Welcome to Mrs. Whinery's Humanities
	OVERVIEW OF SEVENTH GRADE HUMANITIES Sarah Whinery: swhinery@gordonschool.org, Ext. 161 Web site: www.gordonschool.org/swhinery          In conjunction with Alex Rempis.   Communication As teachers, we want to have easy and effective communication with the families of our students. We encourage you to use email or the telephone if you have any questions or concerns. We are also happy to meet with you beyond the usual conferences should you so desire. Our email addresses and extensions are above. Our web sites are a great way to find information about assignments and materials. Generally, we find email the easiest and most efficient means of initial contact. When teachers and parents are on the same page, we all benefit. We look forward to getting to know you better and forming a partnership with you to support and nurture your child.   Overview Seventh grade reading, language arts, and social studies are closely linked. We emphasize similar themes through the study of United States history, literature, and current events. In both courses we pay particular attention to developing argument and supporting one’s point of view with evidence from text. Students practice this through various forms of writing, oral discussion, and presentations. This helps to develop analytical writing and research skills. Students also do extensive creative and expository writing in a workshop format.   Students are challenged to think abstractly and make connections among diverse topics and themes. Because seventh grade is a time of tremendous academic, social, and physical growth, teachers strive to help each student make academic and non-academic choices smoothly and support students in the various facets of their intellectual and social lives.   Essential Questions in Seventh Grade ü Who am I? ü Why are we the way we are? ü What does it mean to be an “American?” ü What is race? ü How can we work together? ü How are we the same?  ü How are we different?  ü Does it matter? Why?     Writing Your seventh grader will write many times a week in humanities. In addition to writing in the content areas, independent writing will take place in a writing workshop format with frequent independent writing practice in a variety of genres. We pay close attention to proofreading, careful reflection, and revision. Students will have regular feedback via conferences with teachers and peers. They are expected to take ownership of their writing, as outlined in their “Rules and Expectations for Writing Workshop” handout.   Our major units of writing throughout the year include: ·     Free-verse poetry ·     Memoirs ·     Essays ·     Research writing ·     Reviews: books, music, movies, etc. ·     Profiles   Poem We read a poem several times a week at the beginning of class. Why Poetry?    Anyone can have something to say about a poem—indeed, there are usually more volunteers to share their thinking about the poem than there is time to allow all the good thinking to be shared! Poetry is the workhorse of our curriculum for its brevity and generosity, and we count on the opportunities it affords to explore the writer's craft with students. We believe that there is no genre that can match poetry in terms of teaching about diction—about precise, vivid words. What students learn about diction, specificity, intentionality, theme, voice, audience, organization, and punctuation shows up in students' writing across the genres.   Poetry is an extremely effective, versatile genre to teach writing craft. Poetry appeals and matters to kids because they can find or write a poem about any subject that appeals and matters to them: growing up, every sport, childhood, siblings, gender stereotypes, American history, race, comic book heroes, friendship, war, peace, toys, nature, God, parents, chocolate, identity, dogs, death, computer games, school, prejudice, even poetry itself.   Reading & Language Arts   Literature One major focus of our literature program is reading and analyzing books. In many cases we have chosen writing that dovetails with the historical period we are studying. When that is not true, the works reflect themes that are represented in that period. To personalize the history and “put a face” on historical issues, these books expose students to moral dilemmas that are relevant to their lives as well. As often as possible, we use original, primary-source material.   Independent Reading Regular independent reading is a core expectation of our program—and no single activity improves comprehension or supports writing more. We ask for your support in helping to ensure that children are reading regularly at home. We hope that children will read widely and deeply and make plans for their outside reading. We will occasionally ask them to communicate with us and each other via letters, reviews, and blog posts about their outside reading.   Vocabulary Our vocabulary is selected from Greek and Latin roots and their reading. Students take weekly vocabulary quizzes, requiring proper spelling. The children are encouraged to use the words when speaking and in their writing and to recognize them in their reading. Through practice, students are able to identify roots and apply them in context.  Grammar Students practicestandard grammar through their daily speech and writing. In addition, throughout the year, there are units of study to learn grammatical structure, writing mechanics, proper usage, and terminology. We use a grammar text. Studying grammar serves as a foundation for advanced writing.   HISTORY/Social Studies Seventh grade social studies zooms in on key moments in United States history before Reconstruction. The seventh grade curriculum starts with pre-Columbian America and European exploration and ends at the time at the conclusion of the Civil War. We have a special focus on studying the transatlantic slave trade, the Constitution and the causes of the Civil War. The students will come away with a basic understanding of the structure of government and develop some appreciation of the system under which we live. We will also discuss current events. Given the issues of religious tolerance, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, economic uncertainty, immigration, the upcoming presidential primaries, Internet safety, and other national and international issues, our discussions should be particularly lively. We encourage you, as parents, to discuss the world and national events and climate with your child. Your help greatly enhances our classroom discussion.   