Welcome to my webpage!
I am Ms. Neef, and I am very pleased that your child will be in my sixth grade Language Arts class. This is my fourth year teaching and my second year as a Spartan. I am thrilled to be a part of the WMS family! I wanted to take some time and share with you the purpose and structure of my Language Arts classroom. My number one goal this year is for your child to see themselves as both readers and writers. I will do all that I can to make it a successful learning experience for them because they deserve the opportunity to grow as a learner in an environment that is most conducive to his/her learning style. Therefore, I believe by sharing this information with you, we can work together to meet that goal.
Reader's Workshop
Since we are encouraging all of our students to be readers, the Language Arts team is putting a Reader’s Workshop into place in the classroom where students will be required to read books under a variety of genres. Students are expected to read a new novel every two weeks. While some time in class will be provided for reading, students also need to be reading at home. On every other Friday when students are expected to have their novel finished, they are to complete a mini book report assignment in class that Friday for credit. It will be helpful for students to have their novel with them in class on those Fridays to help them complete the assignment. Students are welcome to check books out of my classroom library, and they will also be given the opportunity to check out books from the school library when we visit our school library, the Spartan Room, every other week. Books need to be at least 100 pages in length and follow the specified genre selected for that assignment. All books must be approved by me if they are intended to be used for Reader’s Workshop. Thanks in advance for your support, and feel free to contact me if you have any questions!
I am Ms. Neef, and I am very pleased that your child will be in my sixth grade Language Arts class. This is my fourth year teaching and my second year as a Spartan. I am thrilled to be a part of the WMS family! I wanted to take some time and share with you the purpose and structure of my Language Arts classroom. My number one goal this year is for your child to see themselves as both readers and writers. I will do all that I can to make it a successful learning experience for them because they deserve the opportunity to grow as a learner in an environment that is most conducive to his/her learning style. Therefore, I believe by sharing this information with you, we can work together to meet that goal.
Reader's Workshop
Since we are encouraging all of our students to be readers, the Language Arts team is putting a Reader’s Workshop into place in the classroom where students will be required to read books under a variety of genres. Students are expected to read a new novel every two weeks. While some time in class will be provided for reading, students also need to be reading at home. On every other Friday when students are expected to have their novel finished, they are to complete a mini book report assignment in class that Friday for credit. It will be helpful for students to have their novel with them in class on those Fridays to help them complete the assignment. Students are welcome to check books out of my classroom library, and they will also be given the opportunity to check out books from the school library when we visit our school library, the Spartan Room, every other week. Books need to be at least 100 pages in length and follow the specified genre selected for that assignment. All books must be approved by me if they are intended to be used for Reader’s Workshop. Thanks in advance for your support, and feel free to contact me if you have any questions!
Ms. Neef’s Reader’s Workshop Schedule:
September 6th Free Choice
September 20st Realistic-Fiction
October 4th Horror/Mystery
October 18th Fantasy
November 1st Biography or Autobiography
November 15th Science-Fiction or Graphic Novel
November 29th Historical Fiction
December 13th Free Choice
Writer's Workshop
My main focus is to inspire students and engage them in meaningful writing opportunities in our Writer’s Workshop. Every child will be given their own personal composition book at the beginning of the year that we will call their “Writer’s Notebook.” This notebook will be used for routine writing purposes that can take the form of quickwrites, which are short writing prompts, and mini-lessons where students learn and practice new writing skills. The entries in the Writer’s Notebooks will not be graded for accuracy in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Its purpose is for students to have practice in writing daily in different formats and genres without the worry of being evaluated based on errors. From exploration in these notebooks, students can develop seed ideas for future writing assignments.
September 6th Free Choice
September 20st Realistic-Fiction
October 4th Horror/Mystery
October 18th Fantasy
November 1st Biography or Autobiography
November 15th Science-Fiction or Graphic Novel
November 29th Historical Fiction
December 13th Free Choice
Writer's Workshop
My main focus is to inspire students and engage them in meaningful writing opportunities in our Writer’s Workshop. Every child will be given their own personal composition book at the beginning of the year that we will call their “Writer’s Notebook.” This notebook will be used for routine writing purposes that can take the form of quickwrites, which are short writing prompts, and mini-lessons where students learn and practice new writing skills. The entries in the Writer’s Notebooks will not be graded for accuracy in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Its purpose is for students to have practice in writing daily in different formats and genres without the worry of being evaluated based on errors. From exploration in these notebooks, students can develop seed ideas for future writing assignments.
Creating a Writing Community
Writing workshop calls for conversations, demonstrations, risk-taking, conferencing, encouragement, and, most important, meaning-making through writing. The best way to accomplish these tasks is to establish a classroom with a community of writers.
The overarching purpose of Writing Workshop is to create an atmosphere in the classroom where students feel comfortable in a writing community. Time will be given for class shares and partner shares where students help and offer each other ideas and support as well as provide opportunities to celebrate writing achievements no matter how big or small. Through these practices, everyone’s voice is heard and respected.
What About Grammar?
