1. MRS. CHRIS FORSTER 7 th Grade Advanced Language Arts 2015-2016 "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new." Albert Einstein

2. MY BACKGROUND Personal Married. Two children. One dog. Teaching 34 th Year. 27 th Year in RCS. 13 th Year at VH Previous: University Hills, West Middle, Oxnard, CA, Centerline, MI. District Teacher Leader 12 years, ELA Pilot & Review Team, New Teacher and Student Teacher Mentor, Harvard’s Project Think from the Middle Presenter, AARI Training, VH Blue Ribbon Schools teacher representative. 2015 Pino Excellence in Education Award

3. CURRICULUM & THE COMMON CORE Common Core – Standards and Benchmarks – Goal might be to identify how setting affects plot Curriculum – the materials and units used to meet goals. – i.e. Unit 4: Analyzing Theme & Symbol, Verbs and Helping Verbs, or Death Cloud

4. HOW IS THIS CLASS “ADVANCED" Higher level reading materials Higher expectations for writing Higher level questions & in-depth answers that analyze selections

5. HOW IS THIS CLASS “ADVANCED" Special emphasis on the reading/writing connection Complex Sentence Structure More independent work – Projects, presentations

6. WHAT MAKES ALA 7 DIFFICULT? All work is assessed based on merit and quality. Little or no credit is given simply for finishing work. Expectation for answers is to cite multiple pieces of textual evidence and use that evidence to analyze selections for rhetorical devices.

7. A GOOD ANSWER: Includes Specific details, either quoted or paraphrased, to support claims Includes enough elaboration to completely answer the question. Reflects deep understanding of text. Omits Extraneous details.

8. WEAK RESPONSE Napoleon was corrupt. He had trained the dogs so they chased Snowball out of the farm and anytime someone tried to speak out about this his dogs would threaten the animal by growling at them.

9. GRADE SPREADSHEETS Please note that I grade on TOTAL POINTS. – An assignment that is worth only a few points often shows up on a Progress Report as low score when it actually has little effect on the grade. – i.e. 3/4 + 18/20 + 27/30 = 48/54 = 89% 75% + 90% + 90% = = 85%

10. EXTRA CREDIT Extra Credit is not available for students in ALA. Correcting and Returning work – Only First Quarter – Only if score is not passing.

11. SPECIAL SCORES – NHI = Not Handed In Your student was here but did not have his/her assignment. – AB Child out when work was assigned or corrected – IP = In Progress Student has not completed absent work, but he/she has received the assignment

12. LATE ASSIGNMENTS  Students are expected to turn work in on time!  Late work will accepted but will be penalized after 1 st Quarter.

13. CHECKING PROGRESS My RCS – Allows you to access your student’s information. Make sure I have your email address. Twitter – MrsForsterLA Webpage – I post lesson plans. – Although there might be slight changes, you will know about important due dates.

14. RULES Be respectful of people and property Do your best work.

15. COMMUNICATIO N School phone: (248)726-4900 – My extension is 4941 – I am available after school or from 10:54-11:51 Van Hoosen Website E-mail: cforster@rochester.k12.mi.uscforster@rochester.k12.mi.us Twitter: @MrsForsterLA

16. THANK YOU “The capacity to learn is a gift; The ability to learn is a skill; The willingness to learn is a choice.” Brian Herbert