On Demand Resources

1. The Literacy Link has been released for January. It includes a the link to the released annotated ON DEMAND WRITING items. Perfect! Exactly what we need as we grade our narrative pieces and move into this argument writing unit. :) 

http://education.ky.gov/AA/items/Pages/K-PREPItems.aspx

You have to scroll over halfway down to get to the 8th grade materials.


2. Argument writing materials: I have a lot of summative materials for the writing unit on argument. I have two passage based activities: "Is Facebook Making You Mean?" and "Addicted to Screen Time." The second we used as our benchmark assessment last year. The first was a a practice formative assessment. 

3. INTERDISCIPLINARY SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT: 
I have spoke with Ms. Chamberlain about reusing our former summative assessment for argument writing. Science will spend the next four weeks learning about alternate forms of energy, while we study argument reading & writing. At the end of their unit to demonstrate their knowledge for both subjects we will both assign them a speech that requires them to respond to a prompt where they evaluate & choose an alternate form of energy as the best. This speech will be to a school or state official (I forget the exact nature of our prompts). We will then allow time in our class for them to write the speeches as will science. Then they can perform the speeches for a dual grade - I have the writing rubrics (already differentiated for different levels of students). Science will have another rubric based upon just the students display of energy knowledge. Talk to your science people. My team will definitely be doing this - based upon my past experience it was quite successful. The students really grasped this writing because of the dual responsibility. 
We will meet with the science folks to work out the logistics of presentations, points, rubrics, etc. 


I will be uploading a ton to dropbox. - These were my intentions for today, but I had to stay home with my sick girl. 

See you tomorrow!