MRS. MCNAIR6th Grade English Language Arts

kmcnair@fcusd.org

PARENT ROLEDevelop self-reliance

• Check student agenda against my website regularly for assignments and due dates

• Hold student accountable for completion (trust but verify)• Match completed work to assignment (“show me”)• Check Power School for scores regularly (M=missing; L=late pass))

• Advise student to “use your resources” to problem solve

• Allow student to work through disequilibrium

• Encourage perseverance; avoid removing obstacles

• Model self-advocacy (role play initiating teacher or peer contact )

• Let student do his own work

PARENT ROLE

Develop organizational skills

• Hold student accountable for maintaining binder or folder system for each class• Check all papers are placed under tab or in folder (no loose papers)• Keep all student-created models

• Enlist student to monitor required supplies and ask for help to replenish when needed

• Work with student to break down long-term assignments or test preparation into manageable “chunks”

• Guide student to use agenda to prioritize work and map out daily work/study schedule, including breaks

• Help student maintain home study space

COMMON CORE-BASED INSTRUCTION

Skill Overview:

• Think: support answers, ideas, opinions, claims with evidence - “prove it”

• Express: effectively communicate thinking orally and in writing

• Collaborate: work with others to broaden thinking

• Innovate: apply thinking to a new challenge

Developed Through:

• Reading – navigate and use informational text, understand elements of fiction through novels, build comprehension of complex text

• Vocabulary – acquire academic language, elevate expressive language, hone word-attack strategies

• Writing – build on basic paragraph structure to construct narrative, informational, and argumentative essays using correct grammar and punctuation conventions

Focuses on developing critical thinking skills -- how students get to the answer

HOMEWORK AND GRADES

• Posted daily on my classroom whiteboard and website. Students are instructed to copy assignments in agendas each day.

• Late work not accepted without a late pass. Each student provided with 3 to use first trimester with teacher approval.

• Attendance is critical to student success. Make-up work cannot replace direct instruction, modeling, practice, and feedback provided in class.

• Students have two days for each day absent to make up missed work. Students are responsible for arranging make up tests and turning in make-up work following an absence.

• Assessments (quizzes, tests, paragraphs, essays, comprehension questions, culminating projects) carry significantly higher point values than practice (classwork, homework). Report cards are performance-based.

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SMS School Code:

DRMT

Powerschool for Parents

HELPFUL PARENT RESOURCES

• SOAR Study Skills by Susan Kruger Woodcock (www.StudySkills.com)

• Parenting With Love and Logic and Teaching With Love and Logic (

www.loveandlogic.com)

• Step Up to Writing Student Folder (in student backpack)

•Sutter Middle School Style Guide (and on website)

•Student-created samples or models

•English Composition Notebook (in student backpack)