Language Arts
Merrill Middle School
8th Grade October Newsletter
Grade Level Announcements:
The gradebook closes to late and missing work for Q1 on October 10th
Students Q1 celebration will be here at Merrill on October 17th during Core 3
Quick Tips: Encourage your students to plug in their chromebooks at night so they are prepared for school
This month we will wrap up our unit on the universal refugee experience, as students work in Lit Circles to finish their supplemental novels and plan their photojournalism project. We have been working on analyzing the connotation of an author’s intentional word choices, honing in on the best evidence to support all parts of our claims, using specific language to enhance and elevate our writing (for example, the word “whereas”), and focusing on the analysis of literary devices, moving away from basic citation language to sophisticated ways of introducing our quotes, and using the phrase “The author uses ___ to…” to articulate why writers make the choices they do. Our next unit up is To Kill a Mockingbird starting Quarter 2; we will be sending home communication about sensitive topics and language in that classic novel in our next newsletter.
Please check your students’ Schoology page to see what they are missing, as we have now had many graded assignments, including three homeworks - an article with multiple choice questions, and then a written paragraph about that article, then a vocabulary practice packet, as well as many in-class graded assignments. The quarter ends October 17th, but the last day to submit assignments is October 10th. Also, ensure your student is reading at home or doing their iReady minutes if they are on the iReady program. Please feel free to e-mail us with any questions you have about assignments or course material! rachel_sommer@dpsk12.net, erin_brauer@dpsk12.net.
Algebra
Last Friday we concluded our first unit of the year with a test! Over the next two weeks we will complete Unit 2 and will begin Unit 3 towards the start of October. Unit 3 is a long but essential unit that establishes important foundational knowledge that your student will use for the remainder of the year and throughout High School. Read the descriptions of each unit below:
Unit 2: Dilations, Similarity and Introducing Slope
In this unit students build on their understanding of rigid transformations & congruency to learn about dilations & similarity. A main goal for this unit is for students to be able to determine if two figures are either congruent or similar and then justify their position by describing the transformations that maps one shape to the other. We then dive into working with similar triangle theorems. This leads us to the basic understanding that the steepness (slope) of a line can be determined by drawing any right triangle on the line and using the ratio of the triangle's side lengths.
Unit 3: Linear Equations
Students begin this unit by developing multiple ways to calculate the slope of a linear relationship represented as a line or table. There are many real-world contexts they use to practice these skills. Then, building on their 7th grade understanding of proportional relationships students create linear equations from situations, graphs and tables. Using equations as a 'home base' allows students to easily compare two or more linear relationships and to make predictions about real world scenarios.
As always please reach out if you need anything! Paper HW is due the day after it is handed out and weekly IXL HW assignments are due every monday. Students are always welcome to join office hours for quiz corrections or more individualized tutoring.
Thanks so much!
Integrated II Math
Jumper math students just took their first ever 10th-grade-level exam! Unit 1: Probability concluded with an exam that tested their knowledge of conditional probability, frequencies, statistics, and two-way tables. After exam makeups and Unit 1 wrap-up activities, we will begin working on my favorite unit of the year: quadratic functions. We will actually be working with quadratic functions from now until the end of January, so buckle in for the best content of the year! Check your students Unit 1 Exam grades (will probably be scored by next week) and ask them what they’re learning about quadratics functions starting later this week.
Science
Your students are wrapping up their first unit in Science, Climate Change! They’re finalizing their group projects- writing proposals and making infographics to help us reduce our ecological footprint as a whole school. Once we’re finished with testing for this unit, our next until will begin!
Unit 2 will be focused on waves, sound waves in particular. Students will develop ideas related to how sounds are produced, how they travel through media, and how they affect objects at a distance. The end goal for this unit is to sound proof the stairwells, feel free to discuss with your student how this project is going and ask what they’re learning about how waves travel through space.
Social Studies
Your 8th grade student is beginning their first project: the Revolutionary War Podcast! In this project, students will research a specific group impacted by the Revolutionary War, such as women, enslaved individuals, Loyalists, Native Americans, or American soldiers. Working in teams, they will research their groups and individually write, record, and publish a podcast episode that answers our driving question:“How does war impact identity?”
This project blends history with real-world skills. Students will analyze primary and secondary sources, build historical arguments with evidence, and practice communication by scripting and producing their own audio stories.
At the end of the project, students will have the opportunity to submit their podcasts to the New York Times Audio Stories: Our Podcast Contest in early April. This gives them a national platform to share their voices.