My sole purpose in evaluating student writing is not to hunt for mistakes with my red pen. But don’t worry. I still will be assessing students’ ability to properly use grammar and writing conventions. While I believe content is important, so is the proper usage of the English language.
Mini-lessons will be incorporated into my lessons that ask students to take a closer look at how mentor authors write and use conventions in our class novels. Students may be asked to incorporate them in their Writer’s Notebook entries.
Daily Grammar Practice (DGP) is a grammar approach the 6th grade team has adopted here in Waynesville that helps scaffold students’ understanding of how language works. DGP requires students to work with one sentence a week where they complete a new task each day to improve mechanics (i.e. identifying sentence parts and clauses, adding punctuation, etc). This is the main method I will be using to evaluate students on their grammar skills. The daily tasks for DGP are not graded but are meant to help prepare students for everyday writing and for a DGP quiz that takes place every other Friday over the recent material that was taught. The goal of teaching students the foundations of grammar in this routine is that the knowledge should carry over when students are taking risks in their everyday writing and in their Writer’s Notebooks.
Vocabulary Workshop
Students are expected to learn and obtain up to twenty new vocabulary words a week. They will be provided with a Vocabulary Workshop workbook that they are to use and bring with them to class every day.
Here is a tentative vocabulary schedule of the word lists we will be studying these weeks.
August 26th- VW Unit 1
September 2nd- Root "Ped"
September 9th- VW Unit 2
September 16th- Root "Manu"
September 23rd- Review Manu/Ped and VW Unit 3
September 30th- Root "Spect" and Review Units 1-3
October 7th- VW Unit 4
October 14th- Root "Dict"
October 21st- Review "Spect"/"Dict"
October 28th- VW Unit 5
November 4th- Root "Ject"
November 11th- VW Unit 6
November 18th- Root "Sect" and Review Units 4-6
November 25th- Review "Ject"/ "Sect"
December 2nd- VW Unit 7 Vocab
December 9th- Root "Port"
December 16th- VW Unit 8
***This schedule will correlate with students’ assignments on Spelling City.
If you have any questions or concerns throughout the year, feel free to contact me at (513) 897-4706 or by email at [email protected].
Thank you in advance for your support! I’m looking forward to the exciting school year ahead!
Sincerely,
Ms. Jessica Neef
Writing workshop calls for conversations, demonstrations, risk-taking, conferencing, encouragement, and, most important, meaning-making through writing. The best way to accomplish these tasks is to establish a classroom with a community of writers.
The overarching purpose of Writing Workshop is to create an atmosphere in the classroom where students feel comfortable in a writing community. Time will be given for class shares and partner shares where students help and offer each other ideas and support as well as provide opportunities to celebrate writing achievements no matter how big or small. Through these practices, everyone’s voice is heard and respected.
What About Grammar?
My sole purpose in evaluating student writing is not to hunt for mistakes with my red pen. But don’t worry. I still will be assessing students’ ability to properly use grammar and writing conventions. While I believe content is important, so is the proper usage of the English language.
Mini-lessons will be incorporated into my lessons that ask students to take a closer look at how mentor authors write and use conventions in our class novels. Students may be asked to incorporate them in their Writer’s Notebook entries.
Daily Grammar Practice (DGP) is a grammar approach the 6th grade team has adopted here in Waynesville that helps scaffold students’ understanding of how language works. DGP requires students to work with one sentence a week where they complete a new task each day to improve mechanics (i.e. identifying sentence parts and clauses, adding punctuation, etc). This is the main method I will be using to evaluate students on their grammar skills. The daily tasks for DGP are not graded but are meant to help prepare students for everyday writing and for a DGP quiz that takes place every other Friday over the recent material that was taught. The goal of teaching students the foundations of grammar in this routine is that the knowledge should carry over when students are taking risks in their everyday writing and in their Writer’s Notebooks.
Vocabulary Workshop
Students are expected to learn and obtain up to twenty new vocabulary words a week. They will be provided with a Vocabulary Workshop workbook that they are to use and bring with them to class every day.
Here is a tentative vocabulary schedule of the word lists we will be studying these weeks.
August 26th- VW Unit 1
September 2nd- Root "Ped"
September 9th- VW Unit 2
September 16th- Root "Manu"
September 23rd- Review Manu/Ped and VW Unit 3
September 30th- Root "Spect" and Review Units 1-3
October 7th- VW Unit 4
October 14th- Root "Dict"
October 21st- Review "Spect"/"Dict"
October 28th- VW Unit 5
November 4th- Root "Ject"
November 11th- VW Unit 6
November 18th- Root "Sect" and Review Units 4-6
November 25th- Review "Ject"/ "Sect"
December 2nd- VW Unit 7 Vocab
December 9th- Root "Port"
December 16th- VW Unit 8
***This schedule will correlate with students’ assignments on Spelling City.
If you have any questions or concerns throughout the year, feel free to contact me at (513) 897-4706 or by email at [email protected].
Thank you in advance for your support! I’m looking forward to the exciting school year ahead!
Sincerely,
Ms. Jessica Neef