This week, students continued work on the Civil War. We started with an analysis of a map displaying battles from the war -- allowing groups to come up with the reasons why Antietam and Gettysburg were the bloodiest of the war. We moved on to using in-text citations to discern Lincoln's message on ending slavery in the Gettysburg Address without having used the word "slavery" once in the speech. 
    After have small group discussions on what reasons students would have to stand up and fight for, students engaged in a Civil War newspaper project following an outlined template provided. Many students did not complete this in the two work sessions, so they will need to finish this over the weekend.

IB Community Project groups have met twice to brainstorm issues and organizations that are already working to resolve those issues, so that they may better understand how to approach coming up with a solution. 
Students should have two session sheets logged in their process journals.
This is a long-term project that will go through the month of March and is a significant portion of their Spring Semester grade. 

8th Grade dues are past due. Please pay these as soon as you can!

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to me by calling the school, messaging on Remind @wiayear3, or e-mailing at richard.pavone@wesleyacademy.org

Have a great weekend!

Good Morning Wesley Family,

This last week we finished building up the events that would lead to the Civil War. On Monday, we took a closer look at slave life by responding to images and doing some basic readings about different aspects of life. 
Wednesday was exciting as we did a mock trial for the Dred Scott court case. Students had a passive assignment where they had to video record 30 seconds to one minute of the trial and write some supporting commentary to explain what was happening during their clip and how that relates to the court case as a whole. 
Thursday and Friday took a closer look at different perspectives on the decision to secede and students reviewed by agreeing or disagreeing to statements about that antebellum era. 

We are going to watch a Civil War documentary next week and after the Thanksgiving break. Students  need to have those permission slips turned in to be able to watch with us!

This coming Tuesday is college visit day. Most of the 8th graders have elected to go to visit UGA. Students will need $10 for lunch as we will be eating in the dining hall on UGA's campus!

    This week felt busier than most! Students started by learning about their long-term IB Community Project and putting important dates into their Google Calendar. To process everything they have learned in our class by grouping and chronology, students were given a task of sorting events on a gameboard style timeline. We continued the week by learning about some events that highlight the tension between the North and South during the Antebellum period (pre-Civil War). 
    To end the week, students participated in a "quiz quiz trade" activity to practice with content. I went around to grade their notebooks as well. 
    Students took benchmarks for all classes this week. If any are incomplete -- students will need to make them up next week. A special shout out to Jack Rogers for pulling off the only 100% on the Social Studies benchmark this time around.
    Students needed to complete a climate survey that can be found here. It is necessary after completion for students to "Mark as Done" in Ms. Mellick's Google Classroom page as receipt of completion because our school would like to show 100% student participation on the survey. 

I apologize for not having completed grading the Native Removal essays that most of your students have worked very hard on. This is an on-going process and the feedback takes time! Thank you to everyone who has paid attention to your child's learning.

8th Grade Dues are due by November 12th -- please go to MyPaymentsPlus to submit payments. 

Do not forget, there is no school on Tuesday, November 6th!