Outliers & a visitor!

Last week, and the week coming up, our LA classes are taking a glimpse into the book Outliers, by Malcom Gladwell. We are doing some close-reading exercises, which align with the Common Core State Standards, along with writing about what we read. Last week we read chapter one, and this coming week into next week, we'll be reading and responding to chapter two.

We will have a visitor on Tuesday, 1/15 - Miss Julie Jergens from AHML will be coming and giving book talks to our classes and Mr. Slowinski's classes! Miss Jergens could entice a BEAR to read the books of which she speaks!!

Other points of interest coming up... Our MAP LA test was on 1/11. This is used primarily as a screener for advanced LA. Our winter MAP Reading test will be on 1/17. This is used as a check-point. It is the shortened version of the full MAP test (only 20 questions), and is not one teachers tend to look at when we're looking at data points, as it is so short. Our full 40 question test will, again, be in the spring. Please note that LA teachers do not "teach to the test." This is just another number we can use when looking at the whole picture of your child's progress. In fact, Mrs. Bingaman let me know a few weeks ago, that the high schools in the area have found that test scores do not indicate success in high school - student grades do.