Monday

• Students will begin class with a look at the objectives for the week and the expectations for independent reading work.

• The new unit will be introduced and students will view a movie version of "Seven Blind Mice," which we read last week.  Students will note their observations on how the movie reveals the moment of truth in Ed Young's story.  The results will be shared and discussed.

• Students will then be moved into their teams to collaboratively read and respond to "Moment of Truth" background article.  After reading and discussing the text, they will conduct some light research and share their findings with their group.  Teams will share some of the interesting findings made by their teammates.  Students will draft a blast in response to the reading and review several other blasts written by their classmates.

• Intervention time will enable students to continue their work on their unfinished persuasive drafts or work on their independent reading work.

Homework:  Students should be reading at least 30 minutes per night and documenting their reading daily on their reading logs.  They should also complete four Word Work words taken from their independent reading by Friday. 

Tuesday

• Students will begin class with an introduction to Ernest Thayer's classic poem, "Casey at the Bat."

• Students will then read and annotate the poem in StudySync.  Students teams will then respond to "Text Talk" questions and complete constructed responses to three "Think Questions.  Results will be discussed.

• Intervention time will enable students to continue their work on their unfinished persuasive drafts or work on their independent reading work.

Wednesday

• Students will begin class with a brief discussion based on their responses to Monday's Blast.

• Students will then be moved into their teams to collaboratively read and respond to "Short and Sweet" article.  After reading and discussing the text, they will conduct some light research and share their findings with their group.  Teams will share some of the interesting findings made by their teammates.  Students will draft a blast in response to the reading and review several other blasts written by their classmates.

• Intervention time will be committed to  Book Club time.

Thursday

• Students will begin class with a brief discussion based on their responses to Yesterday's  Blast.

• The day's reading will then be introduced.  Students will view a video and then read the article, Hitting the Big League Fastball: "clearly impossible."  Students will complete a collaborative discussion and then respond to the "Think" questions from StudySync.  Results to the discussion questions will be shared by selected teams.

• Intervention time will be committed to to  Book Club time.

Friday

• Students will begin class the Friday Funny Bone activity.  This is an inferential activity where students examine a Gary Larson cartoon, draw conclusions about it, and construct a possible caption that attempts to not only make sense out of the image, but also make it funny.

• Students will then be introduced to the mini-project based on this week's readings.  Students will choose between two options.  Option one is a short analysis essay examining how the informational article reflects the central message of "Casey at the Bat."  Option 2 is an infographic making the case that a particular athletic skill or accomplishment is the most difficult in all of sports.  Projects are due on Wednesday of next week and students will have Monday and Tuesday to work on them in class.

• Intervention time will be committed to Book Club time.