KZOO Radio Live!

On Monday, April 16, at 5:30 p.m., Allison Farr in grade 7 and Zena Simpkins in grade 8 appeared live on radio KZOO from its studio inside Shirokyia at the Ala Moana Mall.  They were interviewed because they are both Grand Prize winners in the Japan Airlines Haiku contest.  As their proud teacher, I also got to be interviewed! We had so much fun talking on the radio and being videotaped at the same time.  It was interesting and a bit intimidating to have people standing outside the glass walls of the station looking at us and smiling as we answered questions and told about our Haiku writing experiences.  Allison and Zena read their poems aloud and did such an expert job of representing all of us at LJA! Advice: It pays to write Haiku!

Environments and Decisions

The setting has a lot to do with how a character reacts to a problem or a situation.  Seventh grade students are currently reading books in small literature circles where the environment has a major affect on how the characters act. All of the books that students chose to read occurred during the Middle Ages among teens of all walks of life. The stories make us think about how much our environments affect us and how we choose to handle a problem or a situation we may find ourselves in.  Pick up a book today - maybe one of the ones we are reading in class!

Can we learn from studying the mistakes and successes of others?

Eighth grade students are currently reading in small literature circle groups from books they chose related to teens from other continents including Africa, Asia, North America, and Europe. All of the books and students (real ones and fictional ones) have one thing in common - they have all learned from a success they had or from a mistake they made.  Can we relate to the fictional lives of teenagers in other countries?  Can we learn anything from them based on the ways they solve their problems? Everyone in English class is about to discover the answer to this question. Here are some of the books being read in literature circles.  Pick one up and read it.  You will be glad you did and you just may learn something about the way someone on another continent thinks.