AMANDA HEETHUIS

Students read Frost's "The Road Not Taken" and Flowers For Algernon. Then students completed an essay on the topic of decision making arguing two choices a character made in one of the works. Students supported their claim evidence from the text.

After reading Hinton's The Outsiders, students argued which character most influenced Ponyboy's decision to write his essay, which is ultimately the book itself. Students supported their claim with evidence from the text. 

Students created a persuasive speech outline to prepare and practice for their research unit 7-10 minute speech. Students gathered notes on Easybib, made notecards, created a Google Presentation, and used their outline to deliver their speech on a hot button issue. 

Students were expected to read at least seven books this school year, but were challenged to read twenty minutes a night with the hope that they're read more. Students kept a lot of the books they've read on a Google Presentation and noted their rating, the title, author, and a short review. 

Upon the completion of our Shakespeare Appreciation Unit (a unit aimed to simply expose students to Shakespeare), students used Canva to create a Shakespeare Advertisement with the goal of convincing future students to study The Bard!

Chimamanda Adichie gave a TedTalk on The Danger of a Single Story, a concept that means taking one thing about a person, or a group of people, and making it the only thing. Doing this leads to stereotyping. Students were challenged to identify a single story that their classmates may have of them and then discredit this by telling a personal narrative that shows another side of them. 

After reading Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, students chose from one of three prompts (Which character experienced the most prejudice, which character displayed the most courage, or why is this title fitting for this novel?). Students supported their claim with evidence from the text. 

Upon the completion of one of their independent reading novels, students chose ten nouns to represent in one photo creatively. They described the significance of these items in writing and submitted this project electronically as well as on Instragram using the hashtag #bookstragram. 

Students created a book talk video for one of their chosen novels. Students followed an outline to include various elements, recorded themselves, and they were shared with the class digitally on our Google Classroom. 

After research topics were chosen, students created an I AM poem on their research topic to connect with the issue.