Post: Organizing a Gr7 LA class? Lit. circles? Sentence Diagram..?
Krys 
Posted on 9/01/09
This is my first year teaching Gr 7 Language Arts and I am
excited, but I do feel out of my element, as my comfort is
Math (which I also get to teach this year). I have only 21
students as of right now and we start next week. I have
gone back and forth about how to set up my actual teaching
time for LA. I'll do reading here...for this long.. teach
this Write Trait...do this vocabulary activity...I have a
lot of ideas (many from these chatboards - thank you) but
I do have a mathematical brain and so I'm trying to figure
out a method to teach LA that makes sense to me and
therefore the students. We do have 3 themes to cover - so
one per term makes sense to me...I have a tentative plan
to "cover" the 6 Traits of writing so that we can use the
language and the skills to improve our writing...But how
much time do you set aside for grammar? Spelling? I was
thinking about incorporating both into our novel studies
and theme work, especially since there is no "Speller"
persay for Grade 7. I'd also like them to have time to read
independently, something of their choice...I want to do a
read aloud...We'll be reading novels, short stories,
newspaper articles as appropriate, poetry...we have certain
forms of writing to cover: friendly letter, opinion piece,
review, autobiography...etc. etc. How do you plan your year
to make you get everything covered? (I'm also in PEI,
Canada and we have to "high stakes, standardized tests,
persay - so that's a comfort as far as covering everything
goes...not the same type of pressure...)
Another related question...literature circles? Do you do
them? Do you like them? How do you manage and organize them
effectively, so that the curriculum is met, and chaos does
not ensue?
Lastly, I was told that there are no stupid questions...so
here goes: What's sentence diagramming? I was not taught
grammar directly EVER and my degrees are not in English.
These boards say that it is very worthwhile and I know that
I could google it - but you are the experts...so...I assume
the sentences are deconstructed...nouns, verbs, articles
etc. identified perhaps? How do you suggest doing this
effectively, while keeping Grade 7s engaged and also,
having them believe that they really do "have to know this"?
Thanks in advance!
Krys
Posts on this thread, including this one
- Organizing a Gr7 LA class? Lit. circles? Sentence Diagram..?, 9/01/09, by Krys.
- Re: Organizing a Gr7 LA class? Lit. circles? Sentence Diagra, 9/02/09, by Jo Ann.
- Re: Organizing a Gr7 LA class? Thanks Jo Ann, 9/02/09, by Krys.
