Students will study culture and life in other countries. Using an approach created by Peace Corps workers, we will study the elements of culture and work to identify and empathize with various peoples. Our trip to Heifer Project's Overlook Farm will give us a first-hand experience of lifestyle and traditions of people in Poland, Kenya, Thailand, Peru, and Guatemala. In-depth extensive research on a modern country will give students an opportunity to learn more about a particular place and its people. Through this unit, students become more conscious of the values they share with their families, friends, and communities. Students learn to use analytical tools that help combat stereotypical thinking and enhance cross-cultural communication. They will also learn to recognize and appreciate differences in perception among individuals and cultures, define culture and recognize its role in developing perceptions of ourselves and others, and challenge assumptions about other cultures.
7th - 8th Grade
In keeping with our school's focus on social justice, Uppers Theme (social studies) is a year-long study of labor conditions in the United States and their historic contexts. Students will explore these questions:
• What has the work/equity situation been historically and what is it currently?
• Why is it the way it is?
• What do people do to address this problem?
We will cover: the Bread and Roses Strike, the US constitution, Nike labor practices, the Newsies, the Triangle Fire, sweatshops, Mother Jones, Christopher Columbus and the Tainos, wealth gap statistics, the Mill Girls in Lowell, Lewis Hine, Shay’s Rebellion, and excerpts from the work of Barbara Erenreich and Michael Moore. Students will receive information from lectures, reading, and film. For each section we study, they will represent their understandings through either drama, writing, or art. There will be a factual quiz and analytic essay for each area we study.
The 6th grade year begins with a study of culture, racism and segregation through the book, Maniac Magee. From there, we will study Jerry Spinelli, author of Maniac Magee. Students will read some of his other fiction, including an historical fiction about the Holocaust and real-life fiction about facing life and the challenges of growing up. During our study of culture, students will read fiction that takes place in other countries during modern times. These books give students a glimpse into life in another culture and country.
7th Grade
The Lit course for the 7th graders has two basic functions
1) To help create readers who can thinking deeply and write analytically about their reading as well as make connections to real life
2) Develop technical writing skills that will help them communicate effectively with the world and prepare them for high school.
Much of the reading they will do during the 7th grade year focuses on equity, perspective, and the individual within a larger community. Students are asked to consider the essential question, “what makes a community equitable” through readings, writings, discussion and the creation of a utopian community. Readings include a combination of The Giver and Messenger both by Lois Lowry, House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelson, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, and Witness by Karen Hesse.
The 7th grade class writes and directs dramatic vignettes based on a more equitable rewriting of common fairy tales such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Little Red Riding Hood, and Three Billy Goats Gruff.
8th Grade
Eighth grade lit focuses on the concepts of Self (identity) and Other (empathy). During Self we explore what we need to be happy and good. Readings are used as jumping off points for understanding our own motivations and needs. In Other we work on listening deeply- to characters in books, to each other, and to strangers- in order to understand what goes on for them. All reading is accompanied by both projects and reflection.
Readings include a play (Raisin In The Sun), graphic novels (American Born Chinese and Persepolis), a novel (The Diary of Adrian Mole), biography (The American Teenager, The Freedom Writers Diary, Our America), non fiction (Black Like Me, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, Holding On), and selected short stories and poetry.*
*Authors in order: Lorraine Hansberry, Gene Yang, Marjane Satrapi, Sue Townsend, Robin Bowman, Erin Gruwell, LeAlan Jones, John Howard Griffin, James Agee, and David Isay.
We focus on writing as a connection to theme studies and a response to reading . Reading carefully-chosen fiction and nonfiction, students respond in a variety of written forms and genres, such as short stories, journals, essays, poetry, mystery, and more. For example, while reading Belle Prater's Boy by Ruth White, students write mysteries using their vocabulary words. In their study of colonial America, students are asked to write an autobiography of a fictional colonial character. As we study the contemporary United States, students write a travel journal.
Inspired by the work of Lucy McCormick Calkins' The Art of Teaching Writing, and Nancy Atwell's In the Middle: Writing, Reading, and Learning with Adolescents, sixth grade teachers guide their students in an approach known as Writer's Workshop.
Writer's Workshop is quite different from the product-oriented, prescription-based methods often used to teach writing. It is designed to teach methods used by professional writers. Many teachers have found that writer's workshops are effective in helping students master the principles of process writing in particular. Writer's Workshop is a multi-step process, each of which is coached in class: Brainstorming, Organizing, Drafting, Sharing, Peer Reviewing, Teacher Conferencing, Editing, more Drafting, and Publishing. The term 'writer's workshop' refers to an environment conceived to encourage written expression. As Calkins states in the first chapter of The Art of Teaching Writing...
"English composition is a skill that can be learned rather than a content that must be covered. Teaching English, and certainly, teaching writing, must become more like coaching a sport and less like presenting information. Many of our students know their pieces of writing are far from ideal, but they may not know how to make their actual texts more like their ideal ones. If we watch how our students go about writing, then we can help them develop more effective strategies for writing."
7th - 8th Grade
The writing curriculum is divided into essays, fiction, and a research paper. In all three areas we help students develop topics of their own choosing because we believe that writing worth reading can only come from an author’s passion.
Knowing that students will have to write five paragraph essays in high school, we help them learn to put life into this often tired form. Our fiction writing is organized around James Marshall’s statement: “I find an interesting character and put him into a situation I wouldn’t want to be in.” For the research paper, students spend seven weeks gathering sources, reading, note-taking, outlining, and writing three drafts. The result is a polished five to ten page annotated paper.