Through the study of events and trends, the students learn to explore the “whys” of history from multiple perspectives. They are introduced to cause-and-effect and consider the ways that events can change attitudes. We stress that history is the story of people, not the recording of dates. As teachers we try to immerse the students in the time period through role-playing, journal writing, and individual and group projects. Essay writing begins in earnest. Small research projects run throughout the year, but a large research paper/project will be part of the winter curriculum.     Books & Textbooks   Literature ·     Blood on the River,Elisa Carbone ·     Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,Sherman Alexie ·     Chains,Laurie Halse Anderson ·     Choice of pre-selected novels for reading workshop (Whinery) ·     To Kill a Mockingbird,Harper Lee (Whinery only) ·     Shelf Lifeby Gary Paulsen (and/or other short story anthologies or selections) ·     A variety of short fiction and nonfiction ·     Poems   Grammar & Vocabulary (for skill practice) ·     Vocabulary from Classical Roots, Book A, Norma Fifer and Nancy Flowers ·     100 Words Every Middle Schooler Should Know,Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries ·     Rules of the Game 1: Grammar Through Discovery,Educator’s Publishing Service, Inc.   History ·     History Alive! The United States,Bert Bower and Jim Lobdell. Teachers’ Curriculum Institute. ·     A Young People’s History of the United States,Howard Zinn ·     Upfront Magazine,The New York Times high school student magazine (biweekly). ·     A History of Us,Joy Hakim (reference) ·     Excerpts fromNarrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,by Himself ·     Excerpts fromLincoln: A Photobiography,Russell Freedman ·     A Kid’s Guide to the Bill of Rights,Kathleen Krull ·     Who Was First,Russell Freedman ·     American Independence and the Constitution (Choices, Brown University) ·     A Forgotten History: The Slave Trade and Slavery in New England (Choices, Brown University) ·     Primary sources, including: The Declaration of Independence, Christopher Columbus’s diary, The Preamble to the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, historical writing, newspapers, and letters, etc. ·     Two Miserable Presidents: The Amazing, Terrible, and Totally True Story of the Civil War,Stephen Sheinkin (passages)   We supplement the texts with many original source materials, films, pre-selected Web sites, and other history books. We love field trips and take as many high-quality trips as the schedule and budget allow.   TYPICAL WEEKLY HOMEWORK ROUTINE Most Nights(including weekends) ·     independent reading Most nights (including some weekends) ·     roughly 45 minutes of humanities homework (reading, skills, projects, writing, etc.) Weekend ·     Vocabulary or grammar work (Quizzes on Friday) ·     Literature or history work Please note: We take homework assignments very seriously as they are directly tied to our class work. If a student does not submit assignments in a timely or complete fashion, we will be in touch with you to help

	About Sarah Whinery
	I came to Gordon in the fall of 1988 as a seventh grade history and seventh and eighth grade science teacher. I became a full-time seventh grade humanities teacher when Gordon went to block scheduling the following year. Seven years ago my job changed again, and I became a secondary school counselor. Now, I have the best of both worlds. I continue to love my teaching of seventh graders, but I also get to keep up my relationship with eighth graders and their parents. As part of a team with Ralph Wales and Danny Karpf, I enjoy working with all kinds of secondary schools in the Providence area and throughout New England. Visiting and conferring with other educators gives me a window on the bigger world of education and reaffirms the work we do at Gordon School.   I am a graduate of Boston University with a BA degree in Political Science and a minor in history. Although my degree is from B.U., I spent my senior year at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor during the turbulent late 1960’s. I am married, have two grown married children, and four wonderful grandchildren.   My passions tend to revolve around the physical and natural world. I am fascinated with geology and geography’s impact on politics, economics, and global problems. I started the Memory Map project in 1990 that is now taught in the sixth grade because I was appalled at the lack of geographical and diverse cultural knowledge in the United States. I run the National Geographic Annual Geography Bee here at Gordon every December. I adore the Rocky Mountain west and spent many of my summers on a cattle ranch in Carbondale, Colorado. On a Gordon Travel Grant in 1997, I was lucky enough to retrace much of Lewis and Clark’s trail, which tied directly into my teaching of American history. Currently, I spend most of my summers with my extended family in a town of 350 year round residents on an island off the coast of Maine. I enjoy exploring, hiking, gardening, kayaking, almost all sports, and traveling whenever the opportunity arises. In the summer of 2009, I got the opportunity to go to Umtawalume, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, and help run teacher workshops for Zulu teachers. It was an experience that took me into the third world and into AIDS country, but reconfirmed the commonality of man and the buoyancy of the human spirit. Recently, I went west to the cattle ranch again and experienced my first calving season. These are some of the varied experiences that have opened my world to different people, different points of view and different ways of life, all of which give me a better perspective into teaching and counseling.