1. Our Partnership This Year Will Help Your Child Be Successful Together we can instill in your child a lifelong love of learning. My goal is to help students learn to believe in themselves, and become independent readers and writers as well as responsible, disciplined individuals. I strive to communicate that all of us are capable of growing smarter. Through effort, taking chances, and some failure, all of us can grow and learn. Respect for all student’s individual differences creates a classroom environment where all kids are free to take chances. I like to tell kids that learning starts where confusion begins as this picture from physicist Rhett Allain depicts.

2. About English Class I write a brief summary of class most days on my website. Homework is also posted there daily. Handouts are posted there whenever I can do so. Binder maintenance is crucial and your child may need help. I use standards based grading, so please attend to the number grade, not the letter grade. I attended Columbia University’s Teacher’s College Writing Workshop in the summer of 2013, Reading Workshop in 2014, and in 2015 I studied at UNH with Mary Ehrenworth, so I am always striving to hone my craft. I love teaching more and more each day.

3. Communication… The Key to a Successful Year Email is the best way to reach me. thancock@sch.ci.lexington.ma.us thancock@sch.ci.lexington.ma.us Schedule a meeting with me or the team if you are concerned about your child. Check my website and your child’s agenda book with your child each night. Check out the three pages at my website (calendar, homework, handouts) if you want to know what is going on in class. If your child is absent from class, he or she needs to be responsible to find out what was missed in class. Students should check in with my website, other classmates, and check in class for handouts they missed.

4. Why Writer’s Workshop? We need to teach every child to write. Almost every day all children need between fifty-sixty minutes of writing and writing instruction. – Lucy Calkins. “You don’t learn to write by going through a series of preset writing exercises. You learn to write by grappling with a real subject that truly matters to you.” Ralph Fletcher

5. Writing with independence is our main goal.

6. Components of Writer’s Workshop Mini lesson (5-10 minutes) Active Engagement (20-25 minutes) Independent Writing The teacher gives all students a quick opportunity to try out the new skill or strategy. Students practice the strategy. Students often “turn and talk” with their writing partner. Conferring (During Independent Writing) Time to Share Writing (Partner Share/Large Group) Publishing/Assessment Homework: Students are expected to write every night for at least 10 minutes during a writing workshop unit. They must write within the genre of study.

7. Realistic Fiction Historical Fiction Interpreting Poetry Nonfiction Traditional Literature

8. What is Reader’s Workshop? Readers are always thinking about what they read. In reader’s workshop students are encouraged to record their thinking in their reader’s notebook. Then, book clubs gather, and students use these notes to foster rich discussions about the text. Book Clubs will be formed around what students read both in and out of class. They will work in many small groups with lots of different kids over the course of the year. The work we were able to do with Columbia College the past three summers has helped us, as sixth grade teachers, begin to frame our classrooms in a way that focuses on kids own choice and level of reading. We kicked off the year with a mini-unit that got kids excited about their reading, and we want to encourage this excitement to grow throughout the year. Read with your kids. Read the same books they read and talk about the texts. Most of our reading life goes on outside the classroom. Share your reading life with them, and get them to share their reading life with you. Your child should be reading 30 to 60 minutes a day. They should be reading many books. If you notice that your child seems to be “stuck” in a book, they may not be reading a “just right” or “almost right” book. Encourage them to try something less complex.

9. What about Grammar and Mechanics? Goal: Sixth grade students will understand and define the basic parts of speech. They will use their understanding of grammar to build and vary sentence structure. Punctuation, capitalization and paragraphing are components on which we focus. Grammar and mechanics are taught within the context of writing and reading. Summer 2015 some of the sixth grade teachers attended a Literary Institute at UNH called “The Art of Teaching Grammar.” We learned that research indicates that direct instruction of grammar and mechanics does NOT work. We will teach grammar and mechanics within the context of writing using mentor texts to help students learn proper grammar and mechanics.

10. Why Mindfulness, Yoga, and Meditation? This year I will incorporate moments of mindfulness and meditation into English class when we need to focus our energy. This really means we will breathe and do some quick yoga postures when we need an energy boost or if we need to focus. This will give students strategies to de-stress, wake – up, improve focus, and energize at school and in life.