Due Dates for assignments will be posted every Monday.  Work not completed in class becomes homework.  Students are also expected to read for a minimum of 30 minutes each night (according to their contract).

In 7th grade LA/SS you will be asked to:

-Prepare for 4 Reading Conferences and 1 Book Review

-Write 3 formal Reading Conferences

-Present 1 Reading Conference orally (with a teacher, using Stickies)

-Present Booktalks

-Read one NY Times Upfront magazine article each week

-Read one common text (an article or excerpt of a book) every other week approximately

-Prepare and present “What’s Happening:  Social Justice in the News”

Hello students and families,

My name is Brady Rochford and this is 7th grade.  This year is going to be a transition year.  After most of you have been with the same teachers for two years, you’re now going to have three new ones!  In Reading you’ll be expected to write more formal conferences, fill out more stickies as you go, and prove everything you claim about your book with “textual evidence” or quotes from the book.

We’re going to start the year off reading Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse, which is the story of a young girl coming of age in the Dust Bowl of 1930’s Oklahoma.  We’ll look at images from this time, listen to music of the 1930’s, and we’ll practice writing a conference together to set the tone for the year.

In writing, we’ll start off collecting topics.  Then we’ll move into writing memoirs.  These will be personal narratives that focus on one moment in time that is s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d out.  We’ll learn how to make a movie behind your reader’s eyelids, how to include a healthy balance of internal and external details, and how to choose a moment that is significant to who you are and who you want to become.

“Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.”  Willa Cather

In Social Studies we’re going to study The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).  What are the fundamental rights all people, regardless of age, culture, ethnicity, or gender, are entitled to and why?  We’ll check to see which of the rights outlined in the UDHR are protected in the U.S. Constitution, and then we’ll spend some time exploring gender and education as a focal point for our human rights study.

It’s going to be fun, it’s going to be hard work.  I will help you.  I will expect a lot from you.  I hope that you expect a lot from me too.