Dear Parents and Students,

We just finished our 8^th grade integrated unit on United States immigration. In English we reviewed and learned about the paragraph. First, we reviewed four types of topic sentences and learned five new ways to write topic sentences. Second, we also reviewed numerical transitions and learned how to write with chronological, cause and effect, problem and solution and argumentative paragraphs. Finally, we began to elaborate and stretch our paragraphs by using examples as evidence.

In literature we read novels that dealt with the immigration experience. These novels gave students a more personal look at what they were learning in social studies class. Students read and responded to their novels in the paragraph structures that we were learning in class.

Our next integrated unit is the Progressive Movement. In English we use the movie Newsies to look at the child labor movement. We watch the movie to gain a common background and to get students interested in the subject. After the movie we spend a couple weeks looking at the real story of the newsboy strike by looking at a nonfiction publication and reading real newspaper articles about the newsboy strike from the 1899 New York Times and New York Sun! Our objectives are to learn different note taking strategies, write with more elaboration, use quotes, use anecdotes and write an anecdotal mutli-source five paragraph essay.

During the 8^th grade year I would really like the students to read every night. I do not give students much time to read their novels in class, so it is helpful if they read their assigned novel at home or another novel, magazine, graphic novel when they do not have an assigned novel. Students learn to be better writers, gain more vocabulary, and become faster readers by simply reading. I really strive to not give students homework, so that they have time to read for twenty minutes at home.

Sincerely,

Mr. Johnson