Persuasive Essay - English

The Spartan students are working on their Dumb Law essay in English class.

The assignment is to take one of the laws that was provided and explain why this is a great law that should definitely be enforced!

A few examples of laws:

• You may not sell your eye in the state of Texas
• It is illegal to sell your children in Florida
• In Alabama, it is illegal to wear a fake mustache that causes laughter in church
• In Nevada, it is illegal to drive a camel on the highway

Students will spend the next few weeks utilizing the entire writing process as they write five paragraph essays defending the law he/she chose.

These should be great essays, and I look forward to reading the end product!

Outlining in Spartan English Classes

The Spartans have just completed a persuasive editorial in their English classes. This went along with our thematic unit about gods and goddesses! The students wrote an editorial that selected the best god/goddess and the worst god/goddess. They had to defend the choices that they made.

Now that we are wrapping up the essays, we will begin learning about outlining. Outlining is a great technique to organize an essay or any writing assignment. It's also helpful with note taking, so this will be a skill that will definitely be useful to the Spartan students in the coming years!

Spartan Campers: Camp Lightning Thief

On Wednesday, Spartan students wore their Camp Lightning Thief tee-shirts to begin The Lightning Thief Cross-curricular Unit. Each homebase stood in front of their god or goddess' "cabin" for the picture!

Kick-off Event: The Lightning Thief

On Tuesday, January 5, Spartans attended The Lightning Thief Kick-off Event to begin the cross-curricular unit on the novel. The seventh grade teams came together to watch the movie trailer for the movie The Lightning Thief which the students will go see in theaters in February for our field trip. Spartans also received special instructions from an "oracle" to go and decorate our rooms to look like Camp Halfblood in the novel. See the students and teachers turn our 3rd floor hall into Camp Lightning Thief.

Holiday Fun!

Spartan students were treated to a holiday volleyball tournament before Winter Break. Check out the Spartans enjoying the reindeer games!

Olympic Games

Spartan students participate in the Olympic games. This was the first year the Spartan team won the Olympics!

Spartans of the Month

Congratulations to Zak and Lauren, our December Spartans of the Month! Keep up the great work!

I am Algebra!

The following video is a humorous spin on the common fears associated with Algebra.

Students of the Month

Congratulations to our Spartan Students of the Month, Kimmy and Nick! Great work, Spartan students!

New English Unit Coming Up!

The students are completing their unit on letter writing in English. They will be writing the final copies of their letters on Monday, which will conclude this unit.

Our next unit of study will be Nouns, Pronouns, and Adjectives. The students will be conducting a brief review and getting into a bit of further study on these parts of speech. The test on this unit will occur on December 22, 2009.