Welcome to the 2009-2010 School Year!

Hi, I am your 8th grade GT Language Arts teacher, Renee Morris. I hope you are ready for a fun and exciting year of exploring Literature and Writing. I can't wait to get to know each and every one of you!

Our overarching theme for the year will be "change". This is a very appropriate theme given the changes you go through in the middle school years! The first piece of literature we will explore that theme in is your summer reading assignment, Alas Babylon. I hope you are enjoying the book as much as I did. Change is central to the plot as the characters are forced to change in order to survive. Don't forget that your dialectical journals are due the first week of school. We will spend the first week or two of school analyzing the work through Socratic Seminar, discussion, and analytical writing so make sure you are prepared and have read the novel. I realize that my perspective on the book will be different from yours as I am a child of the "Cold War" and I grew up having regular "duck and cover" drills because of the fear of nuclear war. You might want to do some research about the 1950's-60's to understand the perspective at the time. Consider how it compares to the crisis that you have lived through with 9-11 and the tragedy of Columbine.

Here's a list of the other books you will need for the school year. They will all be available through our friendly DMS Library:

• The Tempest  by William Shakespeare (Barron's Simply Shakespeare Version)
• The Glory Field by Walter Dean Meyers
• Night by Elie Wiesel

Enjoy these last few weeks, days and hours of your summer vacation. I can't wait to get to know each of you this year and to watch the wonderful changes that you will go through as you grow into high schoolers!

"Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."

                                                                      ...John F. Kennedy