This week in Language Arts, 6th grade delved further into research writing with discussions about “what makes a good introductory paragraph” in which they were taught the building blocks of pre-writing and given a few options including clusters, outlines, etc. and the elements of a strong introductory paragraph including the “hook” or “attention getter,” topic introduction, thesis statement, and transition. They will put these to use as we work through the unit on research writing and MLA formatting in the coming weeks. They also were given some time to decide and work on their entries for LAD Fair which will be happening in late March.

7th grade continued their novel study of “The Outsiders” by working through more chapters of the book and completing a vocabulary assignment over the first 4 chapters. Vocabulary assignments ask them to identify the part of speech, provide the definition, and craft two sentences that illustrates correct usage of the word in different contexts to assure understanding.

8th grade continued their work on scanning poetry this week. We began to go over their work as a class yesterday and will continue next week on scansion and analysis. Once completed, it will culminate in students writing their own individual English Sonnets employing the conventions of Rhyme, Rhythm, and Meter that they have practiced to create a poetry anthology that can be submitted to LAD Fair as a class anthology of poetry.