These downloaded pages are given to the students when they first arrive in class. We discuss them as a class, and they take the handout home and get the signature page signed and return it for a homework grade that carries over to each new six weeks. Easy 100!

This is a snapshot of what we will be working on this year and when we plan to study it. It is not set in stone, but I think it is fairly accurate.

The following is a list of each day's agenda that the student is to copy and then reflect on. A blank Daily Class Record is provided for any student who is absent and is trying to get caught up.

This poem is going to use the style Ted Kooser used when he wrote "Abandoned Farmhouse." The students will try to find inanimate objects in their world that will describe who they really are and what they like. The first stanza can be about when they were a little child, the second can be about as they were just entering middle school, and the third can be about them now and what are their plans. The point is to have a different focus for each stanza. They should let the objects do the talking and the descriptions of the objects will help to add to the picture they will create. We will be creating a scrapbook-type layout with the poem and pictures and other memorabilia that they choose to use. Each student will read his or her poem to the class as a way to introduce themselves to the class. Every year I am amazed at the wonderful results these poems produce and how well we get to know each other.

Ted Kooser Biography Information

The poem worksheet

This is the rubric for the poem and the reading.