Persuasive Letter Writing

We have begun lessons around persuasive writing.  Every student will be writing an individual letter on a social justice issue that is important to him/her.  Students may choose to do the same topic as their PSA presentation, however, are encouraged to try something different. 

Homework - pick a topic, choose an audience (who you will be writing to) and find his/her/their mailing address, and begin gathering research for factual support.

In class we have discuss Elements of Effective Persuasive Writing.  In this attachement you will find three letters (one we may have discussed as a class, Essence Candles, and one you worked on in a small group).  The last element is Strategies.  Please review these strategies. 

Students will be journeying throught the writing process.  We will begin with a graphic organizer, rough copy, self/peer edit and final copy through the month of April. 

This will be the major component of the students' writing mark this term. 

PSA Presentations

Thank you to all the students who have presented their PSA media and oral presentations.  Thank you especially to the groups who presented while I was away.  The details from the supply teacher on your assessments demonstrates the quality I have come to expect from John McCrae students.  Overall, every student should be proud of the work they did, and the awareness to important topics that was raised.  

Your marks are calculated, however, I am waiting on a few last minute presentations due to holidays/illness.  Once all the presentations are complete, I will scan your feedback from my report card notes before handing back to you.  Thank you for your understanding as I wait on those last few pieces of feedback.      

Guide for Marking a Peer's Read to Self

In class, we have reviewed how to mark a peer's read to self assignment.  Remember to check the class calendar to review your class' due date.

Keys to Success
1.  Before Reading

• asks meaningful questions
• takes advantage of all the text features
• Level 4 - questions are insightful

2.  Main Idea and Supporting Detail

• states the main ideas
• includes just the important details
• Level 2 - too much detail (retell, not a summary).
• Level 4 - synthesized

3.  Connection Question

• makes use of the information provided in the text
• makes connections (text to self, text to text and text to the world).
• offers reasonable judgement based on the text
• Level 4 - highly insightful, makes use of all text connections.

4.  Reading Strategies

• Lists appropriate reading strategies
• Describes how those reading strategies helped him/her while reading
• Level 4 - very detail, very accurate, insightful about own reading process.  

Read to Self Assignment

The Read to Self assignment is ready to go.  You will be working on this during the coming days of school and after the Read to Someone - PSA presentations.  Record your responses here.

Reminder, you do not read the article, as you have to answer a BEFORE reading question.  Please select an article based on your own interest in these social justice issues.

Here are the articles.

Animal Rights -the need for animal rights

Animal Testing - the use of animal testing and does this violate animal rights

Declaring Human Rights - history of human rights development

Environmental Justice - does the environment need justice?

Environmental Rights - development of environmental rights

Farming - use of large scale farming and practises

History of Environmental Rights - the history of environmental rights

Pollution - impact of pollution on the environmental

Right to be Free - the need for human rights

Women and Children's Rights - history of women and children's rights

Zoos and The Circus - are animal rights violated by zoos and the circus?

Read to Someone - PSA Assignment

Due to no bus days and snow days, some classes are deep into the new unit around Social Justice issues, and others have not even started!  This is okay, and we'll set due dates accordingly.

For classes who are ready for the Public Service Announcements for the Read to Someone assignment, the success criteria for the assignment and a brief description are now available.  Looking forward to hearing what everyone is so passionate about to help make our world a better place.  Be the change!

Please remember to check the English Calendar in class for due dates. 

Word Work for February

Most classes have finished their lessons around the word work assignments.

Please see below links to the assignments if you have lost yours or were not here when they were given out in class.

Grade 7 Word Work

Grade 8 Word Work

Social Justice Unit

I am very excited to use Social Justice issues as our focus for our unit on non-fiction texts.

In a Daily 5 format, centred around student choice and voice, students will have the opportunity to work with and learn about issues that are important to them!

Our Learning Goals for this Unit

Reading	• demonstrate understanding of non fiction text and their elements by reading articles and other non fiction texts about social justice issues • communicate comprehension of texts • reading with fluency (guided reading activities)
Writing	• use the elements of a persuasive writing • communicate purpose and appropriate audience • grammar work • sentence fluency
Communication	• communicate clear, coherent manner when presenting media • reflect on listening and speaking skills
Media	• evaluate media • create media

How?

Read to Self	• read articles and non fiction texts about social justice issues (Student Monitored) • guided reading groups to discussion issues (Teacher assessed) • complete reading question and answer about one social justice article (self and teacher assessed)
Read to Someone	• read article or text (different than Read to Self q&a) about social justice issue (student monitored) • create media (poster, movie, slide show) to raise awareness of issue (self and peer assessed, teacher confirmed)
Word Work	• complete worksheet package on writing and grammar concepts (self assessed, teacher confirmed)
Work on Writing	• write a letter to an organization or member of government regarding a social justice issue (self assess and teacher confirmed) through the writing process

Homework

• begin researching and gathering articles and non fiction texts about a Social Justice issue you are interested in learning more about to impact change
• bring a novel, magazine, etc. for free choice reading.  Our love of reading is further developed when we can simply read (not always doing reflection work on what we've read)