Ms. Kim Benefield
8th grade and 6th grade Language Arts
(Please subscribe to my newsflash by clicking the grade level above)
The purpose of my class is to produce critical thinkers and effective writers who communicate with clarity and precision. In the gifted classroom learning occurs at a faster pace and with extensive and challenging literature. Frequent, rigorous, and specific writing practices are a major concentration of my Language Arts classroom. The AKS and their extensions provide opportunities for reading, writing, and editing practices that challenge students to respond specifically, critically, and creatively to language tasks.
Please check out the contests and other links page for recent contests!
Students are required to read a minumum of 30 minutes a day (in addition to SSR).
SAT vocabulary words, kept on notecards, should be studied nightly.
Writing contests are announced each quarter for student selection. See links for other information.
Gifted students must keep a reading response journal to be turned in each 6 weeks.
This journal affectionately called THE ROCK reflects upon the required outside reading for the 6, 12, and semester long period.
Remember, no matter whose classroom a student is in for Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) time, each student is expected to spend the ENTIRE time reading! Each student must maintain a reading log and be a participant in the Trickum Community of Readers.
Writing pieces and revisions and edits are expected to be done as homework as classtime does not allow enough time for these to be completed with quality.
Some opportunities that are coming available for gifted and talented students in the upcoming months are following ( we are not endorsing these, just providing announcements) -
CTY Global Talent Search-
http://web.jhu.edu/cty/forschools/index.htmlSummer Institute for the Gifted (held at Emory University) will be June , 2012.
www.giftedstudy.org