We are currently reading the book “Peak” by Roland Smith in our class. I love reading this book because I come from a family of adventurers, and this story is all about adveture. I stumbled accross this amazing blog about adventurers sponsored by National Geograpic to climb Mt. Everest. Our class caught up on their stories and will be following them to the top of the mountian as we follow the characters in our stories to the top as well. If you would like to do some reading on your own or find out more about the expedition we are following here is the link to the blog. Just as one of our characters is explaining what it takes to get a member off of the mountian, the real National Geographic team expreiences having to evacuate a memeber of their team.

Use Google to find examples of the following elements of photography:
Leading Lines
Rule of Thirds
Fill the Frame
Storytelling

Then go to http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/bjhspj and post your picture. Put your first name only, and tell me why your photo meets the criteria of the element.

This will give us a good collection of examples of the different types of elements we can use when photographing.

A major part of being successful on the STAAR test is knowing the academic vocabulary. Click here to go to the academic vocabulary practice notecards. The person with the fastest score on the scatter game gets a small prize.

Let’s just say that this has been a whirl-wind of a year! I am glad to be back to our online blog.

A few of my students introduced me to Kony 2012. I have been doing some reading on it and have found some interesting information. Your task is to find out more about the KONY 2012 movement that is exploding all over Facebook and Twitter? Check out these links:
KONY 2012 Invisible Children Web Site
KONY 2012 Movement’s Response to Critics
Visible Children – KONY 2012, Viewed Critically by Grant Oyston
Let’s Talk About KONY by Daniel Solomon, Georgetown student and National Director of STAND
The Problem With Invisible Children’s “Kony 2012″ by Michael Deibert, author of Democratic Republic of Congo: Between Hope and Despair
Kony 2012 and the politics of sending a brutal villain viral by Nicky Woolf, reporter for the Guardian

After reading the articles, click here to add your thoughts to our wall.

Welcome back to Ms. Bristow’s classes! It has been a great first week of school! I can tell that we have an amazing group of students and we are going to do some great things this year. English classes be sure to bring your binder and 5 dividers to class on Monday. We are about to start reading our first novel of the year “That Was Then This Is Now” By: S.E. Hinton. In photojournalism students have already started memorizing their first amendment rights. Parents, quiz them on this and see how much they can tell you already. In Pre-AP we have been talking about our summer reading novel Peak. Get ready to do some analysis of this week. We have a lot of learning to do this year so we are hitting the ground running! Keep up the positive attitudes I have seen this week and give me your best!

- Ms Bristow

It’s the end of the year
Time for end of year buzz
Does this mean what I think?
I’m afraid that it does

7th graders are  ferocious
Did you see the food fight?
8th graders are precocious
They always are right…(ha)

The TAKS test is done
The kids think that’s all
Let’s have some fun
They yell down the hall

NO! we reply
We have much more to do
We have lessons on PI
And final tests too!

No way! Not cool!
they  say in a fuss
The count down has started
You can’t make  us

But  they sit in their seats
as the count down goes on
They learn all  their lessons
before time is gone.

It’s the end of the year
it’s time that they leave
we have counted the days
it is hard to believe

It’s the end of the year
The bell rings and they go
The halls are all clear
We will miss them you know.

-Stacy Bristow

As a pre-AP student you are required to read over the summer. During the first three weeks of school we will be working with the novel Peak by Roland Smith. It is very important that you come to school having read the book.
Also, as a pre-AP student you will be expected to go through the Word Within the Word program. This program helps you break down words to their roots to figure out their meanings. The program started in 7th grade and will continue through 10th grade. If this is your first year in pre-AP then you will need to catch up over the summer. Here is a link to some online flashcards to help you prepare!

http://quizlet.com/1909568/the-word-within-the-word-list-1-15-flash-cards/

One of my students gave me permission to post her video from our character lunch. LOVE the effort. Very fun video.

We have started our Greek Mythology study in Pre-AP language arts! We will start in all other classes next week! Check back for some of the awesome creation story art students created last week after passing the story down from “generation” to “generation”

Check back next week for some of the awesome work students produced during our study of Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry.