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Class Update — 2020-21
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Category Archives: LA
LA Update — Final One
(Looking for 8th Grade Seminar? Check out posts under the 8th Grade Seminar Blog Header)
Hi Everyone,
Our final class together in our current configuration is on Thursday, February 13th. Starting Tuesday, February 18th, LA classes will shift for third trimester. Eighth graders will remain with me for 8th grade seminar, while 6th and 7th graders will rotate into either Ms. Brownlee’s or Ms. Rundell’s LA class. (The full list is at the conclusion of this email.
In the meanwhile, there is lots to do as we complete our personal video book review project. It’s a big week and we’ll be walking through all the steps in the process as students (hopefully!) share how a book changed the way they see the world. We’ll be having a film festival on Wednesday the 13th and Thursday the 14th to watch all the videos and to get some reading suggestions going forward. Here is the padlet (password is: Grendel) where all the videos will be featured in case you want a few good book recommendations yourself! (It’s empty now, but will be populated by next week.)
Upcoming Due Dates. I also (unfortunately) can’t offer extensions as we are bumping up against the end of the trimester.
Tuesday, February 4th:
1) Visual Chart should be complete.
Tuesday, February 11th:
1) PVBR Rubric complete.
2) Video turned in to Padlet
Wednesday, February 12th:
1) Trimester Rubric self evaluation complete.
2) Reading Plan/Padlet Updated.
3) All “Feiger” Personal Library Books returned. I have a lot of books from my personal library that are checked out. Any help checking rooms, lockers, etc. for books would be greatly appreciated.
If kids need extra help with their video, they should definitely reach out and I will try to make myself available.
Thank you so much for all your support. I’ve so enjoyed these past two trimesters with your student. Best, -Josh Feiger
Third Trimester Students Moving to Ms. Brownlee Block 1
| Trevor |
| Beckett |
| Jesse |
| Phoenix |
| Violete |
| Chloe |
| Galileo |
| Maddi |
| Declan |
| Maggie |
| Cody |
Third Trimester Students Moving to Ms. Brownlee Block 2
| Scarlett |
| Tobin |
| Abigail |
| Shay |
| Calvin |
| Siena |
| Owen |
| Zander |
| Madeline |
| Yitz |
| Wendell |
| Sigi |
| Anna Grace |
| Bella |
| Judah |
| Tatum H. |
| Alice |
| Kate |
| Maya L. |
| Sean M. |
| Saffron |
Third Trimester Students Moving to Ms. Rundell Block 1
| Celeste |
| Johan |
| Helena |
| Jasper |
| Sean K. |
| Griffin |
| Mack |
| Sophia |
| Zach |
| Carter |
| Joaquin |
LA Update — Weeks of 1/21 and 1/27
This week, we’ll write our voice-over narratives for our personalized video book reviews. Between MLK day, the ADI, and our conference release day, we only have seven classes over the next two weeks. We’ll also be reviewing apostrophes and homonyms. Here are a few great questions to ask your student about class:
1) What is the theme of your book?
2) What is a PVBR?
3) What text-to-self connections did you make while reading this book?
4) What image did you draw for your book?
5) How did you arrange the character map?
6) Does your book follow the “Hero’s Journey?” Why or why not?
7) What are you reading as your choice novel right now (different from PVBR book)?
Upcoming due dates:
Tuesday, January 21st: “Read This Book” due at the BEGINNING of class with rubric. This should include a stapled packet with rubric, twenty questions, plot mountain, drawing, and character map. (Students will need to print this out.)
Monday, January 27th: Strong Draft of Narrative should be complete. We’ll be peer critiquing these in class on Tuesday, January 28th.
Monday (2/3): Narrative spreadsheets complete. This includes all pictures/images/videos.
Thank you for all your continued support! -Josh Feiger
LA Update — Weeks of 1/7 and 1/13
Welcome back! Our big project for the final five weeks of our LA class will be the creation of personalized video book reviews (PVBRs). Students will be identifying one book from their book plan that they’ve really enjoyed over the course of the last six months and exploring it more deeply to share how that book changed the way they see the world. Students need to bring that book with them for class on Tuesday.
Here’s an archive of Audience Favorites from years past to give you a sense of what the final product (due mid-February) might look like.
