For seventh graders, the time has arrived for our first essay of the school year.

Our first essay will be a compare-and-contrast analysis of Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers from the story, “Brian’s Song.” This true-life story is based on the lives of two professional football players from different races, places, and backgrounds who become best friends and support each other through difficult circumstances.

Our essay will allow us to contrast their differences while comparing their similarities and the way their friendship grew based on their common ground.

So why teach the essay? The state of Alabama requires it, but that reason isn’t enough. This essay needs to be serve a higher purpose than to just fulfill the state curriculum.

Writing an essay is a lesson in organizing, planning, and producing a unique product. It’s a lesson in effective communication. It requires effective listening, attention to directions, focus, and effort.

It also challenges students’ higher-order thinking. An essay isn’t like taking a test, where most questions challenge a students ability to remember and understand. An essay pushes a student to analyze, evaluate, and produce at a much higher level.

The essay also helps prepare students for high school. Did you know one freshman English teacher at Shelby County assigns a five-paragraph essay on the first day of the school year? So many of our SCHS freshmen tell me they were prepared to write that essay. They didn’t have to be taught the essay because they knew what to do.  That’s what I want for them.

I want this to be a challenge, to push students beyond their perceived limits and allow them to grow in confidence with the knowledge they produced something totally unique, something that will help them feel proud.

In seventh grade, we’re still working on reading “Brian’s Song,” a true-life story about two friends, Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers, who played football for the NFL’s Chicago Bears. While they do play football, it’s not really a football story. It’s really a story about friendship and responding to adversity. It challenges our students to think a little deeper and ask what they would do in the same circumstances.

In eighth grade, we’re still reading Flipped, a novel with two eighth-grade narrators telling the same story. The problem? One is a boy, and one is a girl, so they see the same story from totally different perspectives. This story really challenges us to consider how the other gender thinks, feels, and responds to situations.

While we’ve read “Brian’s Song” before, with positive results, this is our first year for Flipped. We’re borrowing the books from another school, but if this group continues to like it, it might be time to buy a class set.

Our normal Friday quiz has been moved to Tuesday this week, simply because last week was far too crazy to stay on a set schedule. For both groups, the quiz will be focused on vocabulary from the stories they are reading.

Remember: AR points are incredibly important to a student’s grades, so we need to be reading, taking AR quizzes, and earning points.

“Mistakes were made.”

That sounds like the kind of statements government officials and oil company media hacks construct when their agencies and companies make major mistakes, but they don’t really want to own up to them.

That’s not how we operate here in Mr. Scott’s Neighborhood.

The final averaged grades for the second-, fourth-, and fifth-block classes were not accurate. I used the incorrect INOW settings needed to calculate the grades effectively, and, because of that, many students went home Friday with the wrong English grade on their report cards.

So what shall we do about this?

1) You can shoot me, but I have a wife, two sons, and a dog, and some of the students seem to like me, so perhaps we shouldn’t be quite that extreme. I’m actually a pretty nice guy … most of the time.

2) The correct grades can now be found on INOW.

3) I will send home the correct grades and a letter to all the students in those three blocks.

I always tell the kids, “excuses are like armpits; everybody’s got them, and they all stink – unless you do something about them!”

That said, no excuses. I messed up, and I’m truly sorry. I will make sure the same thing doesn’t happen at the end of this current nine-week grading period.

As always, thank you for letting me teach your children. I am incredibly blessed to be teaching here at CMS, and your children are priceless, unique treasures!

Can you believe it’s already week six of the school year? In three weeks, we’ll be taking our first nine-weeks exams. Wow. Just wow.

Note to calendar: please slow down. I have a lot to teach.

Speaking of teaching, we have a full week planned:

7th graders: we’re adding conjunctions to our grammar this week. We’ll also read short stories and using our growing writing skills by writing about them. Our weekly warm-up quiz takes place on Friday.

8th graders: we’ll be finishing “Flowers for Algernon” on Tuesday, and then we’ll write a paragraph about Part II on specific ways in which Charlie Gordon experienced the loss of his intelligence.

On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, we’ll be working on our first five-paragraph essay of the school year. Students will receive choices of three or four topics and will choose one for their essay.

By the way, just in case any parents are reading this, did you know I make myself available before school and during the lunch block (my planning period) to help students in need? So far this year, only two students have taken advantage of that opportunity.

I’m here. I want to help. I promise.

