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!