Creating these PVBRs is a four-step process:
- Thinking deeply and using comprehension strategies to understand the a“soul” of your selected book. We’ll do this by answering 20 questions using a “read this book” sheet. Students will be finding important passages in their books, identifying theme, making text-to-text connections, writing summaries, and more. Some of the questions take 5 second to answer; others will require considerably more time/thinking.
- Generating a script based on the “read this book” sheet.
- Identifying images/video/music/etc. that compliment the audio script.
- Pulling it all together through recording, editing, compilation, and credits.
Step one will take us several weeks. We’ll start by watching a bunch of videos and identifying those elements that create a strong PVBR.
Upcoming due dates:
Every night: Reading 30 minutes
Tuesday, January 7th: PVBR Book — Physical book or Kindle version present at school. (This was assigned prior to winter break. Students will need their book daily for the next several weeks.)
Thursday, January 9th: Book return. I’ve lent a LOT of books out from my personal library — which is wonderful — but some of the books have been out for months. Please check with your student to make sure that any books they are not actively reading are returned to my classroom. (I’m sure there are many library books out too — those should be returned to school library.)
Friday, January 10th: Email Check-in #2 AND Questions #1-#7 on “Read This Book” should be complete.
Friday, January 17th: Questions #8-#15 and #20 due on “Read This Book” sheet. (Not collected)
Tuesday, January 21st: “Read This Book” due at the BEGINNING of class with rubric. This should include a stapled packet with rubric, twenty questions, plot mountain, drawing, and character map. (Students will need to print this out.)
Thursday, January 23rd: Strong Draft of Narrative should be complete.
Tuesday, January 28th: Narrative Peer Critique.
Happy New Year! -JF
LA Update — Week of 12/16
Hi Everyone,
Thank you so much for your AMAZING support of our coffeehouse readers yesterday. I’m so proud of all of the readers and it was fantastic to celebrate their accomplishments.
Next week is pretty low-key in LA. We have district-mandated I-ready testing and we’l be getting students fueled up with good books to read over the holiday break.
Upcoming due dates:
- Every day: Read 30 minutes (including winter break!)
- Wednesday 12/18: PSR Signed off along with story in Portfolio. Please print both the story and PSR at home if possible.
- Tuesday 1/7: Bring favorite book to class. Students should plan on bringing their favorite book from the past six months to class on that day as we are going to be starting a personalized video book review project (more details on that later).
Thank you for all your support. Have a wonderful holiday break.
Best,
Josh Feiger
LA Update — Weeks of 12/2 and 12/9
LOTS happening as we prepare for our coffeehouse event on Thursday, December 12th. Thank you for all your support. The key details:
Paul’s Coffeehouse and Tea: 956 W. Cherry in Louisville. (East side of McCaslin)
- Block 1 will be reading from 5pm-5:45pm.
- Block 2 will be reading from 6pm-7pm.
The Cafe is well… cozy. It will be crowded and may be standing room only. Thanks in advance for your patience and flexibility. Students should plan on arriving 10 minutes before their class begins reading — and in the spirit of support and community, please plan on staying throughout the entire performance. (You don’t need to stay for both performances!)
Upcoming due dates: (Full Descriptions of ALL these tasks are in this day-by-day coffeehouse prep document)
- Every night: Reading.
- Tuesday: Two copies of your coffeehouse excerpt, proofread, printed, and stapled to construction paper
- Wednesday: Your introduction and closing for your reading.
- Friday: Strong draft of your blurb for peer critique at end of class.
- Monday 12/9: Final draft of blurb
- Tuesday, 12/10: Program cover design due.
The “ Blurb” also doubles as the PSR for LA (with minor adjustments). We’ll go over this in class.
Again, the expectation that all students are attending the coffeehouse reading. This is an important event to celebrate your student’s writing. If your student is not attending for whatever reason, please let me know asap. Thank you in advance.
Hope you are enjoying the snow! -JF
Ps. We’ll do a lot of microphone practice in class, but if your student is feeling particularly nervous — please encourage them to meet with me before or after school and we can practice together.
Pps. I’ll email a draft copy of the coffeehouse program when it is ready (probably around December 11th)
LA Update — Week of 11/18/19
It’s so exciting to see the stories evolve over time. Our focus this week will be on polishing and proofreading as we finish the final drafts of our stories. Here’s the grammar/polish protocol that we’ll be using to finalize our work next week.
