grade9team

=**Grade 9 Team Wiki**=

=OUR CORE VALUES= ==I would love it if your team could start thinking about and planning lessons to incorporate the work we did with Don Profitt on ethical literacy and developing our school's core values. We need to develop advisory lessons so that we can then as a school refine the list staff came up with and share it with parents so that we, as a school community, can come up with our five core values!!!==

New addition to Core Values: I came up with a lesson on Don Profitt's ethical dilemmas. If anyone is interested I can e-mail you the dilemmas (or they are on his website). (HP)
Lesson (1-2 periods) Check-in: What was one of the most difficult decisions you ever made? Explain. Lesson: Students are paired up, read dilemmas together Students use graphic organizer (I have that as well) to decide 1) what are the two choices, and 2) how are these both good choices? Wrap-Up: Share Out - class discussion (we didn't get to this on Friday; we're tabling our share out until next Weds.)

Ring Homestead Camp Trip
Thanks to all of you for making today a great experience for our freshman! They had fun, they learned about the value of supporting one another, they made new friends, they learned about team work, and realized that their teachers and their principal are a part of their school community that they can talk with and trust. Your organizational skills, your leadership abilities, and your love for our kids helped our day run smoothly and helped our kids realize what a wonderful environment they are in. In addition to thanking you all, I would love to have your feedback on the day; what worked well; what we can do to make it better if we decide to do it again next year or this year with sophomores; what can we do as a follow up; etc.,

So I've decided to add stuff to the TOP of the page, rather than the bottom, for fear you might not read it.
 * 9th grade advisors:** I hope you have a great time on your trip tomorrow, and I'm sure you'll come back with ideas of ways to incorporate the activities (or at least some healthy debreifing) into the advisory plans for October. I also have the following to suggest as you look to the next four or five weeks of advisory:

1) We have a community service project called "The Giving Project" which we'd like the 9th graders to complete. CLICK HERE to see the original document about the project and all it includes. We hope you can schedule for presentations (the end of the long project) before Thanksgiving and Aimee and I will be happy to set up the schools so these can take place. The trick will be to PLAN in some quality time for the different phased of the project. Read the assignment before the meeting if you get a chance so it can be on the calendar to at least start in October.

2) Last year we had a curriculum team dedicated almost entirely to writing a skills building curriculum to help our 9th graders safely enter the world of High School. I have the outline of all lessons written as well as electronic copies of everything. These include (but are not limited to): Where do grades come from?, Giving Directions, Grades Changed My Life, Using an Agenda, Time Managment, Grammar, Note-taking, etc. There are also lesson plans that go with the student agendas we purchased for all 9th graders (yes, Heather, more are coming :-)). We hope you'll use these lessons, along with the great ones being written by each other, in the month of October.

Sept. 12, 2007 minutes What does the 9th grade team want the 9th grade advisors to do with the summer assignments?~ Heather
 * 9th Grade Team Meeting**

8/31/07- When are the 9th graders turning in their banner projects?
 * Responses***
 * I remember us agreeing on September 17th. My bad, I was supposed to post our time line from the 9th grade meeting. I will do that over the weekend so that we are all on the same page. I apologize. - Tisha
 * From what I heard all 9th grade advisory teachers and their advisees are going on a field trip on the 17th. How do we feel about postponing the due date for the banner project unit the 18th? ~ Heather
 * The trip is on September 18th. It is a Tuesday and you are going to the Ring Homestead Camp in Middletown, New York for a ropes course and team building. Permission slips went out in the mail but there will be some new students who did not get them so please check with your advisees. They will be bringing in the signed permission slips and the trip fee of $30.

Day One - Ninth Grade Advisory
 * Toilet Paper activity
 * Program cards with colors
 * Students get their program card and review with them mapping out their programs. Some will finish early. Have them help eachother.
 * Question on notecards about school.
 * Opening ceremony at 9:30 walk over to 1P Through cafeteria
 * Kids go to a, b and c block
 * Then advisory at d block – popcorn
 * Definition of advisory - journal
 * Chalktalk
 * End of advisory continue next time

I have a question. What are we supposed to do with the summer assignments that our advisors are bringing to us? ~ Heather The 9th grade team has to decide how to grade them. Traditionally the Enlgish and Social Studies teachers have graded the letters, in a more holistic fashion, looking mostly at whether the kids are writing a summary or the book or doing what the assignment asked. It is also a good way to assess students' writing skills so that the team can then have a conversation about that and possibly even look at some examples of student work to see what you learn about where our 9th grade students are. Claire has graded the origami books; but now that the 9th graders do not have art you may want to do something else and the math teacher graded the math portion of the assignment. Other things to think about: we got some new admits to 9th grade who did not get the summer assignment--whta do you want to do about that; how will the CTT students be graded on this assignment; what about students who did not complete the assignment or did not do it at all? (Aimee)

I think it would be a good idea to allow students to present their work in advisory and grade it as a project. It would probably be a good idea to allow new admits to make up the work too. Maybe we can even hold the presentation the week on the trip. ~ HoLing

So then the summer assignments would be one of the passing requirements for advisory which means all of them would have to make up the work. Is the presentation just going to be a summary of all they did or more in depth? Where can we get a copy of the original assignments? Are they posted on the CSI webpage? I like the idea of the presentation but I need help telling the students exactly what to present-my advisees did a lot of work. -Jennifer

Hello 9th grade teachers. Does anyone have anthing in particular they would like to discuss at tomorrow's team meeting? Any students that are exceptional, below, or approaching the standards? Good/ not so good moments from the week? Concerns? Maybe by the end of the night we can generate an agenda for the morning? Am I right in this, we need a team leader/point person and secretary/keeper of notes? We can discuss that as well. See you all in the morning. I'd like to talk about an essay that Cris Orlando turned in. -Jen Lima Yes- Jenn you are correct. Also, summer assignments are posted on the webpage. Maybe kids could present their origami books and tell something about the person from the book they read and something about themselves. It does not have to be a major presentation unless you want it to be one! Just want to remind you that you should be creating team norms at this meeting as well. This will help you to work together as a team for the rest of the year. Feel free to use the protocol distributed or to create norms in any way that seems efficient to your team. (aimee)

I have a team building activity to share with the 9th grade advisors. I am not sure if tomorrow would be a good time for that or should I wait till next week when we meet with the ninth grade advisors. What do you think? (Meghan) I think it is great that you want to share with your colleagues. I think it should wait for next week when all the 9th grade advisors are together. If you think it can work for the other grades as well, we can post it on the wiki for them. (Aimee)