Nonfiction Article Summary

Today, we're going to take a little time to practice our nonfiction reading skills, summarizing skills, and blogging skills.  We need a little time before we start the book club groups (mostly because not everyone had a chance to fill out the form).  While we wait, we're going to practice some of the skills that we will be using during the book club project.

What you will do:  Read at least one article.  This can be a magazine article or another article that you read online.  Write a 3 sentence summary of what you read as a comment on this blog entry.  Then reply to other students' comments.

What should it look like?
Article Title: Put the article title here
Source:  Give the name and month of the magazine - or - the Website your online article came from.
Summary:  Write your three sentence summary here.

How will it be graded?  Blog Rubric

Goodreads

Your Project

Civil Rights Movement

CCSS Addressed:  ELA W7.7 & 7.8, ELA SL7.1 & 7.6, ELA RI7.2,7.4,7.6 & 7.9

Several of the book options for our book clubs are about the Civil Rights Movement.  In this project, you will be choosing one of six different aspects of the Civil Rights movement to investigate.  We will talk about each option for a bit before you pick a topic to research.

You will be working in a group of 3 or 4 people who also want to research this topic.  After you do your research you will be presenting your topic to the class.  Complete instructions are on the sheet.

If you find out something that you think is really interesting, put it in a comment on this post.  Reply to other facts you find interesting!

Topics:
March on Washington
Marches from Selma to Montgomery
Ruby Bridges attends a desegregated school
16th Street Church Bombing - Birmingham, Alabama
Children's Marches - Birmingham, Alabama
Rosa Parks & The Montgomery Bus Boycotts

Should we read Three Cups of Tea?

ELA Common Core Standards W.7.1 A-E, RI.7.1,6&8

We've got copies of Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson to use for book clubs, but should we really read them?  At first Greg was seen as a humanitarian and hero.  He was even nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.  All along, there were some parts of his story that didn't make sense to some people that were actually there.  In 2011, information came out that suggested Mortenson actually lied about what happened to him and his charity was misusing its money. 

So, now it's up to you.  Your job is to investigate what happened and decide whether or not this book will be one of our choices for our next round of book clubs.  You will write a written argument, and we will have a debate in class.  Together, we will decide if this book will be one that we read.

Videos we watched in class:

Short Film about the Book

60 Minutes Report on Three Cups of Tea

Greg's Interview on NBC

Greg's Interview with AP

Some interesting websites that can be used in addition to your own research:

New York Times Article - The Nation Article - Charity Watchdog Website

What you need to do the assignment:

Argument Document

Witness - Act 4

What do you want to talk about from Act 4?  Share what you want to discuss as well as your feelings about it.  Then reply to at least two others' comments.  This will blog entry will be graded.  Use my comment as an example for a "10".

KKK - Short Research Project

December 14, 2015

You've been learning a lot about the KKK while you're reading Witness.  We also have a book about the history of the KKK in our book club book collection.  It is titled, They Called Themselves the KKK - The Birth of an American Terrorist Group by Susan Campbell Bartoletti.   For the next two days, we are going to complete a very brief research project using a K-W-H-L chart.  You will research to find the answer to one things that you want to know about the KKK.  You should get most of the chart done on our first day of research.  You will finish it up on our second day and share what you've learned.

Share your question and what you learned about it in a comment on this post so that we can all learn new things about the KKK.

K-W-H-L Sheet

Witness - Act 2

ACT 2

What do you most want to talk about from Act 2.  Take a moment to describe the part you want to discuss in your comment.  Tell your thoughts about it.  Then reply to others.

Like this:

I was interested in the friendship between Mr. Fields and Leonora.  He's white, but he's super nice to her.  At first, when he was describing the Civil War I was worried that he might be racist, but I now I think that he isn't.  What do you guys think?

Holiday Traditions

What's your favorite holiday tradition?  How did it start?  Take some time to find the origins of your favorite holiday tradition.  Write about it as a comment to this post.  Then read about other traditions. Reply to others' posts if you have a thought you'd like to share.

Your comment should look like this:
Tradition:  Sending Christmas Cards
How it started:  The tradition started in London, England in 1843.  It had become a lot cheaper to send things in the post office at that time, and Sir Henry Cole hired and illustrator to make cards to send to his friends and family.  He also sold them.  Things have changed a bit since then, but that's where the tradition started.

World War Two - Research Projects

Week of November 30th

This week, we're going to be doing a little bit of research about World War Two.  We have several book club options that were written about different aspects of World War Two.  In this assignment, we'll be working on a few skills:
- Learning enough about a topic to decide if you want to read more about it.
- Choose an area to focus your research on - choose subtopics
- Write a summary of your research using Step Up to Writing
- Use Diigo to annotate your research

Topics:

African Americans in WW2
Japanese Internment Camps
Heroes of the Holocaust
Creating the Atomic Bomb
Finding Nazis after WW2
Franklin Roosevelt

Grading Rubric

6 Word Summaries

Today we will be learning how to comment and reply on the blog.  You will be taking some time to read, either your free choice book or a magazine.  Then you will create a 6 word summary of what you read. Give the title of what you read. You will put that summary in a comment on this blog.

Example:
Title:  The Giver
They think it's perfect - it's not!