December 2008

Dear Students and Parents:

December is going to be an exciting month!  While the students were reading their novels, we have also been preparing for their final project for this semester, which will be due December 12th.  We are then going to have a Writers' and Artists' coffee the evening of December 18th when the students can "strut their stuff."  :)  We are definitely hoping families would like to come view the students' projects and their other pieces of writing from 5 to 7 that evening!  If any of the families would enjoy donating cookies for that evening, that would be lovely, too.

The impetus for the idea for these final projects comes from a new push for Language Arts teachers to help students "read" things that are not print.  I think this must be because of the power of the internet and advertising images that so effectively sway us.  In class, we have already started looking at the effect of line, color, and point of view in art and what messages these things send.  I do believe that we understand things best when we use them ourselves.  So the students are going to be using line, color, and point of view to depict what is crucial for us to understand about a particular character from the novel we read.  I really can't wait to see how these turn out!  I do want to add here that their written explanations of why they have depicted the character as they have will count for half their project's grade. 

I will continue to post major homework assignments and major due dates on this site under Classwork Information.  But as you know, I won't list daily assignments there.  I will ask the students to write down due dates for every assignment, large and small, in their planners, so you should always be able to see what is due in there. 

The format of this website as a whole remains the same.  Under General Information, I have listed information about my expectations and procedures.  The links below all tie to helpful information at the websites for the National Council of Teachers of English and the American Library Association.

I am going to put in a small disclaimer here.  The school district from time to time adds things to the teachers' websites.  Anything on this site that does not relate directly to Freshman Language Arts has been placed there by the district and not by me.

If you do have any concerns, I would be happy to speak with you at any time.  My e-mail address is annl@manhattan.k12.ks.us, and the phone number is 587-2150.   The best times to reach me are 11:30 to 12:45 and 2:05 to 3:00.

Thanks!

Sincerely,

Ann Phelan Lee
Language Arts Teacher