Melissa Harper Monroe, 7th Grade ELA

Attention parents!! Students will be taking an English test on Friday, January 29, 2010. I usually don't post such things on this page, but I felt the need to do so. Many students did not do well on the Regular Verb Tense test; I had to retest them.

Therefore, I placed a practice sheet on the website so parents can review with their children. GO TO THE CALENDAR TO FIND THE PRACTICE SHEET. The answers are also there. Thanks for your support!

Wow! It's hard to believe we are already in the third quarter. This quarter your child will be reading his or her first novel in class. Please do not have your child read ahead at home. We find that they tend to tune out and lose interest during class.

We are also studying Persuasion and Propaganda.We will learn about the various persuasion techniques used in advertisements: commercials, billboards, magazine ads, etc.

VIDEO (MOVIE) PROJECT: Students will be making their own commercials this nine weeks! I attended an awesome workshop on January 7, 2010, so the class should be getting a green screen, flip camera, and editing software.

Here is a picture of our Eleanor Scrooge from Block Two's version of A CHRISTMAS CAROL. The video will available this month on the website. (Look out for it!!!)

We are going to start the third quarter by going back to the basics. This means we will be reviewing subjects, predicates, direct objects, indirect objects, adjectives, and adverbs. The goal is to make sure ALL STUDENTS understand and can identify these parts of speech before moving on to other parts of speech.

New GRAMMAR material will include prepositional phrases as adjectives and adverbs, conjunctions, and interjections.

In WRITING we will work on persuasive writing. Students will use the persuasive techniques learned in Reading to write a persuasive essay, speech, and commercial.

WE MAY OR MAY NOT RECORD OUR SPEECHES. I WILL GIVE YOU MORE INFO ON THIS LATER.