Humanities Update (5/6)

Hello Families of House C Students:

It's another Friday, so here's another update of the work done this past week in Humanities!

We started off this week by watching some debate examples. We used one to analyze the format of a debate, and a second served as an exercise in 'tracing an argument' - being able to identify the parts of an argument in an oral presentation. This is a skill that will be utilized for the remainder of middle school and through high school! In in the midst of a presidential election year, it also seems like quite a good skill to have!

We continue working on our debate preparation with a goal of presenting our actual debate at the start of next week. Students finalized their individual research and evidence collecting, and spent time with their debate team to plan. (They are still using procon.org for the majority of this work).

We introduced the concept of an argument claim, and what makes it different from writing a claim for  an opinion or informational text. After identifying some good examples, students worked to develop their own claim in response to the question: "What food system best supports the needs of the United States?" This might be an interesting thing to talk about with your student! What is their claim? What evidence do they have to support that claim?

While 8th graders were taking their science NECAPs, we spent some time working on our independent book projects. Students are now just 25 days from when their book project and blog post are due. These assignments are on Google Classroom.

We completed another weekly check on our United States geography and capital naming! It might be interesting to ask how they view their progress on this skill so far! Links to practice are on Google Classroom!

As mentioned above, we will have our debates next week. We will also introduce the format of a  written argument, so students can build on their claims. It should be an exciting week!