that day. Final copies are due Friday, January 15. Students need to be writing final copies at home. They may handwrite neatly on loose leaf, skipping lines, front side of the page only. They may also choose to type their essays. If typed, students must double space and use size 12 Times New Roman font (classic.). Students must turn in their writing packets, edited rough drafts, and final copies on that Friday the 15th.

On Wednesday, January 13th, all students will be taking the RELA FAST. The FAST is like a benchmark test that tells us how ready our students are for MSA. We will be conducting this test MSA-style, meaning students will test in their homerooms on Wednesday from 9:30-12:00. Students should make sure they get enough sleep and eat a good breakfast!

Tutoring Opportunity

Hello families! I will be sending home a letter on Monday about a possible tutoring opportunity! I have copied and pasted the letter here, too.

I hope you all had a safe and happy holiday! I am writing to let you know about an exciting after school opportunity that will be available very soon in our classroom!

I have been working over the holiday to set up a reading and writing tutoring program for our students here at G. James Gholson Middle School. I have paired up with the Advocates for Children Scholars Program at the University of Maryland, College Park, to develop a program between college students and our own middle school students. The Advocates for Children Program is a community service-based organization devoted to child advocacy and development. This program works with several local schools already and being a graduate from the program myself, I knew there would be college students interested in tutoring at Gholson. The college tutors would come to Gholson after school one day per week (either Tuesday or Wednesday), from 4:00 to 6:00 PM, to work with the students. Tutors will likely be focusing on reading strategies and skills up until MSA (mid-March) and then focus on writing projects and essays.

As of now, I am still in the process of setting up the final details and the projected launch date of the program is the third week of January. First, I need to know which students and families are interested in participating and which day of the week is best.

Please discuss this possibility with your family and student and return the slip below to me as soon as possible. Please look to the website (www.gelsorela.blogspot.com) and subsequent letters home for more details! Feel free to get in touch with me over email (jean.gelso@pgcps.org) with any questions, concerns, or comments.

You can find more about Advocates for Children on the University of Maryland website: http://www.scholars.umd.edu/advocates/index.shtml


The slip on the letter will look like this:

Student Name: _____________________________________________________
Parent/Guardian Name: ______________________________________________
Parent/Guardian Email: ______________________________________________
Parent/Guardian Phone Number: _______________________________________

Please check one of the following:
_____ Yes, we are interested in the tutoring program!
_____ No thank you, not interested!
_____ We might be interested, but still have many questions! Some of my questions are:
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Please check one of the following about the best times for you if you think you and your students are interested in the tutoring program:
_____ Tuesdays are the best day for us because Activities Buses run on Tuesdays!
_____ Wednesdays are the best day for us (No Activities buses on Wednesdays)!
_____ Either Tuesdays or Wednesdays work for us!



I really hope some students will be interested in tutoring! When you get the letter on Monday afternoon/evening, please fill out the slip and return to me as soon as possible! Thanks!

Helpful Websites on Writing

Since we are working on a writing project and students will be finishing rough drafts over winter break, I wanted to post a few helpful writing websites! Here they are...

http://www.kent.k12.wa.us/curriculum/writing/elem_writing/bib/writingprocess.htm
This website links you up to a bunch of other writing websites!

http://www.netrover.com/~kingskid/writing/Kids_Writing.html
Kids writing games :o)

I'll post more as I find more! Stay tuned!

Important Assignments before Winter Break

Hello! I hope everyone is excited for the holidays! I was able to make it to the Winter Arts Showcase tonight and was so impressed by the students' work!

There are a couple of important things coming up...

1. I gave out Unit 3 study guides on Monday.
2. The Unit 3 Test is on Friday.
3. Students must hand in study guides on Friday before we take the test.
4. If students hand in the study guide completed and on time AND they make their best effort on the test, if they do not like their scores they can retake another version of the test either after school or during lunchtime.
5. We began our Unit 3 writing project today. Students will be writing five paragraph essays about EITHER the style or the theme of three different Virginia Hamilton texts. We will be working on this project in class, but students will be expected to complete rough drafts over winter break.
6. Reading homework responses will be summaries (5-7 sentence MINIMUM) for the rest of this week and next because we are doing writing projects and not doing reading lessons.

I really want the students to do well on their Unit 3 Tests! The study guides WILL help if students take it seriously and work through it honestly! Please also make sure that your student gets enough sleep on Thursday night--the test will take the full hour of class.

Helpful Websites

Here are some helpful websites for context clues! Context clues are necessary for great readers and they are also highly tested on the MSA.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&um=1&q=context%20clues&ndsp=20&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=iw&start=0

http://www.english-zone.com/vocab/vic02.html

http://www.quia.com/pop/35971.html

Unit 3 is on the move!

Hello, everyone! I hope this post finds you well.

For starters, I am sending home a parent letter tomorrow with general updates and very important information regarding your student's reading level. Please ask about this letter and make sure that you get it!

Today we began reading Cousins by Virginia Hamilton. We will be reading this book this week and next. The book is just over 100 pages and will finish quickly. I will be photocopying the last few chapters for students to read and finish during Thanksgiving break. After we finish Cousins, students will be choosing their next Virginia Hamilton book with their groups. At the end of this unit, we will be writing a compare/contrast essay about what we have read so students need to really read and pay attention! Unfortunately, students may not take the books home because there are not enough copies. If you would like to purchase a copy of any of these books, that would be wonderful! Some students have already told me that they have some Virginia Hamilton books.

Here's a homework update:

Vocabulary words were given out today. They are due on Friday.

Tonight's reading response: Write five THICK questions as you read (Students have been taught about THICK questions. These are questions for which students need to make an inference in order to answer. They are the tough, big idea questions.).

Tomorrow: Practice the Character Captain literature circle role by choosing a character and completing a character trait chart or discussing that character's personality in one paragraph.

Thursday: Practice the Passage Picker literature circle role by choosing one passage or line from your book that you think is particularly interesting. Write one paragraph explaining why you chose that part or line.

Friday: Practice the Illustrator literature circle role by drawing a detailed picture of something important in your book. It could be an artistic representation or an exact replica of what you visualize.

Special Note: If students need to complete more homework assignments or get a little extra credit, they can complete extra readings over the weekend and write a summary. I have several students that already turn in 3 assignments on Monday instead of just one for some extra points.

Additionally, if your student is reading non-fiction and actually cannot write one of the responses (like the character captain assignment), he or she is to write a 5-7 sentence summary.

A Couple Days' Updates

Final Copies of Narratives were turned in last week. We have now begun a new unit. We are completing an author study on Virginia Hamilton. At the end of this unit, we will be writing compare/contrast essays about the books and texts we have read.

Homework:

Tonight: Create a new title for your book. Why is it a good title? Is it standard or inferential?

Tomorrow: If you are reading non-fiction, explain how knowing that your book/text is non-fiction makes it easier to understand. If you are reading fiction, explain what type of non-fiction you would like to read to give you more information about your book.

Wednesday: Students are not coming to school. We have parent/teacher conferences all day. Please call to schedule a conference! :o)