NABE Bilingual Essay Contest 2006 Due Oct 28th 2005

It is an exciting time to share with the greater world the importance of bilingualism in Deaf education. Deaf and hard of hearing students are bilingual in that they know ASL and English.

The whole team 6,7,8 will join the "Being Bilingual Essay Contest" nationwide with other bilingual students. The submission deadline is due on October 28th 2005. Download the rules and application here.

Check out the National Association for Bilingual Education website.

Root words, Prefixes and suffixes

What is a root word?
A root word is a word that has meaning and can have prefixes and suffixes attached to it.

What is a prefix?
A smallest unit of meaning that is attached in front of a word or a root word. A prefix changes the meaning of the root word.
For example: RE-DO means do it again.

What is a suffix?
A smallest unit of meaning that is attached at the end of a word or a root word. A suffix can change the meaning of the word but not always.
For example: teach+er = teacher ER represents a person who does an action

Here is a list of prefixes and suffixes you can explore:
Greek and Latin Root Words
Word Parts

Check out these websites to practice your root words, prefixes and suffixes. Have fun practicing!
Rooting out Words Games
Rooting out Words
Roots and Prefixes Games

Biography Report Rubric

You will find a Biography Report Rubric. This Rubric will help you evaluate your work and determine your grade.

Biography Notes Due October 6th 2005

Taking notes while reading your biography will make life easier for you when you complete your biography report.

Whenever you fall on an interesting fact, you extrapolate this idea (extrapolate means to pick out) and copy it on an index card. The categories are already provided in the previous blog entry but I will list them here again for you to be reminded.

Personal/Family History
Achievements/Setbacks
School History
Experiences/Values/Beliefs

For those of you who are studying famous athletes, you can create a new category- Sports history

Here is a sample of how we can take notes:

Personal History of Princess Diana

Born to an aristocratic family, she was a shy and quiet girl.
Her parents divorced when she was a child. The divorce traumatized her. She missed her mother.
She was a nursery teacher prior to meeting Prince Charles.
She fell in love with Prince Charles at the age of 18.
She died in 1997 in a car crash from a paparazzi chase. (paparazzi is a group of photographers who chase famous people to sell their pictures for cash)

Achievements
She was the most photographed woman in the world.
Diana was involved in charity fund raising and became well known for her compassion.

Setbacks
She had some marriage problems. Prince Charles was interested in another woman.
She was frustrated with royalty. She didn't like to be under pressure to following the rules of the family. After she got divorced, she was stripped of her royal name.

These notes are not extensive but they give you a sense of how you can go about taking notes.

Keep your notes simple and clear so that when you return to your index cards, you can easily retrieve the information without any questions. You would hate to have to reread parts of the book again to find what you wanted to say.

Good luck and if you have any questions use the comment section!

Biography Assignment First Draft Due Oct 14th

You are to select a famous person of your choice and write a biography report. Your job is to inform us as much as possible about who this person is and what kind of life he or she led. You need to include information such as the following:

Family background
Birth history/Place of birth
Living arrangements and place of location
Did the family move around or stay in one place?

School history
Was he or she successful in school?
What subjects were they good at?
Did a particular teacher inspire them on a personal level?

Achievements and Setbacks
What accomplishments did he or she have in her lifetime?
What frustrations did he or she have growing up or as an adult?

Personal goals/Experiences/Values
What were his or her dreams in life?
Were the dreams academic,social or related to athletics?
Did he or she have any interesting experiences that affected his or her life?
What were his or her strong beliefs/values that formed his or her path?
For example, religion may have had a big impact, others may be a strong belief in
succeeding regardless of difficulties.

Your personal opinion
This section will in ASL, videotaped and placed in your powerpoint. You will be required to express your opinion of this person. Think about in what ways did this person affect your thinking. Were you inspired by his or her accomplishments? What parts of his or her life did you find interesting?

AN IMPORTANT RULE OF THUMB
While you do your research, it will be important to take notes because you will be required to write a paragraph for each section. Make sure you are as specific as possible.

You will be required to complete a powerpoint presentation on your biography.
In your powerpoint, make sure you cover all aspects mentioned above. In your front cover, the name of the author and the biography book you selected with references should be included.


Your grade will be based on content, quality and effort for both your powerpoint and oral presentation to class.

You will receive a grade for your first draft then another grade for your final draft. This will indicate whether you have seriously edited and revised your work. Editing skills are just as important as doing research.

This first draft assignment must be done no later than October 14th 2005 for editing and revision. The final draft and oral presentation will be on October 21st 2005.

If you have any original/creative ideas for your biography, please feel free to come and speak to me.

Constitution Day

The Department of Education has now mandated that all schools establish September 17th as Constitution Day. To fulfill this requirement,(thanks to Jim Barrie and Sharon Sandoval for planning this special event) we had a full day of activities related to learning all about our rights and our constitution. Students were involved in a Scavenger Hunt, ASL poetry, Reading activities and lastly the famous "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" competition. What a great way of making the Constitution more meaningful when fun is involved! :)

Please watch the movie that displays all of our students brainstorming ideas for their ASL poems. Great job to you all middle school students!

FEMA's Mistake Homework Due Friday Sept 16th 2005

Read the following article in Scholastic News Online and respond in your personal blog to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Answer the following questions:

What does the main news headline say?
Why did President Bush say he "took responsibility"for what happened to Hurricane Katrina aftermath? (read the third paragraph)
What does acting director mean? (look at the last paragraph in the story)

Vocabulary activity.

Look up the following words in the dictionary and write a sentence using the words.

replaced
costliest
resignation
faulty
exposed
praised
appointement

Cultural and Family traditions Assignment due Monday Sept 19th 2005

Please write a paragraph about your cultural and family heritage. Anything that you and your family do on a regular basis that defines who you are. For example
What activities do you do together as a family on a regular basis?
Do you travel together every year?
Do you celebrate particular holidays every year?
Do you practice a religion that you value and cherish? What religious events do you
participate in?
What particular traditions has your family adopted that other families do not do?
One example would be opening up presents on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas
Day. Some families do not celebrate Christmas but Hannukah.

If you have any questions use the Comments below...

Calendar

Folks,

I am working on what we call a Calendar file that you can access online. It will have all homework assignments, dates and special features such as chat room and many more. Rosemary Stifter, the technology specialist is helping me set it up. It appears to be a wonderful tool and we hope to start it very soon. I appreciate your patience. In the meantime, keep on checking your blog for any announcements and whenever you are told to complete a Blog activity.

This past few days, we are completing the Writing Sample assignment, a requirement every year to assess students writing levels. We do this twice a year, once in the Fall and again in the Spring. This will allow us to analyze six different writing traits (ideas, organization, conventions, sentence fluency, word choice and voice) and give a score to compare and evaluate writing improvement.

If you have any questions or frustrations, please do not hesitate to use the comment box below and I will get back to you as soon as possible.