I will soon be reading Edgar Allen Poe's piece called "The Tell-Tale Heart"
to my students. In December, I will read to them the beautiful classic and
tale of true love, called "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry.
Over the next two weeks, the students will be reading the Classic each has
chosen to read. I have guided students to choose what I think may be
appropriate for their reading ability and maturity, but I most often allow
them to choose whatever classic they think they would like to read, as long
as they have not yet read it before. They have been given the rubric for a
presentation of their classic, which they will be personally responsible for
completing and sharing with their class.
Your children have begun to take two-column notes on story elements.
These notes are kept in the LA notebook in the reading section. They should
be studied for ONLY 5 minutes every night. This will move the information
into their long term memory, thus securing that they will retain this
information indefinitely. THEREFORE THEY MUST STUDY THESE NOTES FOR 5 MINUTES
EVERY NIGHT !!!!
NOTICE: Parents, all the work the students do for language arts should be
KEPT in the appropriate section of their LANGUAGE ARTS notebook: reading,
writing, vocab/spelling. NO WORK should EVER be thrown out!!! I will be doing
notebook checks soon with the students. They were given this information at
the very beginning of the year. Now it is time to EVALUATE some of that work
in an effort to create personal goals with students.
I have begun the process of setting short and long term writing goals
with individual students and hope to have that task completed with all
students soon. All of the students' writing is done and stored in my
classroom; however, if ever you should wish to see/read your child's work,
just schedule a time to meet me after school and you will be able to sit down
and go through their work.
UPDATE: Due to our new grading program, all teahers, including myself, must
follow a grading system that values all work at the same 20%. This is an
unexpected change from what I originally posted. We hope to be able to
change this with the beginning of the second marking term.
CLARIFICATION of the new grading program: The program accepts grade inputs
in both points andd averages. Final grades at the end of a term will always
appear as an average, while progress reports will continue to print out as a
letter grade. I have converted ALL of my grades to the point value system.
CONFERENCES: I still have several openings for conferences on November 23 and
24. If your child is in my homeroom and you would like to set up a meeting
time, let me know by email (sleahy@hwporter.org) or call me at 228-9493 X716,
and I will put you in the schedule.. All conferences are limited to 15
minutes so that we can accomodate as many parents as possible. Times I still
have available are on Tuesday 11/23 3:30-3:45; 3:45-4:40; 4:00-4:15; 4:30-
4:45; 4:45-5:00; 5:00 - 5:15; 5:15-5:30; 5:30-5:45; and 6:15-6:30.
I understand that many of you are having some difficulty getting to our
websites. If you go to www.porterschool.org that will lead you to individual
teachers' websites.
Sincerely and respectfully, Sharon Leahy
Updated 11/03/09