ACCELERATED READER points and reading logs for summer reading are due on Friday!
AR points and reading logs are absolutely essential to the success of our students and their grades.
Here’s my best analogy: AR points make such a Xhuge impact on grades that they’re like Miracle Grow and RoundUp.
How so?
When students earn their AR points, it’s like pouring Miracle Grow on their grades: A low A becomes a high A, a B become an A, a C becomes a B, and so on.
When students don’t earn their points, it’s like pouring RoundUp on their grades. A’s become B’s, B’s become C’s, and C’s become D’s. It’s not pretty.
All students really need to do us read for a few minutes each night and pass their AR quizzes. It’s that simple.
Need help finding an interesting book?
Just ask Ms. Blount or me, or a friend might have a good idea, too!

Welcome to week four!
For our seventh graders, we’ll dive into pronouns. On Thursday, we’ll take a quiz on the seven subject pronouns and the seven possessive pronouns.
On Friday, we’ll take our weekly warm-up quiz.
This week, we also hope to build on all of this grammar we’ve been learning by building some bigger, better sentences!
In eighth grade, we took a step back today to re-examine last week’s lit terms quiz. After grading the quizzes, I was concerned that perhaps I assumed too much. That’s why we went back over the quiz abd the story we read and re-write the assignment. I’d rather take an extra day to re-teach than move on without half the class.
Next up, we’ll be reading “Flowers for Algernon,” which asks some important moral and ethical questions.
We’ll take our warm-ups quiz on Friday.

I never enjoy missing school, especially early in the year when the kids and I are learning about each other and trying to build a solid foundation. However, I missed last Thursday and Friday due to a death in my family that required me to travel to my hometown of Kansas City, Mo.

Now that I’m back, we’re getting back on track.

7th: Today, we learned about the four types of sentences (declarative, imperative, interrogative, exclamatory). We worked together as a class and practiced as individuals, while also building on our parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and prepositions).

On Thursday, we’ll take the preposition quiz we had to postpone last week. On Friday, we’ll take our weekly warm-up quiz  (labeling sentences, commonly confused words, vocabulary, contractions, spelling, and four types of sentences).

8th: We’re continuing with our unit on short stories. Today, we read the first half of “The Treasure of Lemon Brown,” by Walter Dean Myers, one of the nation’s top young adult fiction writers. To help us understand the story better, we also learned about the Blues and its place in American history and culture. Tomorrow, we’ll learn about homelessness in America to better understand the second half of the story.

On Thursday, we’ll take a quiz on the literary terms we’ve been using to analyze short stories. On Friday, we’ll take our weekly warm-up quiz (vocabulary and correcting paragraphs).

Please remember I also offer daily updates on Twitter at mrscottcms. So far only one student and no parents have decided to follow my Twitter account this year.

Just when we think we’ve got everything all planned out perfectly … life comes along and reminds us that so many things are beyond our control.

That said, I will be out on Thursday and Friday to attend a family funeral in Kansas City, my hometown. I’ve scrapped my original plans for group work and active lessons for quiet, individual work on both days.

I’ve also postponed the preposition quiz for seventh graders and the lit terms quiz for eighth graders. However, all classes will take their warm-up grades on Friday and then visit the library.

Let’s remind each other to be on our best behavior with subs. They accept a difficult challenge when they take over any classroom, and they deserve our respect – even the one last year who failed to follow my assigned directions and ignored the kids when they tried to help her follow directions.

Sigh …

Fortunately for my kids, my subs are wonderful and dependable. Yeah and thank God for Mrs. Slaughter and Mrs. Bentley!

Welcome to the second week of school!

In seventh grade, we’re adding adjectives and prepositions this week. We’ll practice those in various ways this week. On Thursday, we’ll take a quiz on prepositions. If students study their lists of jingles and recite them out loud, they’ll succeed. On Friday, we’ll take our weekly warm-ups quiz.

In eighth grade, we’re starting in on short stories, and we’ll read three this week, with “exit slip” assignments at the end of each story. Those will ask a question pertinent to the story, and will be due at the end of class. On Friday, we’ll take our weekly warm-up quiz.

So far, it appears no parents or students are reading this blog, but I’ll keep posting. Of course, I could claim to be a one-eyed, three-toed, flying purple people eater, and who would know?

No parents have accepted my offer to follow my classroom Twitter, and only one has student has decided to follow my Twitter.

I promise I’m trying. Promise. Cross my heart.

Sigh …

In 7th grade, we started Shurley English today. We will take a short quiz on two days of warm-ups on Friday.
In 8th grade, we started learning literary terms today so we can start reading short stories next week. Our Friday quiz will involve two days of vocabulary words and editing one short paragraph.