Also, friendly reminder that our coffeehouse event at Paul’s Coffeehouse in Louisville (on Macaslin) on the evening of Thursday, December 12th. This evening is a really important celebration of their hard work and it’s an expectation that all students attend. It is also a collaborative performance so if your student is unable to join us that evening, please let me know by Wednesday, November 20th so I can adjust accordingly. Again, Block 1 will be reading from 5pm-5:45pm and Block 2 from 6pm-7pm.
Upcoming due dates:
Wednesday, 11/20 by 9pm: Final draft due via Google Classroom.
Every day (including Thanksgiving break): Read 30 minutes.
Have a wonderful thanksgiving. I’m thankful for the opportunity to be your student’s teacher.
Best, -JF
LA Update — Weeks of 11/4 and 11/12.
The big topic for the next few weeks is peer critique. This is one of the most important topics that we’ll address all year in LA. If students can learn to give one another kind, helpful, and specific story critiques, they also learn to “step outside” of themselves as editors. This allows students to begin to see their own writing with a more critical eye. Here’s the peer critique protocol that we’ll be using to guide our process. We’ll be introducing and modeling this on Monday.
After Veteran’s Day, we’ll be fine-tuning stories and working on endings. How do authors “show, not tell” their big ideas?
Upcoming due dates:
- Every night: Reading 30 minutes.
- Thursday, November 7th by 8:30am: All peer critiques should be complete. Peer Critique Survey due. (Students will have time to do this in class)
- November 20th by 9pm: Final Draft Stories Complete
Don’t forget our coffeehouse reading is on the evening of Thursday, December 12th. (5pm for Block 1. 6pm for Block 2.)
Happy November! -JF
LA Update — Weeks of 10/21 and 10/28
The stories are coming along — it is so much fun to see all the creativity and see their ideas develop over time. If you haven’t done so already, please save the evening — December 12th! Join us for an evening of terrific storytelling! Here are venue/time details.
Paul’s Cafe and Tea
956 W Cherry St #101, Louisville, CO 80027
- Block 1 students will begin reading at 5pm. (We’ll probably end around 5:45pm)
- Block 2 students will begin reading at 6pm. (We’ll probably end around 6:55pm)
The expectation is that all students attend the entirety of the presentation by their specific class (they do not need to attend both classes!). If for whatever reason, your student is NOT able to attend that evening, please email me as soon as possible.
In class, we’ve been practicing writing, describing action in slow motion video, to capture details and paint a picture in our reader’s minds. We are also going to be practicing and performing grammar plays to help kinesthetically wrap our brains around some of the sentence structure work we’ve been tackling in class. We’ll also be enjoying a Halloween Extravaganza on the 31st!
Upcoming due dates:
- Every Night: Reading 30 minutes
- Tuesday, October 21st: Grammar Plays. (We’ll be introducing this on Monday).
- Wednesday, October 22nd: Reading Rubric: Self Assessment Due
- Thursday, October 23rd: Story Checkpoint #1 Self Assessment due.
- Wednesday, October 30th: Trimester Rubric Self Reflection due via Google Classroom (We’ll be doing this in class on the 30th)
Thank you for all your continued support! -JF
LA Update — Weeks of 10/7 and 10/14
Lots happening in class these next couple of weeks. We’ll be focused on learning how to write dialogue, paragraphing, story planning, compound sentences, comma splices, dynamic metaphors, and self-revision. We’ll also be looking at our process as writers through the use of a Chromebook extension called draftback and one of my favorite writing videos ever.
If you are looking for dinner table conversation fodder, here are a few questions to ask your student.
1) Can you describe the LA project to me? Something about four exploded moments…?
2) How’s it going with the “ordinary world?” Who is your protagonist?
3) Have you figured out what you want to teach your reader yet? (It’s ok if they haven’t!)
4) What is “show, not tell?”
5) What’s the difference between a complex sentence and a simple sentence?
6) How’s your choice reading going? What’s the current genre of the book you are reading?
Upcoming Due Dates:
The hope is that students should be able to meet these due dates using class time (with the exception of the nightly reading)
Nightly: Read 30 minutes
Tuesday, October 8th: Meeting (in-class) with me to review story plan
Friday, October 18th: Reading Rubric: Self Assessment Due
Friday, October 18th: Students should have the first 1000-1500 words (give or take) of their story complete. This is a guideline not a ’turned-in” assignment.
October 22nd: Sentence-Structure Play Performance
October 24th: Checkpoint #1 of story
Thank you for all your continued support! -JF