Students are working on a final revision of their memoir writing project, due this Friday, March 9. They were a joy to read, and I look forward to sharing them at Spring conferences.
This week we will begin a short unit on newspaper article writing. Students will become familiar with the who, what, where, when, and why of a news article by first reading and analyzing a newspaper and then by working through the process of observing, interviewing, writing, and editing a their own short news article. The process should result in our very own 7th grade newsletter, available near the end of March. Please keep your old newspapers as your children will be looking for one this week! If you don't subscribe to any, please pick one up from a newsstand before Tuesday afternoon. Thank you for your help.
In working our way through Mississippi Trial, 1955, we have been paying close attention to the news articles in the novel that inform the local citizens of the events, witness accounts, and progress in the trial involving Emmett Till's murder. Some students have been struggling with the reading comprehension questions assigned for the book's chapters. The assignments average 75% comprehension and 25% interpretation. All students have a reading guide glued into their composition books to help guide them through the chapters' main ideas and important details. We will finish the read aloud this week, and students will have a final essay project to complete for March 19th. Students with a B- or below in reading will have an opportunity for third quarter extra credit after that date.
Upon finishing the novel, we will be viewing a PBS documentary which highlights the details of the case, uses actual footage and interviews of the people involved, and discusses the events that followed and progression of civil rights through the South after 1955. Included in this production is a graphic visual of Emmett Till's face after he was pulled from the river he was dumped into following his murder. The graphic is blurry and grainy, but I will warn the class that it is gruesome and allow them to put their heads down or look away when it is shown on the screen. The reality is that racism in this country was ugly and vicious. We have been discussing this fact in our novel responses as well as our social studies discussions of Martin Luther King Jr. Last year's class was stunned at the brutality of the murder of a fourteen-year-old boy, but the image simply solidified their contempt for the murderers. If there are any concerns, please let me know.