For the next month, students will not be writing a quick thought nightly. Instead, students will be working on an assignment from Google Classroom. They will chose the article that they read as well as a prompt they must answer. They will do all of their work on a Google Doc provided for them weekly in Google Classroom. They do know how to access Google Classroom. Make sure that when they log on to Google, they start with a username of lastnamefirstinitialmiddleinitial@s.dcsdk12.org.
Their password is Dcsd and then their lunch number. Please let me know if there is any issue logging on. The most important part is the s. after the @ symbol.
Students will only chose one prompt per week to answer and that prompt is their choice. An example of a good response can be found below. Please note this is a comparison response that includes reading 3 articles. Students will still be responsible for reading 90 minutes per week, however reading the articles/story can be included in this time.
After reading, “The Amazing Penguin Rescue” by Lauren Tarshis, “The Amazing Penguin Rescue” by Dyan deNapoli, and “Update on Penguin Rescue Efforts from Oil Spill in South Atlantic”, I found similarities and differences in each one, of how the penguins were rescued.
First of all, there were similarities between the three articles. In all three, the penguins were oil infected. In article #1, it states, “You are not the only penguin who has become soaked in the poisonous oil. Thousands of others have been trapped in the massive oil slick.” The way the author wrote this article, is where the reader is imagining himself or herself as the penguin. This paragraph, paragraph seven, shows how the penguins were oil infected. In article #2, in paragraph one, it says, “In a matter of days, thick, toxic liquid had covered about 20,000 penguins.” Like article #1, the author explains how the penguins were oil infected. In the third article, it also showed how penguins were oil infected. It states, “Wildlife biologists estimate that half of the 20,000-penguin colony have some exposure to the oil and over 300 oiled penguins have already died.” In paragraph two, the penguins were oil infected in this article. Another similarity the articles have is, people help the penguins by taking them to a rescue center, or a rescue operation helped. Article #1 says, “A team of workers and volunteers has transformed a warehouse into a penguin rescue center.” This explains that the people who helped the penguins helped them in a rescue center. In article #2, it states, “Just outside of Cape town, a large warehouse was turned into a rescue center for oiled penguins.” Here, it shows how the help was done in a rescue center. Paragraph three in article #3 says, “...the difficult wildlife rescue operation…” This part tells about the rescue operation that helped the penguins out.
While reading, I also found differences in the articles too. In the first passage, it states, “A man catches you. You lash out viciously with your powerful jaws and razor sharp beak.” The penguins don’t like the humans, because they don’t know the humans are helping them. The other two articles don’t say the penguins didn’t like it. It doesn’t even mention how the humans took them to help. Another difference in the articles is, in paragraph 2 it says, “But for me, the most inspiring part was working with the volunteers.” The other articles don’t talk about what the volunteers felt, besides sickness from the smell. The other two articles probably would have said, “The most inspiring part was getting to see penguins.” The opinions on how the rescue process worked could have been different. Another difference was found in the third article. It says, “...3000 penguins have been rescued, along with seabirds and seals.” the other articles don’t say anything about other animals besides the fish that the penguins were eating. In articles one and two, the place the penguins were helped at was only a penguin rescue center. In article three, it was a marine wildlife operation. So, articles one and two, have nothing to do with seabirds and seals unlike article three.
“The Amazing Penguin Rescue” by Lauren Tarshis, “The Amazing Penguin Rescue” by Dyan deNapoli, and “Update on Penguin Rescue Efforts from Oil Spill in South Atlantic” have similarities and differences of how the penguins were rescued.
Students will be graded weekly using a rubric. They can use this rubric at home to make sure they have included all of the required parts. They are encouraged to talk with me throughout the week to help them improve their writing as well. They can also check back in their email after the first week to see feedback that was provided to them. This will also help them improve each week.