What's goin' on in class?

Monday, March 21, 2016

Today, we began Chapter 11 about Ancient Greece.  We started by taking notes about the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations.  We did a worksheet on the iPads that I posted to Edmodo.  

Our textbook doesn't cover the Minoans and it is the home of King Minos and the Minotaur so it is really enjoyable to get a glimpse of this very interesting civilization and their demise due to the Santorini volcano!

We are using the book, The Greeks, published by Usborne books to take these notes and will use this book throughout the next 2 chapters.

tuesday, 3/22/16

We began writing a Claim/Evidence/Reasoning essay about the Minoan Civilization today.  Students tackled the question:  How did the Minoan Civilization decline?

In order to answer the question effectively, I posted an article with 2 different answers to this question.  I had students pick a side to argue and then:
  • develop a CLAIM STATEMENT to answer the question
  • Lay out the EVIDENCE that proves their side
  • explain the REASONING or LOGIC behind why that evidence proves their side to be correct

Students will finish this essay at home and then rewrite the essay tomorrow for the strongest answer possible.  We will then use their essay paragraph in the Book we are creating about the GREEKS this chapter.  In our effort to write more, we are including a few essays in this book which will cover Geography, Minoans and Mycenaeans, Literature, Government and Athens/Sparta.

Should be a really interesting couple Chapters here, ENJOY!!!!

wednesday, 3/2316

We continued our Minoan Essay today and here was the process:  
  1. first, I shared a RUBRIC with students to show what was expected in the Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning.
  2. Then students did a quick rewrite of their essay for 10 minutes.  
  3. After the rewrite, students exchanged their essays with a partner and they gave a score on each part of the essay.  
  4. Then, students gave feedback on how to improve their essay.  
  5. After the feedback was given, students revised their essay again to make it the best they can.

thursday/friday 3/24 & 3/25

We officially started our Greeks Book today.  Students will bring the ancient Greek civilization to life on card stock paper and assemble all the pages into a neat, colorful, and informative book.  The first page is about the Minoans and will consist of a Title, 4 or 5 bullet points about the civilization and a picture or 2 and then the essay about the Minoans will be written in the bottom 1/3 of the page.

Here's an example of a really nice Greece Book from past years: