Back to School Night

Welcome to Room 20!

Miss Joanna Johnson

Social Studies

Papers on Tables

• You might be wondering why the papers are on the table.
• Well, sometimes everyone struggles emotionally and/or academically, and hearing words of encouragement from you will really help your child/guardian.
• I will collect them at the end of the session.
• What the papers on the tables are is on the next slide.

Papers on Tables

Your child/guardian’s name: _____________________________________________________________

Your name: ___________________________________________________________________________

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Words of Encouragement For Your Child/Guardian

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1. Sometimes during the year, your child/guardian might need some encouraging words after they have had a bad day or something negative happened in their life. What encouragement would you like to give them during times like this? I will share with them what you wrote. ________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________________

For 4th Period only

• Because your child/guardian has a different teacher for Language Arts, you will not be getting a lot of information specifically about this class and information about children this age.
• Therefore, I am including the slides that I am sharing in the Language Arts block at the end of this slide deck. That information starts on slide #10.

MCEF/PTA

• Thank you to MCEF for funding all of the amazing programs and technology, including the classroom’s Chromebooks. Families can still donate.
• Thank you to PTA for enhancing classroom programs. Families can still become a member.

Social Studies

• Students will develop an understanding of chronological and spatial thinking, research, evidence, point of view, and historical interpretation.
• They will study the people and events of major ancient civilizations.
• Students in 6th grade will learn that geography is of special significance in the development of the human story.
• They will develop higher levels of critical thinking by considering why, where, and when civilizations developed, why they became dominant, and why they declined.
• The following ancient civilizations will be studied: Early Humans, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Israel, India, China, Greece and Rome. The textbook that they will be using is History Alive! The Ancient World. The textbook is also online and has many more articles than the paper textbook, so no paper textbooks will be sent home unless requested by families.

Why is Social Studies important?

• “If you want to understand today you have to search yesterday.”
• Pearl S. Buck, American novelist (1892-1973)
• History is important. More than any other topic, it is about us. Whether one deems our present society wondrous or awful or both, history reveals how we got to this point.
• James W. Loewen
• History is important because it teaches us about past. And by learning about the past, you come to understand the present, so that you may make educated decisions about the future.
• Richelle Mead

AI

• In Social Studies, it’s important to use all of the tools we can to become successful thinkers, writers, and learners.
• Generative AI is the latest tool to come around. Please raise your hand if you know what that is.
• One definition I found for Chat GPT was: “Chat GPT stands for Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer and was developed by an AI research company, Open AI. It is an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot technology that can process our natural human language and generate a response. Simply put – you can ask Chat GPT a question, and it will give you an answer.” (lighthouseguild.org)

AI

• As minors, your child/guardian is not considered old enough to use Chat GPT and other AI programs, and it is not approved by the district, so they won’t be creating an account in class. Also, children between the ages of 13 and 18 have to have parent consent in order to use ChatGPT and other AI programs.
• Generative AI is not going away, so we must learn how to use it appropriately (everyone), we must be able to teach how to use it appropriately (families), we must figure out how best to use it in the classroom (teachers and students), and know the pros and cons of using it (everyone).

Demonstration of Magic School AI

• The district has approved Magic School AI. I am going to demonstrate and show you what students will be using in Language Arts and/or Social Studies.
• Let’s go ahead and look at some things it can do.
• Afterwards, let’s have a discussion about it.

The next slides are for families where their child/guardian don’t have me for Language Arts.

My Background

• This is my nineteenth year at Miller, and my twenty-ninth year teaching overall.
• I have taught 1st, 5th, 6th, 7th, & 8th grade.
• I received a B.A. in History and earned a teaching credential from Loyola Marymount University.
• I received a M.A. from National University in Curriculum Development and Leadership.

Philosophy

• I believe that every child can learn and be successful.
• I have high expectations for all students based on their academic level.
• I believe in fostering the whole child to be successful in life.
• I teach that mistakes are okay and that everyone learns from their mistakes.
• I want the classroom to be a safe and supportive place, allowing everyone to be their authentic self.

Reminders

• It is very important that your child/guardian eats a healthy breakfast. Brains and bodies need the energy to be successful socially, emotionally, physically, and academically.
• Children at this age should be getting between 9 and 12 hours of sleep every night. Please be mindful of that when you schedule activities after school.
• Students should be doing no more than two hours of homework each night. This does not include weekends or holidays, or school breaks. They should not be doing any school homework over the weekend. Young brains need the break.
• If you feel that your child is doing more than two hours of homework a night, please contact your child’s teacher(s) and/or counselor.

Life Skills

• The Mustang Way which is Be Respectful, Be Responsible, and Be Caring is our Miller Beliefs.
• I focus on Life Skills and Communication Skills. Mastery of these skills will lead to success in life.
• I focus on how to work in cooperative groups, which leads to the ability to work with others in a career.
• More life skills that are very important are critical thinking, analysis, learning about multiple perspectives about the same event, discussing the ethics and morals of people and events, researching online and understanding bias, global connections, fostering a sense of civic responsibility, and connecting ancient events to modern times.

Language Arts

• Students who read well learn the tempo and structure of language. It is expected that they will master skills in literary analysis and learn to trace evidence to support an idea.
• Students will study units of fictional narrative, expository reading and writing, argumentation, comparing themes across genres, and research. There is a strong focus on the analysis of informational (non-fiction) text.
• Students are expected to gain a command of English conventions (including spelling) appropriate to 6th-grade level and beyond.
• Specific curriculum that will be used is IBD for reading comprehension and analysis, Units of Study for essay writing, CommonLit.org for specific concepts related to Reading Comprehension and Analysis, and Quill.org for Conventions and Grammar.

Why is Language Arts Important?

• Writing is a skill, not a talent, and this difference is important because a skill can be improved by practice.
• Robert Stacy McCain
• Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else’s shoes for a while.
• Malorie Blackman
• The content of a book holds the power of education and it is with this power that we can shape our future and change lives.
• Malala Yousafzai
• We learn from failure, not from success.
• Bram Stoker

Changing Times

• With the rise of the number of individuals with depression and anxiety, and the increase in the number of people committing suicide, mental health has become something I am very passionate about.
• I am trying to incorporate more community building into my classroom.
• Helping students feel that they belong, and are seen and heard is a big part of it.