The Adventures in Mrs. Ripp's Class

We have been focusing on poetry thourhgout the last few weeks and the students have been busy exploring different ways to find poetry in their lives.  Here are a few examples of what the students haev created.  To see more, please go to their blogs

• Kidblog for Hours 1, 3, 5 
• Kidblog for Hours 6 and 7

In fact, Kadyn's peom was shared by the author of The False Prince on her blog as well!

I am so proud of all of you for performing your Elephant & Piggie plays.  To see yourself, please go to the link for your English class.



Section 7:  Go here

For the past few weeks, students have been writing 5 minute reading prompts in their readers notebooks as we work on standard 3; analyzing story elements.  This means students can pick their prompt from the ones suggested or create their own to show their deep thinking about the text.  Things they can discuss are any of the sign posts (Aha moment, words of the wiser, tough questions, again and again, or contract & contradictions), theme, conflict/solution, character development, author intentionality, or anything else that will show their abstract thinking skills. 

Today, I pulled all of their readers notebooks for an initial assessment, or baseline, of where they are at in their thoughts.  Most students are currently at a "1" or a "2' which means we will be discussing how to furhter their skills.  I will be checking their readers notebooks every two weeks, measuring their growth to reach a final summative score.  Students cannot take home their readers notebooks, unless they ask, since I do not want them to become damaged or lost.

Their work in their readers notebooks will be the only work they need to do to get a score for standard 3, which means that their final formative score will be turned into their summative score.

Almost all students have given their "How I want to be remembered" speech and their 6 different scores have been entered into IC.  Students were assessed in our 6 different areas of being a great speaker:  Poise, voice, life, eye contact, gestures, and speed.  These can be found using the abbreviation SP1 + the letter of the skill in IC or clicking under Standard 10.

The scores entered are now representing their baseline, meaning they will/should change throughout the quarter as we continue to develop/fine tune our public speaking skills.  This speech can therefore not be re-taken because plenty of more speeches will be done to replace the scores and show their growth.  Many students received 1's and 2's in these skills, which does not mean that they are failing standard 10, our speaking standard, but instead know what to work on.  Every student will be handed a slip with their scores on, they were also given feedback by myself and peers right after their speech.  Overall, I am proud of the students and the effort most put into these speeches.  I hope they share their speech with you if they haven't already!

All quarter, students will be assessed and assessing using the following rubric.  Every sub-category (Poise, voice, life, eye contact, gestures, and speed) all have their own score assigned and then one final score will be given.

We have five major goals this quarter that students and I are discussing this week.  While we also have five standards that the students will be assessed on, these five goals go beyond those standards.

1. Find a poem that matters to you - if you can, copy it down in your Reader's Notebook
2. Create a poem that makes you proud - share it with Mrs. Ripp
3. Read at least one amazing paper book and pass it on to someone else.  
4. Write a great speech to perform in class.
5. Share your voice in class as we discuss.

We will be doing several speeches in quarter 4, so we start this week with the preparation of our first speech.



Standard 10:  Present focused claims with support, using eye contact, volume, and elocution