Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Grammar

I am almost finished with a grammar unit on parts of speech with my 8th graders. I am so ready for this to be over! I'm sure they're even more excited to move on to literature again. Although, I'm going to bring out Treasure Island again this year and historically speaking, students have found this to be a difficult study. I debated... wasn't sure I was going to go there but it's one of those classics that students should read, should be able to identify with, should be able to produce some pretty good writing on a variety of related topics - so why not. We're going to go through it pretty fast this year. I'm cutting two days out of the reading calendar but my 8th grade classes are really small this year so I am able to accomplish so much more in a class session. I saw an interactive voting site on MSNBC asking if class size makes a difference. Are you kidding? The public school across the street has 35-40 7th/8th graders in each class and I have 11 students, 12 students, 16 students, and 18 students in my language arts classes. 40?! I think I would lose my mind! Oh Yes, Virginia, it most certainly does make a difference!

2 comments:

Cami said...

My kids have been listening to Treasure Island on CD this week. When we get through it on CD I'm going to actually read it to them so that we stop and talk about what is happening. Should have done that first.

Kathie said...

Good for you Cami! The children's classics have so much to teach our kids. Have you seen the reprints in the Lamplighter series? It's very cool! http://www.lamplighterpublishing.com/