6th graders will be studying number theory, geometric and measurement, and advanced computation using fractions, decimals and percentages interchangeably. In addition, experiential projects such as a student-designed Park Project and research-based Data Project will be added to enhance and reinforce learning. A Math Fair will close the year, allowing students an opportunity to research and present a math topic of their choice. Mathematical understanding in 6th grade comes through authentic problem-solving experiences with mathematics and in-depth examinations of mathematical reasoning.
7th - 8th Grade
According to the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, a solid understanding of fractions is the gateway to success in Algebra. Therefore, we begin 7th grade math by reviewing all operations with fractions and mixed numbers, with and without common denominators. Students practice using fractions in a variety of projects such as: measuring the perimeter and area of the Finer Building and creating a “Mini-Me” scale drawing of themselves, measured to 1/4th inch. Once their knowledge of fractions is stable, the students begin building a foundation of pre-algebra skills, including operations with integers; order of operations; ratio, proportion and percents; and, solving for variables. After they are carefully grouped according to learning style and pacing needs, the students work individually, in pairs and as a group. Concepts are presented by using hands-on materials and manipulatives as well as material from the Connected Math series and by practicing traditional approaches. In order to prepare for and provide strategies for success when taking high stakes standardized tests, students are periodically given quizzes, tests and practice MCAS and SSAT questions in class. All students keep a math journal for class notes and for recording a glossary of math vocabulary.
Eighth grade math is designed to lay a strong foundation for using and understanding the skills and concepts necessary for successful algebraic thinking and to prepare students for 9th grade Algebra. The students use standard 8th grade textbooks. They are introduced to and practice at their individual level of skill and understanding the following:
• solve equations
• applying equations
• inequalities and absolute value
• powers and polynomials, including factoring polynomials
• rational expressions
• linear and quadratic equations
Math Projects have included:
• Collecting, graphing and interpreting data from real sources relating to issues contributing to hunger in a diverse sampling of countries around the world. Topics that are researched include annual income, population and population density, meat consumption and life expectancy.
• Building a scale model of the Uppers Building.
• Calculating how many golf balls it would take to fill the Uppers Building, in order to understand the mathematical concept of and formula for calculating the volume of rectangles.
Students are evaluated based on the following criteria:
• Homework
• Class work/participation
• Conceptual understanding
• Problem solving skills
• Computational skills
What is Life? How can science help me answer this question? Through observation, experimentation, the scientific method, journaling, and hands-on projects we will delve into these questions. Our studies will be grouped into the following thematic units:
6th grade
Kingdoms of Life: Classification (Life Science/ Earth Science)
6th/7th grade
The Secret Language of Life: Atoms and Molecules (Chemistry/Physics)
7th/8th grade
Organization of Life: Human Biology (Anatomy/Physiology/Health)
8th grade
Instructions of Life: Heredity, Genetics and Genetic Engineering (Life Science/ Technology)
Uppers students will also participate in a science fair at the end of the year. The science fair is a great opportunity for students to learn more about topics that interest them and demonstrate their understanding of scientific inquiry.
This year, the Uppers will embark on an intensive Spanish immersion program wherein they will hear only Spanish for an hour each afternoon. Profe Yonas will focus his teaching on vocabulary and grammar so students can grow their skills and be able to use Spanish in a real-world, communicative context. The Uppers will learn the rules of Spanish grammar and the many exceptions so that they feel they can put they vocabulary words we study to use. Students will be encouraged to speak even if it means making mistakes. All students will learn Spanish as a communicative tool used by real people in real places as far away as San Cristóbal, the Dominican Republic, and as close as Main Street in Greenfield.
Much of this course is devoted to helping students explore these two questions:
• How can I get good ideas?
• How do I make those ideas happen?
Students are given open ended problems and are helped to develop passion, ambition, initiative, and perseverance in order to create their solutions. Projects are done solo, in pairs, and in groups; some last only a couple of days, others for weeks. The first third of the class is devoted exclusively to this type of work and ends with a Project Fair.
8th graders undertake a six week-long solo Ambitious Project, which is critiqued at its conclusion by a community panel. They also write, cast, direct, and perform their one act plays as part of this course. In the spring they present a summary of the understandings they have come to about the BIG QUESTIONS they have been asked to explore during the year in social studies, projects, the self and other sections of literature, and the social curriculum.
In the first half of the year Uppers explore the basic elements and principles of drawing, learning about skills and techniques with various materials and methods using black, white, and grey: pencil, charcoal, pen and ink, black ink and paint, and simple printmaking techniques such as linoleum block prints and monotype prints.
Assignments will cover the elements of visual art: line, shape and form, texture, space, and value. Art assignments include contour drawing, tonal drawing, negative shapes, perspective, highlights and shadows, portraits, self-portraits, still life and landscapes, from life and from imagination.
In the second half of the year students explore drawing and painting with color. Various color drawing and painting techniques are learned, and we introduce color theory.
Assignments will cover the principles of color mixing, color progression and color qualities such as hue, intensity, and value. Beginning with making color charts and wheels, and then create paintings using one color, two colors, and three colors, the work culminates in creating full color paintings.
Uppers have forty-five minute blocks of time, several times a week to do homework or to catch up on projects. If students finish their work or choose not to do it in school, this time is used for independent reading or working with the younger children in the school.
The year is divided into three sections for these weekly classes. During the course of the year students will study geography, crafts, and writing skills in these workshops.
6th Grade
In the first half of the year Uppers explore the basic elements and principles of drawing, learning about skills and techniques with various materials and methods using black, white, and grey: pencil, charcoal, pen and ink, black ink and paint, and simple printmaking techniques such as linoleum block prints and monotype prints.