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Home : 2002 : June : 29

LA
By Susan S.

I taught only LA last year to 8th graders and I had 75 min. each day, so I can relate. The way I did it included:
I had D.O.L.s that they did when they first got to class (2 sentences with grammatical errors). Then they
did a journal entree, also. These were both posted on the board, so I could take role (using a seating chart) and any other paperwork. I had one student designated from each class to pass out graded papers when they finished their journals (I had them in stacks by classes on the counter). Then I would go into the lesson - I tied in my writing with whatever novel we were reading at

the time. I also pulled the vocabulary words from there, also. We did a novel every 9 weeks, as a class. They also did one on their own for an individual project. We usually read a chapter of the book, then did a writing activity such as : wrote a story using the vocabulary words, write a persuasive letter as one of the characters in the novel, etc... Every Tue. we had the newspaper delivered to our room and I'd have a lesson focused on one of the objectives you mentioned (reading an article and explaining it to the class - which incorporates speaking skills). On Mon. we had a spelling pretest - if they made 100% they didn't retake it on Fri. If they didn't, they wrote the missed words 10X each and used them in sentences. I tried to incorporate other subjects, but basically did it on my own instead of with other teachers. I hope this all makes sense. I rarely went home with work to do - I used every second of my time in class. If you have more questions, feel free to email.