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Greetings, A
little bit about Your Language Arts Teacher:
Teresa Wasinger I
love to learn! I love teaching! I’ve been at it for 13 years now, ten of those
in My
Family: Don,
my husband of ten exciting years, is Service Manager at Terminix.
He loves to help out with field trips when he has time, so some of the students
may get the chance to meet him from time to time. He loves to fish and hunt.
He’s also the best husband a person could ever ask for! I
have five sons. They all love the outdoors—hunting, fishing, and hiking.
They are wonderful, unique young men. So
what are we up to in class? 8th
grade Language Arts The
8th graders have just finished up a unit on the “Effect of War on
the Individual”, which included two of our Literature pieces. “Prisoner of
my Country” is the true story of Yoshiko Uchida, a Japanese American, who is
sent off to Tanforan, an Internment Camp,
established during World War II. The
story tells of the injustice done to this group of people during this time. The
second piece of Literature for this unit was “Stop the Sun”. This is the
story of a young boy who has to deal with a father who suffers with symptoms of
the Vietnam Syndrome. It is written by Gary Paulsen, a popular writer for young
people. We
created collages to depict our own feelings about the effects that war can have
on lives. The images the students chose are memorable. Our
field trip on the 24th allows us to go to meet Ben Mikaelsen.
He is an award-winning author. We are now reading one of his novels, Touching
Spirit Bear. It’s an exciting
story from the beginning! They
will be writing a documentary video script this week. We hope to have them
filmed for Open House so that parents can see their hard work! 7th
Grade Language Arts: Our
reading has included a story from our Literature book, “Seventh Grade”, and
a novel unit on Petey, also by Ben Mikaelsen.
We are creating posters to depict the scenes of the story. In
writing, the students have completed an essay that told “How-to”. We
are continuing to work on this. We’ve looked at some student models and
created one as a class. They will
be assessed on these skills. We
work on increasing student vocabulary, both oral and written, not just for our
stories and literature, but also for other classes, like Science. We’re
also working on just developing good work habits! Consistency
in completing work is a must in this life. Uncle Sam doesn’t say, “Oh, if
you didn’t get your taxes filed this year, that’s okay, just make sure and
do it next year.” Your taxes are
still due, even if they are late. I will always take work. It will not get full
credit, because that’s not fair to those who do things on time. Taxes have
penalties for lateness. I’m
looking forward to a great year! Teresa
Wasinger 7/8
Language Arts
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