Daily Archives: October 4, 2019

Co-op Update — Weeks of 10/7 and 10/14

Co-op is rolling and it’s all good.  A few reminders:
1) Students should have at least three artifacts in their personal section by October 22nd.  A full list of personal section ideas can be found here.
2) Friendly reminder — no school on 10/14 — PD Day.
3) In co-op, we’ll be having council, reading The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, playing a few games, and checking in on our portfolios.
4) Community service — this would be a good week to jump-start work on that commitment if it has somehow fallen through the cracks.  Here is a list of 37 community service ideas to help.  Cody’s mom, Heidi, runs Dream Tank and that’s a great way to do service.  Here’s the plug.  Youth entrepreneurship for social change. Join a team project, create a team to work on a social impact or environmental business, launch an advocacy campaign for climate change, or other issue based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Or, take a role within the organization such as film, graphic design, project management, social media, and more. Contact heidi@dreamtank.co to explore.
5) If you haven’t completed your CHOICE Donation yet, now is a great time.  Here’s the link to donate.  Thank you so much!
Have a fantastic few weeks!   Next co-op update will be the week of 10/21.
Best,  -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 24th:  Checkpoint #1 of story
Thank you for all your continued support!  -JF