Mr. Beckham's Class Blog

This week we will finish our first Junior Great Books Unit with practice writing paragraphs in response to short answer questions. The focus will be on incorporating evidence into our answers and making clear arguments based on that evidence. The long-term goal will be mastery of the traditional 5-paragraph essay, but we are starting with the basic paragraph structure as a way of scaffolding upwards.

We will also be discussing theme and author’s purpose/authorial intent as they relate to non-fiction narratives.

Use 5 of the vocabulary words we pulled from “Jesus Shaves” by David Sedaris and use them in your own original piece of writing.

Use the words in a way that indicates that you actually know their meaning.

This week we will begin our first Junior Great Books unit, focusing on a literary non-fiction piece by well-known and celebrated memoir author David Sedaris. We will be examining the purpose author’s have when writing literary non-fiction, learning to formulate the types of questions that intelligent readers need to ask, using context clues and dictionaries to tackle unfamiliar words, and opening up a safe and open dialogue between students about what we read.

Monday – JGB Day 1 – Pre-Reading & First Reading
Tuesday – JGB Day 2 – Sharing Questions & Vocabulary
Wednesday – JGB Day 3 – Second Reading & Directed Notes
Thursday – JGB Day 4 – Shared Inquiry Discussion
Friday – District-mandated Curriculum Based Assessment (CBA)

Students will also begin outside reading. This will involve students setting a 6-weeks reading goal for pages,  reading for at least 20 hours in the next 5 weeks, and keeping track of their progress in their Daily Reading Record.

Welcome to 7th grade

In the first week, students will be introduced to the rules, procedures, and expectations of the English 7 GT classroom.

While we are excited to dive in to the deep and rich curriculum, it is important to take a couple of days to get comfortable with the room an learning community within it.

Our first unit of study will be literary non-fiction. We will look at diary, autobiography, and biography as modes of writing with the eventual goal of creating our own versions of these things.