| Homework that matters... |
Dear Students and Parents: here you will find an updated version of weekly and long-term assignments for Don Weedmark's students:
Pers. 2/3 Seminar Sixth Grade English/Humanities
Per. 4 Sixth Grade English/Humanities
Pers. 6/7 GATE Cluster English/Humanities.
Please read all assignment instructions carefully. Be thorough and creative. Parents: please read and sign all rubrics indicating your awareness of projects.
Third Unit of Study: Mythology.
Guiding Question: What do the first, archetypal stories have to say to us today?
In this Unit of Inquiry students will read mythology, concentrating on Greek myths in Bernard Evslin's book, HEROES, GODS AND MONSTERS OF THE GREEK MYTHS. Students are encouraged to read mythology from other cultures independently. We will also read and explore the art of persuasive writing. Sixth grade standards state that students should be able to a.) state a clear position on a proposition or proposal, b.) support the position with organized and relevant evidence, 3.) anticipate and address reader concerns with counterarguments. In addition to mythology and persuasive writing, we will also read "creation stories" from various cultures. We will utilize Virginia Hamilton's book, IN THE BEGINNING, for these accounts. Here we will examine the lessons embedded in the stories and try to infer what the culture was like behind the stories. The Unit will culminate in a written project, a "triptych," in which students will write a persuasive editorial showing how mythology has an answer for, or guidance about a contemporary issue/problem. Students will also invent a culture and write a narrative, a "creation story" that such a culture would have told. Finally, the triptych will include several illustrations/pictures with captions that add to the persuasive writing and creation story. This Unit involves students in both deductive and inductive reasoning as they examine great literature for enduring ideas about what it means to be human. The Unit also complements Sixth Grade Social Studies which is the study of Ancient Civilizations.
Beginning next week, 2/8/10, the first day of the Spring Semester, students will be organized into news groups. Approximately every other week, each student will present a news article as part of "News Team" based on television type news casting. Students will receive written information and a schedule of when their team is responsible for giving the news on Fridays. In this way, students will be encouraged to think about problems/issues in the contemporary world that they can relate to ideas from mythology.
Reading Response Journals (RRJ's): Author Study. Students should think about an author they would like to concentrate on for our last Unit of Study: Great Authors. Our last Unit is our research unit. Students will research the life, times and influences of an author of choice. The next two RRJ's will be reflections on books by this author. Due dates for the Mythology Unit "Triptych" and the RRJ: Author Study will be given in each section of this "classjump" information.
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Standley Middle School
Don Weedmark
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