Mrs. Selby's Blog

Listen to Read Program

During the 2007-2008 school year, Mrs. Selby received a grant of money to purchase MP3 players and books on compact discs to distribute to the 7th grade students at Griffin.  The project goal was to improve the reading comprehension, fluency and auditory processing speed of the students.  It would allow the students and perhaps their families to hear English words clearly spoken as they were able to follow along in the books.

Students checked out an MP3 player with one novel recorded on it.  When they finished the story, they wrote a book report on it and returned the player for a new story.  Some of the books they enjoyed were Esperanza Rising, Holes, Maniac Magee, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Stuart Little, The Skirt, Taking Sides, and others.  

The 7th grade students this year are looking forward to  the start up of this program again this year.

Esperanza Rising Reflections

Write some reflections about our novel study, "Esperanza Rising".  Tell me your thoughts about Esperanza and her life.  Answer some of the following questions if you can't think of what to write.

1. What do you think will happen to Esperanza in 5 years?

2. Write another chapter to this story.

Welcome to Mrs. Selby's Blog!!!

Hi to everyone!!

I am a 7th grade ESOL teacher at Griffin Middle School in Smyrna, Georgia. It is my hope that this year my students will take part in a writing program which will help them develop their writing and grammar skills as well as explore their interests by sharing their writings with a real audience.

A "BLOG" is a special type of web page that can be created and easily updated using the web browser.  Each new entry has its own date and also a comments section where visitors can post responses for the author.  Many people around the world use blogs to share words and pictures.

Your blog assignments will be part of your grade in my class. You are expected to treat blogspaces as classroom spaces.  Language that is inappropriate for school or class will not be appropriate for our blog.

Have fun blogging!

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For more practice go to on verbs: