Seventh Grade Blog

HUMANITIES 7th graders have wrapped up our unit on short stories by reading and reflecting on the collection of short stories entitled Flying Lessons as well as creating short stories of their own. We started by outlining stories around real events that happened in our lives and subsequently fictionalized some, none, or all of the details in the stories. Ask the 7th graders to share their completed stories with you! In social studies, we have started preparing for our Boston Massacre mock trial. There are eight teams preparing to either defend or prosecute the soldiers or captain involved in the... Read More

HUMANITIES Next week, the seventh grade will complete two big milestones in Humanities. They will finish the historical fiction novel, Chains. Students have written thoughtful analyses of the character traits of the book’s protagonist, Isabel, along with creative illustrations representing her character traits visually. Additionally, students are finishing their projects revolving around the story of Ona Judge, an enslaved woman who ran away from George and Martha Washington and was never caught. Through analyzing primary and secondary documents, students have created projects ranging from comic books to diary entries demonstrating the factors that played into Ona Judge’s ultimate decision to... Read More

HUMANITIES 7th graders are tackling intense subject matter in both Social Studies and English Language Arts. We started reading Chains, a historical fiction novel from the perspective of an enslaved girl set in New York City during the American Revolution. While reading Chains in ELA, we are continuing our study of Early America, focusing on the Atlantic Slave Trade. In both classes, we are focusing on the theme of freedom and what it means to be free. Ask your seventh graders when they feel most free; they have a lot of interesting ideas to share! Sammy   MATH While adjusting... Read More

HUMANITIES In Humanities, 7th graders are finishing their work around The Outsiders and a mini-geography unit in Social Studies. They are in the process of writing the final drafts of letters of advice to specific characters from the book, in which they are either giving or seeking advice, while using text-based evidence. If only the teenagers from the book could have received these letters earlier! Next, we will read select Sherlock Holmes stories in English Language Arts and begin focusing on Early America, before and after 1492, in Social Studies. Ask your children about their letters of advice; they might... Read More

HUMANITIES 7th graders has one week left to complete their class novels for the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) project. With a healthy amount of debating, arguing, and compromising, each class’ novel is coming into form. The 7th grade is also in the midst of our Holocaust and Human Behavior unit. Students have read Anne Frank’s graphic biography, will start reading her diary next week, and have learned about the evolution of antisemitism, World War I, the Treaty of Versailles, and the struggles of the Weimar Republic. Today, the students listened to the story of Holocaust survivor Sami Steigman, and... Read More

HUMANITIES 7th graders of been working on two concurring projects in Social Studies and English Language Arts. In Social Studies, students have been researching different ways in which housing insecurity affects our society and our communities. They have diligently been finding useful information to incorporate into letters that they are writing to inform and exhort people not to sit idly by while this problem persists. They are presenting some of their findings to the rest of the school next week while culminating the supply drive they’ve organized. In ELA, 7E and 7F have just begun the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing... Read More

HUMANITIES 7th graders have been working hard in Humanities, blending their English Language Arts and Social Studies classes across several different units and projects. They have been writing persuasive letters on topics of their choice, practically preparing for more focused and research-based letters centered around the seventh grade’s service project focused on housing insecurity. At the same time, we are reading a book of short stories curated by Ellen Oh entitled, Flying Lessons and Other Stories, in which we are focusing on the structure and elements of a short story while analyzing how the diverse series of characters in each story... Read More