I hope you all enjoyed your time off - and I hope you read the novel during vacation!
To see if you did all your reading, you need to answer the following questions on your own blog. Remember to use complete sentences, check your spelling and punctuation, and support your answers with details and examples from the story.

1. Why does Mary Lou spend time reading the thesaurus?

2. Describe Mary Lou’s experiences at Carl Ray’s house?

3. Describe Alex Cheevey’s house and parents.

1. Describe Beth Ann’s new behavior. How does Mary Lou feel about it?

2. How does Mary Lou react when Mr. Furtz dies?

They will be reading the book using Literature Circles. Yesterday they read the first 22 pages of the book and wrote a blog post in their role that I assigned them. The roles are:

Connector

Your job is to find connections between the book you are reading and the outside world. This means connecting what you read with your own life, to what happens at school or in the community, to similar events at other times and places, or to other people or problems. Once you have shared your connection to this section of the book, each member of your group will also relate their own connection to the book, although they may refer to a different passage. Those commenting will share their own connections.

Passage Master

Your job is to choose a paragraph or sentences from the book to discuss with your group. Your purpose is to help other students by spotlighting something interesting, powerful, funny, puzzling, or important from the text. During group time, you can read parts aloud yourself, or ask another group member to read them. Include your reasons for picking the paragraphs or sections you did. Please record the page number and paragraph. Those commenting will agree or disagree with your passage choice and support their reasons with details and examples from the novel.

Summarizer

Your job is to prepare a summary of the reading. Don’t tell the whole story, just focus on the important parts. The other members of your group will be counting on you to give them a quick statement that tells about the story (the summary), and the key points. Those commenting can give their opinion of the section and/or correct any wrong information.

Critical Thinker
Develops questions for critical thinking based on Blooms Taxonomy. You will include six questions using key words from the flip cards. The levels are Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. Those commenting will answer one or more questions.

Learning Reflector (only classes with 5 students in a group have this role)
Use this role to pose your thoughts, ideas, questions or any other connections you make about this learning journey. Those commenting reflect and reply.

On Fridays, they post the information learned while in their role for the week. On Mondays, they post a response to a Friday post of the role they will begin that week.

Each group decides how the roles will rotate each week and what they will do as group each day in class. They were given the number of pages to be read each week, but they can decide how to split the reading up (in-class/homework). They must balance the in-class and home reading so that they can have discussions in class, as well.

I prepared an extensive packet of instructions, forms and rubrics to guide the students in this journey. I’m excited to see how well it works out.

Click on the student names on the right to see their posts. They would love to get comments from other students and teachers!

During the chalk talk the class will be split into two groups. Each group will space themselves out around the piece of banner paper. On the paper I will have written things about the book that you will respond to. Those things will be themes, settings, characters and incidents from the book. You will each have about a minute at each area and then you will move on to the next one. This is a silent activity where you will communicate with markers. At each area you can respond by:

• Drawing a picture
• Adding a talking balloon
• Adding a thinking balloon
• Labeling
• Writing a short phrase or question
• Writing an original thought or a response to another idea or question already expressed on the paper.

After everyone has had a turn at each area, the groups will discuss what they have written/drawn. Each group will decide how they have created something that re-tells the story and one or more people from each group will present that re-telling to the rest of the class.

I stumbled upon this blog by Scott Westerfeld the author of The Uglies and The Pretties. Did you know there’s another book in the series? Read this blog to find interesting things about the author and his books.

Can you find blogs by other authors? Do some research and email the blog addressed to me and I’ll add them to our blogroll.

On a separate piece of paper, write to explain what has changed in the Fisher family for Paul to say this? Be sure to use details and examples from the book to support your answer.

This is the question that you copied from the Reading Blog.

This is the answer to the above question.

Each question should be 4 - 7 complete sentences. Make sure you have a topic sentence and then use details and examples from the book to support your answer.

When you have answered all the questions, read someone else’s blog and comment on their answers. Use the comment starters sheet handed out in class. You can even read blogs from students in my other reading classes.

1. Why was Paul content to be backup goalie?
2. What happened when Paul went in to the soccer game for Victor? What was Victor’s reaction?
3. Why didn’t Maya need Mrs. Fisher’s encouragement?”

Start with the Scholastic News Writing Page for help in writing a news article. Remember to use Who, What, Where, When and Why when writing your article.

Follow these guidelines when writing your article:

1. Be clear and concise
   1. Don’t use fancy words or complicated language
2. Use an active voice
   1. Use strong verbs
3. Be Specific
   1. Use examples and details from the incident (look in the book
4. Be fair
   1. Present opinions from both sides, not just your own. When you express your opinion, you’re writing an editorial, not a news story

Here is a link to some information on sinkholes.