Personal Choice Reading

Get out your PCR book and read for 15-20 minutes

Remember, your reading program grade depends partially on your ability to be focused during this time without distracting others

To meet our goal of 20 books this year, you should be starting your third book by now (or read over 400 pages)

Did anyone finish a book since last class?

Talk About Books…

Books often have a “message” or a “worldview” they are trying to get across

Example: Crichton’s Micro has an underlying message about environmentalism

Think about a possible message of your book, then

Turn to a partner and talk about what you think that message might be and why

Be prepared to share what you talk about

A Note About Last Week’s Smarter

Balanced Pre-TestThe results were ROUGH

Less than 20 people out of 140 passed

But that’s okay… it’s not until the end of the year and we’ll be working up to it all year

Your score shows up in Pinnacle but it will not affect your grade (weighted zero)

This week:

“Dress Code” Socratic Seminar

Our 2nd Socratic Seminar—the last major grade before the first grading period (Oct 17th) You will be able to revise this one for a higher grade, but

the revisions won’t show up until the next grading period.

In other words, do your best work the first time through!

Our Topic:

SCHOOL DRESS CODES

We will end this Socratic Seminar by writing a persuasive letter to Mr. Zagel about our school’s dress

code policy!

Socratic Seminar Flowchart

MONDAY:Pre-thinking: “Thinking in Questions”

TUESDAY: Annotating Articles

WED: Constructing Questions/Finding Evidence

THURSDAY: The Socratic Seminar

FRIDAY: Self-Evaluation & Pre-Writing

NEXT WEEK:A letter to Principal Zagel

Thinking In Questions

Our topic this week:

SCHOOL DRESS CODESBy the end of the day, each group will have

their top three “most important” questions about school dress codes

We’ll be using the Right Questions Institute’s method that we started last week.

Step One

Pivot to groups of four

Pick a writer

Write down as many questions as possible, from as many angles as possible, about school dress codes

No stopping to judge, answer or discuss them

Change any statements into questions

Let’s see which group can write the most!

Step Two

As a group, mark each question with a “C” if it’s a closed question or an “O” if it’s an open question

What’s the difference? “Closed” means it has a definite answer “Open” means it could be open to different points of

view

Choose one Open question and rewrite it as a Closed question

Choose one Closed question and rewrite it as an Open question

Step Three

As a group, choose your three most important questions

Label them 1-3

Be prepared to share them with the class…