October 25th Newsletter
Ms. Mershon's Reading & English/Language Arts Classes
CLASS NEWS
What is ELA? I found my students were confused so I imagine some of you parents might be as well. ELA is English Language Arts and in this class, we will study sentence structure, grammar, capitalization, spelling and punctuation. Most the Academic Achievement grades will be essays and writing assignments applying the skills we are learning in class and occasionally quizzes over grammar. So far in ELA, we have covered syllable rules, prefixes and suffixes, nouns and verbs and compound sentences. Next we are adding adjectives and studying being verbs because I have found students are really struggling with those. We are doing word studies and journals each week too.
Reading
So far this year in reading we have studied poetry and literary non-fiction. We will wrap up the literary non-fiction unit next week and start a unit on drama. We will begin with reading a few plays from the textbook and SCOPE magazine and we will end the unit by writing a play. The AR program is in full swing and next week, I will send home your child's progress so far this year and give you the new point goals.
I have had lots of parent questions about how our grading system works so here is a quick explanation. We give two types of grades at the junior high; Academic Achievement and Academic Practice. Only Achievement grades count toward the report card average which is good news since Practice grades won't count against students while they are trying to learn new material. We will only take grades on their mastery of the material, not on mistakes they make along the way. Both types of grades will be recorded in the grade book so you can see your child's progress so look for the category when viewing grades in parent portal. Also students can redo or retake any Academic Achievement grade if they come to tutoring and complete the required practice.
Classwork
We will be taking quizzes every Monday. It might seem strange but since so many other teachers test on Fridays, I am trying to keep from overloading students on Thursday nights, especially since my homework is due on Fridays too. We will do a review on Friday so students can study all weekend. Students also have reading log homework each week that runs from Friday to Friday and it will be the same log but a different writing assignment each week. Please help your child keep up with their homework in my class because reading outside of class is going to be the biggest help you can give us from home. :) If you ever want any of the notes or assignments, you can check my website: http://tinyurl.com/l6y8kqm
Just click on the units on the left to find our current unit with any handouts and notes students are using in class. There is also a link to our literature textbook online so you can check out the stories we are reading in class.
Tutoring
My tutoring times are in the Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday morning before school. I will also hold afternoon tutoring by appointment. I am one of the play directors and I want to make sure I am available if your child needs me. Just email me at amershon@ascisd.net or call 936-873-4550 x1124 to make an appointment. Pickup time is 4pm. Also, I am including some tutoring assignments on my website including an online program that tracks student progress. We will be using it at school but your child can practice at home too if you have internet access. The website is www.mobymax.com/tx271 and student user names are their first initial, last name (no spaces) and their passwords are their lunch numbers. Students can complete any of the Language, Vocabulary, Reading or Writing sections.
CONTACT Ms. Mershon
Phone: 936-873-4550 x1124
Conference times: M-F 9:45-10:30 and M,W,F 11:55-12:40
Website: http://tinyurl.com/l6y8kqm
ONLINE VERSION OF THIS NEWSLETTER:
https://www.smore.com/hsxu-october-25th-newsletter