Weekly ELA News 1/27 - 1/31

We are finishing up our current writing cycle (Poetry) this week.  By Tuesday all students should have two published pieces to turn in.  As with all past writing cycles, one must be the genre we've been working in - a poem - but the other can be any genre or writing the student chooses.  I look forward to reading the final drafts as I know students have been working hard on them in class the last couple of weeks.  Our next writing cycle will be informative/expository writing - our Science Fair papers!  More info to come on that next weekly news.

Now onto the meat of this issue - individual Lit Circle Homework.  As students are reading different books (that their group chose) the number of chapters each group is reading varies every week depending on the due dates students set for themselves.  Other than reading their chapters, students will complete their Lit Circle Homework by every Thursday based on what goals we have set.

The idea here is that we are all very different readers.  We have different strengths and different areas of weakness.  These more individualized bits of homework allow for each student to work on what is needed for them to be a better reader.  

Don't be scared if you open this document titles "Lit Circle Homework" on Engrade!  Students are only required to do two of the many different types of Lit Circle Homework you'll find on that document a week.  I just wanted it all in one place.  The two they are working on for homework depend on the goals they currently set as readers.  

For example, a student and myself may have chosen Fluency and Solve Words for their homework based on their current reading goals of increasing fluency and decoding hard word.  The student would then work on only those two focuses for a few weeks until I see some improvement in one or both of those areas.  After assessing and seeing progress, I will let the student reset goals and they'll start working on a different set of homework from that document.  

Differentiation takes a bit more work on my part, and can be harder to explain to parents.  The bottom line is this - I'm trying to help every student in my classroom become a better reader.  To do that, we may all need to think of homework a little differently and be willing to do different amounts of "homework."  If the homework your student is bringing home is confusing to you, email me, call me, stop by - I'd love to help you understand what I'd like your student to do.  If we all continue to work together, our students will become better readers.