9/19 Humanities Update

Hello everyone,

For those of you who were able to make it to Open House, it was wonderful getting the chance to meet you/see you again. It's always nice to put a face with the name and open the lines of communication.

As many of you have seen, the students have been working hard developing their personal learning plans for the year. The plans, which reflect the learning we've done around growth vs. fixed mindsets and multiple intelligence theory, consist of four goals which have been written within the framework of the four universal habits - managing self, relating to others, participating and contributing, and constructing knowledge. In the coming weeks, students will begin to self-assess their progress toward each goal and compile a portfolio of evidence of their growth. These will form the basis of their student-led conferences in the fall and spring. Stay tuned...

This week in humanities, we will work on the building blocks of reading (reviewing strategies of strong readers), writing (reviewing the 6+1 traits of good writing), and the social sciences (reviewing inquiry skills and qualities of being a historian).

I wanted to also mention that as we are now offering reading/writing clinic four days per week during our midday block, students are no longer receiving their 25 minutes of reading time that the state of Vermont recommends for all students. As such, I highly recommend that students get into the habit of reading at home every night (weekends, too!) As the growth mindset suggests, the more hours we spend on a pursuit, the better at it we will be. Please help encourage your child in this and let me know how I can support you.

Due Tuesday - the entire Personal Learning Plan (including four goals) should be typed on the wiki.
I will update you later in the week as I see how the writing activities progress in class. If any of the work needs to be completed at home, I will follow up with another post.

Enjoy the week~
Jana