Seventh+Grade

=Welcome to your page! = =In the future, I plan to use Ralph Fletcher's //Mentor Author, Mentor Texts// and Kelly Gallagher's //Write Like This// to provide examples for my students in nonfiction writing genres. I especially like the notes Fletcher includes that amount to a think-aloud about writing. These will help my students develop their writing skills, and they help me by providing an example for how to talk about writing.=

**__Myth __**
==In teaching myth, I begin by reading three myths from our literature anthology. We read "Icarus and Daedalus," "Demeter and Persephone," and "Perseus." These stories are brief, but thorough enough for us to identify the characteristics of the genre. I follow up each story by viewing the animated version of each myth at Winged Sandals Storytime, a website about Greek mythology. Watching the animated version allows us to compare/contrast with the version in our literature books, emphasizing the flexible nature of the oral tradition. ==

==Another reason we read these examples of myth is because the trade book we read next, //The Lightning Thief// by Rick Riordan, alludes to all of these myths. I like using //The Lightning Thief// for several reasons. One, the reading level is below seventh grade, so most of the students are very comfortable reading the book. They get more out of the book when they're not struggling to read it. The book contains all of the characteristics of myth and is loaded with great examples of figurative language, especially simile, metaphor, foreshadowing, and symbolism. We read the book at a pace of about a chapter per day, and students respond to comprehension questions after each chapter. They also identify examples of figurative language for each chapter. ==

__Science Fiction __
==This year, I used [|//The Hunger Games//]by Suzanne Collins as an example of science fiction literature. My students loved the story and will gain an extra benefit when we go to the theater to see the movie when it is released. This story contains all of the elements of science fiction at a reasonable reading level for seventh grade. There are some vocabulary words that many students will not know, but otherwise it is fairly easy to read. I have students read by chapter and answer ==