SAGT Fundraiser at Barnes and Noble

SAGT, our GT Booster Club, will have its annual fundraiser at Barnes and Noble the weekend of November 6th ~ November 8th. Our classes will be performing during this event on Sunday at 2:00. Please try to make it out for this great cause. All the money that SAGT makes on a percentage of B & N sales goes directly into our GT classrooms. Plus, our students have worked very hard on their productions! When you purchase anything there that weekend, be sure to mention that you are there for SAGT when you are checking out. That is how they base their contributions.

This is a great time to do your Holiday shopping!

Glory Field!

We'll be finished with The Tempest before you know it, so please make sure you have your copy of Glory Field by Walter Dean Meyer purchased and ready to read! You still have time to order it from amazon.com of or barnesandnoble.com if you do it soon! The Southlake Barnes and Noble has them in stock right now.

Parents!

Dr. James Webb will be doing a presentation on the social and emotional issues of gifted children the evening of Monday, Novemeber 9th in Keller. Dr. Webb is Director of Psychology at the Children's Medical Center in Dayton, Ohio, and is listed as one of the 25 most influential psychologists in the world today. I have been told that he is a phenomenal speaker. Please see the attached flyer for more information.

Announcements

We are studying and analyzing verbal phrases, but do you still wonder what a noun is? If you feel like you need to brush up on some grammar basics, I'll be offering tutoring Tuesday mornings in our classroom. It's is open to anyone who wants to improve his/her understanding of grammar basics.

For those who may not know this, we have a booster club for the Gifted/Advanced Placement programs in the CISD and it is called "Southlake Association for the Gifted and Talented" (SAGT). They do all kinds of wonderful things to support and promote our advanced academic programs in the district and your support is greatly needed. You can learn more by going to their website, http://southlakegifted.org

One of the most important things they do is raise money that goes directly into our classrooms. They will be holding a fundraiser at Barnes and Noble in which a percentage of the sales from customers who mention CISD and SAGT go to us. The date for this is the weekend of November 7th and 8th, just in time for Christmas shopping!

Students! We will be doing another presentation at this fundraiser (just like we did last year). If you are interested in participating, start thinking about what you'd like to do. We can do another "spinned" fairy tale trial, or we could create a "tableau" from a children's book or any of the works we've read. Give it some thought and e-mail me if you are interested in participating. I'll start a sign-up list. Remember how much fun it was last year? It's going to be even more fun this year! Each volunteer will receive something...not sure what yet, but something (maybe food or extra credit?).

Creative Writing Binders

Each student will keep a creative writing binder in the classroom. We have voted on Tuesdays as "Creative Writing Tuesday". Each week the students will bring a new installment for their binder. This is a completion grade...up to a point. The only thing I require is:

1. It be original!

2. It must be neat and publishable, in other words, something you are proud of.

3. NO SPIRAL PAPER

You have total creative control. Everyone can find some type of genre they enjoy....from Haiku poetry, to comic strips, to children's books, to full fledge novels. You decide what you feel like doing that week. Make it fun, make it original and make it yours!

The cover page is due next Tuesday. This will be

Parents and Grandparents of Gifted Children!

There are a couple of webinars coming up that just for you. They are put on by authors and experts from Great Potential Press. Here's the information:

Supply List for GTLA 2009-10

(Please bring these supplies to our classroom sometime during the first week of school! Do not take to your advisory teacher!)

In addition to your regular supplies, please bring the following to our GTLA class the first week of school:

1" binder (stays in classroom)

index cards

plastic page protectors

3 brad folders

(1) 3-subject spiral

whatever type of binder you use to organize your class materials (make sure you have a tab with an LA label

box red pens 

box of pencils

highlighters

flash drive to store their writing (optional but handy; just a small inexpensive one is fine) 

box of Expo Markers

1 Box Crayola Markers

1 pack of notebook paper

colored pencils

post-it notes

August 24, 2009

Dear Parent and Student,

Welcome to Gifted and Talented Language Arts at Dawson Middle School. We are very excited about the new school year here at Dawson! This year will be packed with challenging and exciting explorations into Literature and Writing, so students,  I hope you will come ready to work hard and have fun.

I am Renee Morris, Dawson’s 8^th grade Gifted and Talented Specialist, and I will be your GT Language Arts teacher as well. This is my fifth year in the Carroll Independent School District, and I feel very fortunate to work in this incredible environment where teachers, parent and students come together to provide the excellence in education that CISD is known for. I live in Colleyville with my husband of twenty-five years, Stephen, my almost 17 year old daughter, Sarah and my husky, Lucky. I received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science with a minor in English and a Masters in Education and Teaching with an endorsement in Gifted and Talented Education. My goal for teaching is to instill a love of learning through Literature and to help my students become effective writers and high level thinkers. Students will be expected to read high level texts and to analyze and interpret them as well. We started over the summer with Alas, Babylon; what a great book! I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did. Be sure to bring in those summer reading assignments by Tuesday, August 25th. Students will need to purchase The Tempest by William Shakespeare right away as we will begin reading it in a week or two.  Each student will each need his/her own Barron’s "Simply Shakespeare" edition which can be purchased at Barnes and Noble. Please get this special edition as we read this in class and it is much easier to keep up if we all have the same page numbers. They may be holding these behind the counter so you may need to ask a sales clerk for assistance.

If you haven't done so yet, please add yourself to my notification list. You will recieve a note by e-mail when I update my website.

Below you will find the independent reading requirements for this class. Please read them carefully as your grade depends on it! I will not spend time in class reminding the students about the reading or the deadlines. Mark them in your assignment spiral.

Since my students come from all the 8^th grade teams, you will find my website on each team’s page. Be sure to check it often for assignments, test dates and updates.  

The supply list for our class is above. Please bring those supplies to our classroom!  

I look forward to working with and getting to know each one of you! I hope you have a wonderful 2009-10 school year.

Regards,

Renee Morris

Gifted and Talented Specialist

Dawson Middle School

Outside Reading Requirements

2009-2010

In addition to reading materials assigned for class study, language arts students are required to read self-selected book(s).  Most, if not all, of you already read for pleasure.  Why not get a super grade for doing what you love?  And, you are required to have a book with you in every class.  You may be surprised how much you could read during down times or den class.  You must read 250 pages of an approved book(s) each 6 weeks.  That’s 1,500 pages for the school year...piece of cake for most of you! 

1. You will be graded on the number of pages read and on your understanding of the book. To gain maximum points, you must prove that you have read the book through an oral book chat or an alternative assessment.

250 or more pages            =        100

225-249 pages                   =        90-99

200-224 pages                   =        80-89

150-199 pages                   =        70-79

Below 150 pages               =        0-69

2. Outside reading will count as a major grade every six weeks, but you do not have to wait until then to report on your book. I strongly encourage you NOT to wait until the last day your reading is due. Chances are you will have to take a number and wait in line along with your other classmates who waited until the last minute. Set up a time to discuss your book as soon as you finish it.

    Deadlines for each 250 pages

1st Book Talk: TBA

2nd Book Talk: TBA

3. You must have your book with you when you report. No credit will be given if you do not have a copy of the book in hand.

4. You do not have to finish a book you do not like. After reading a reasonable number of pages (at least 25), you may decide to abandon the book for another.

5. Characteristics of books that will be approved:

          - on or above reading level (at least 800 on the Lexile Scale)

          - fiction or non-fiction

          - few if any pictures

          - not something you’ve ever read before

          - not assigned reading for another class

Books that have been made into movies might be approved, but the student must be able to converse about the similarities and differences between the book and the movie.