Mrs. Peter's ESOL Class

Welcome

Welcome to the 8th grade ESOL class blog!

My name is Mrs. Peters and I teach 8th grade ESOL at Griffin Middle School. I am really excited about using this blog in my instruction. It is my hope that we will be able to communicate both inside and outside the classroom with this blog.

The blog assignments are a part of your class work or homework grade. You are expected to treat blogspaces as classroom spaces. Language that is inappropriate for class is not appropriate for our blog.

Sarah, Plain and Tall - Research project

After finishing reading "Sarah, Plain and Tall", it is time to the class to learn more about certain topics related to the book. They will in pairs choose from a list of topics: Kansas Prairie Biome, Kansas wildflowers, Mains seashells, Settling the west, Life of a poineer, and the history of mail-order brides. The class will research their topics online and with additional printed resources provided bu the teacher, write a draft about their topic, revise and edit, rewrite, make a poster about their topic, and present their findings to the class.

Literature Study - Sarah, Plain and Tall

We have started a new unit, focusing on novel studies. We are reading Patricia MacLachlan's Sarah, Plain and Tall.

We started by learning facts about the author, Patricia MacLachlan, who was an only child growing up in the Midwest. She loved the prairie and it has infoluenced her writing. Much of the material for her books came from conversations she overheard as a child between her parents and their friends. She wrote about brothers and sisters, various types of families, and about loving nuturing relationships.

Patricia married Robert MacLachlan in 1962 and during the same year, she graduated from college with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Robert and Patricia have three children.

Particia's fist published book was The Sick Day (1979). Her most famous book is Sarah, Plain and Tall, for which she also won the the honorable Newbery Medal. sarah, Plainand Tall has also become a movie, which is the first movie in the trilogy about Sarah. The following movies are called: Skylark, and Winter's End.

Guest Speaker

During our unit of setting goals, we had a guest speaker, Martin Ruiz, coming to class to motivate and inspire the students. Mr. Ruiz talked about his personal life experiences and how his choices have impacted the life he lives today. Mr. Ruiz comes from Mexico and entered this country illegally many years ago and after a couple of years trying to legalize his status he became a U.S. Citizen. He struggled in school to learn English. Like many other ESOL students, he questioned why he needed to learn English when everyone in his surrounding spoke Spanish. Mr. Ruiz told the class that learning English can improve the quality of their lives. Learning English can lead to a better job with more pay. If you know two languages fluently, you are more attractive in the job market. With this motivation, Mr. Ruiz exited his ESOL classes after only two years!

Mr. Ruiz did what many people expected from him as a teenager, he joined a gang and felt no desire to get good grades in school. After a while, he realized that he wanted to become someone in life and wanted to get back to school. Despite what everyone thought, he managed to get into college -University of Georgia! He was the first one in his family to graduate from college and his whole family was very proud of him. Today, Mr. Ruiz has a well paid job as a financial analyst. He feels that he has overcome all the obstacles that were thrown his way. Mr. Ruiz told that class that they can become anything they want, if they just set their mind on it. "Shoot for the moon and if you miss, you will land among the stars!"

Here is what we learned from Martin Ruiz's presentation.

Shoot for success!

It is very important to have a goal in life. Setting a goal can help you stay focused on a task and increase your chances of reaching your goal. This whole week, we have been working on the importance of setting goals.We have watched an educational video about setting goals, we have identified the four steps of setting a goal, we have had a guest speaker coming to talk to the class about the importance of learning English and setting a goal for oneself, and we are now working on our personal timeline for the future. We are making short-term plans for the school year of 2007-2008, but we are also making long-term goals 10 years ahead. What is our desire to do in 10 years? The timelines will be displayed in the classroom when they are finished.

Make a change!

"Be the change you want to see in the world" - Mahatma Gandhi.

People have a great power to change the world. Instead of complaining about your life situation - do something about it. Make a change for the better. How can you make a difference in your own life? The answer is to set your mind on achieveing something for yourself. Decide on achievable goals for you this year. Make them realistic so that you actually can achieve them. Then, list three detailed actions you plan to take to reach each goal. look at the example below:

My name is XX. My goals are:

HEALTH GOAL: TO MAKE THE SWIM TEAM

Action 1: Eat nutritious foods.

Action 2: Make atleast 'Bs' to be eligible to try out.

Action 3: Complete 25 practice laps each day.