MzT's Reading Teams And Book Club

MzT's Reading Teams and Book Clubs

Book clubs encourage book choice, the one indicator of reading improvement. My class has an outside reading requirement and if the students wish to join together to form a book club to read the same book, that's fine. Class time will be scheduled for discussion and collaboration on book assignments. A Reading Celebration will be scheduled when outside reading is due.

Reading Teams will collaborate on a variety of assignments. Digital assignments involving information material as well as literature studies will involve weekly reading teams.

MzT's Writer's Workshop

Our class will have a Writer's Workshop at least once each week. The students will choose the focus of the mini-lesson, such as paragraphing, topic sentence, punctuation, grammar, usage, sentence structure, main idea, etc. The writing teams will collaborate on improving their writing using the writing process.

The four main components of writing workshop are the mini-lesson, status of the class, writing/conferring time, and sharing. There is not a prescribed time limit for each component, rather they are meant to be flexible and determined by students’ needs on any given day. 


Students will also develop rubrics for various types of writing directives and writing specifics are identified as they write. Students will refer to The Six Traits of Writing 
 https://study.com/academy/lesson/six-traits-of-writing.html

The students will collaborate and incorporate their writing knowledge as their work with their team. Practical time spent together writing eliminates writer's anxiety and improves writing fluency.

The teacher will provide mini-conferences to help and encourage students in their writing. 

MzT's Outside Reading

MzT's Reading List isn't quite this long.

Outside Reading

Students are responsible for choosing, completing, and documenting outside reading from

this Outside Reading List. It is suggested that parents/guardians stay aware of students

choices since the lists the students may choose are from national lists and may not represent

the specific worldview of Victor Valley Christian School. Parents and students can discuss the

literature.

Students will be required to read 100 points of outside reading each semester evaluated by the teacher, satisfactorily accomplishing regular checkpoints with activities and Book Chats.  If the

student wishes to use audio versions, these must be accompanied with either a digital or hard

copy to refer to. Only Shakespeare may be included as a film viewing, but accompanied with

activities and references to digital or hard copies of the plays.

Students may also read and report on sets of speeches from American Rhetoric.

American Rhetoric List of Speeches

https://www.americanrhetoric.com/index.htm

Reading List for Students Grade 9-12

The Ultimate AP English Literature Reading List

https://www.albert.io/blog/ultimate-ap-english-literature-reading-list/

Recommended reading list from Collegeboard.

https://www.albert.io/blog/ultimate-ap-english-literature-reading-list/

Authors List--any literature from these authors

Austen, Jane                                      Poe, Edgar Allan

Bronte, Charlotte                                Shakespeare, William

Bronte, Emily                                      Steinbeck, John

Dickens, Charles

Dickenson, Emily

Fennimore Cooper, James

Hemingway, Ernest

London, Jack

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Reading List for Grades 7 and 8

Students are responsible for choosing, completing and documenting outside reading from

this Outside Reading List. It is suggested that parents/guardians stay aware of students

choices, since the lists the students may choose are from national lists may not represent

the specific worldview of Victor Valley Christian School. Books and literature that are

discussed in class include discussion with a Christian worldview, so parents may wish

to have a discussion with your student during outside reading.

Students will be required to read 100 points of outside reading each semester evaluated

by the teacher, satisfactorily accomplishing regular checkpoints with activities and Book Chats.  

If the student wishes to use audio versions, these must be accompanied with either a digital

or hard copy to refer to. Only Shakespeare may be included as a film viewing, but

accompanied with activities and references to digital or hard copies of the plays.

The Best Books for Grades 6-8

https://www.weareteachers.com/building-your-classroom-library-the-best-books-for-grades-6-8/

Newbery Medal Winners, 1922 - Present

http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/newberymedal/newberywinners/medalwinners

Authors List-any literature from these authors

Beverly Cleary

Robert Frost

C. S. Lewis

E.B.White

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Gary Paulsen

Gary Soto

J. R.R. Tolkien

If a book is read together in class, it stops being an outside reading book for that grade.