1. Ways to Stay Connected and to Be Involved
Join Dickerson’s Foundation- m/
Join Dickerson’s PTSA /
Register to get Dickerson’s PTSA Eblast—A great way to keep find important information at Dickerson and Walton.
hiptoolkit.com/login?r=%2Fuser_ subscriptions
Teachers’ Blogs and s
n/seventhgrade.aspx
Mrs. Figueiredo’s Blog:
igueiredo/
ParentVUE and StudentVUE—A powerful tool for you and your students to track progress in each class.
I’ll post these links to the blog, so you can easily access them using the hyperlinks.

2. Welcome to 7th Grade Language Arts
Mrs. Figueiredo

3. Springboard: Newly acquired College Board-based curriculum which contains four different writing focused units.
Unit 1: narrative writing and revision and creating and illustrating a myth.
Unit 2: explanatory/argumentative writing and collaborative discussion
Unit 3: Novel unit with literary analysis
Unit 4: Shakespeare/Drama unit

4. Springboard
Language Skills: In ELA, we will also be working on grammar, writing- based vocabulary, mechanics, and speaking & listening throughout the year. Writing Portfolios: Student writing will be collected and kept throughout the year in order to facilitate student reflection on their revisions for improvement. Embedded Assessments: Major test grades-two per unit, and your students know about them right at the beginning of the each unit.

5. My Mission for your students
Lead them to continuously grow as thinkers, writers, readers, listeners, and speakers.
Develop investigating, interpreting, and evaluating skills across a range of genres, perspectives, and complexity levels
Develop writers and speakers who can communicate clearly and powerfully to various audiences, tasks, and purposes.
Guide them to be empowered, critical, and engaged members of their school, their community, and the world at large

6. Writing Grades:
We do not have multitudes of grades. This is a reading and writing class, so our major grades are primarily from writing. The students will have had opportunities to revise before turning it in.
 Becoming a better writer takes practice and there may be times when they don’t quite hit the mark. That is what the revision policy is all about - practice to become a better writer.
  Major assessment pieces of writing are the only assignments that can be revised for a better grade.

7. Upcoming Important Test Dates:
September 8 Cognitive Abilities Test –CogAT
This test measures student performance on abilities related to success in school subjects
September Iowa Assessment IOWAS
This is a norm-referenced assessment that measures student achievement in comparison to other students nationwide. Students in grades 3, 5, and 7 are tested in Reading, Mathematics, Language Arts, Science, and Social Studies

8. Most of all…
Thank you for caring and encouraging your kids and getting them here everyday.
They want to learn, and they are interesting and inquisitive!

9. Any questions?
The best way to get in touch is .

10. What is 7th grade language arts about?
We integrate studies of grammar, mechanics, vocabulary, writing, reading, speaking, and listening into our lessons.
We read as writers, so we will read
texts to find support and evidence.
texts to study the style of authors.
to answer questions in writing using the evidence.
texts that will act as a starting place or example for our own writing.