This week our focus was on the elements, and there were two kinds of elements that we focussed on: elements of a good school routine, and the elements of a narrative.

After coming back from a nice, long, restful summer, it’s sometimes challenging to get back into those good focussed, working, school routines.  I don’t know about you, but I’m still not in a good sleep routine!  I stayed up too late at night all summer, and I almost forgot that I even own an alarm clock because I was able to sleep until I felt like waking up each morning.  Now that school has started, I’m retraining myself to get a good night’s sleep by going to bed earlier and waking up early enough to organize myself for the day.  I know that you, my students, are probably trying to do the same.

Our routines in the classroom will also take some time to get used to, but we’re getting there!  The routines I’m talking about are:

• coming to school with all of our materials (book, notebooks, signed paperwork, pencil, etc.)
• getting in and out of our lockers (new to some of our 7th graders)
• using the classroom library correctly (signing books in and out, taking care of them,  bringing them to class)
• getting all of our materials from our lockers for ALL morning classes, and then again for ALL afternoon classes, so that we don’t lose class time when we move from class to class (e.g., math to English)
• making our breaks count by using the washroom during recess and lunch, as much as possible, and by taking a drink on our way into class so that we are ready to learn when class begins
• remembering our schedules for classes, recess, and lunch
• reading conference routines are also underway and I’m learning so much about my student readers by sitting with them for just a few minutes, talking about their book, and listening to them read a few paragraphs

The second type of element we focussed on this week was the elements of a narrative (and now we all know what a narrative is, right?).

In Grade 8, we are still reviewing and deepening our understanding of the elements of a narrative (story).  Although most students are familiar with the basics, this week we learned more about characters.  We reviewed different types of characters (round, flat, dynamic, static) and we watched a couple of videos on character archetypes.  Here’s one:

We read a short story called “The Fan Club” by Rona Maynard and explored the ways in which an author develops her characters and her theme.  Students are also working on applying what they learned about the elements while they read their own novels every day!  Students in 8th grade will continue to review the elements of narrative this upcoming week as we delve deeper into plot, conflict, point of view, and theme.

In 7th grade, students were also introduced to the elements of a narrative (story).  We watched this video!

We read the short story entitled “Seventh Grade” by Gary Soto.  This gave us the chance to explore character traits, and students were able to identify a number of possible themes for this story (see below).

In both 7th and 8th grades, we did quick writes, where you choose a topic and just write like crazy for 5-10 minutes without stopping!  Our quick write topics were chosen from our own personal lists of ideas for writing called Writing Territories or Heart Maps!  To give you an idea of what a Heart Map looks like, here’s mine:

Both 7th and 8th grades also got a chance to exercise our listening muscles by listening to some podcasts from a website called The Moth.  We discussed how the speaker made his story so exciting by using his voice for emphasis, pausing for drama, and choosing a pretty funny story to tell. For those of you who want to see the young man who talked about his ‘bad haircut,’ I’m posting the video below!

Thanks for another great week guys!  I’m going to get some good rest this weekend so I’ll be ready for Week Three!