Theme

The theme of a story is the meaning, moral, or main message the writer wishes to share with the reader. This message or moral might be a lesson about life or an insight into human nature. Most themes are not stated directly; the reader must infer them from the details and events of the story. Different readers may find different themes within the same story. Themes can be revealed by

-thinking about the meaning of the title of the story
-skimming the story for key phrases and sentences about big ideas such as courage, freedom, or honesty
-examining how the main character changes or noting what he or she learns about life

MJHS families-

MJHS families-

Please be aware of the following situation:

A male in a white van with no side-body windows and no license plate followed a student closely and repeatedly drove in front of her on Wednesday afterschool en the El Monte area.

Please advise your student to be aware of their surroundings. If you or your student observe a person and vehicle matching the description above, please contact the Chico Police Department immediately at 897-4911 (emergency) or 897-4900.

Initial Reading Assessments

Now that my classes are all reading from a novel, I have the opportunity to hear each student read aloud from a common source. Over the next couple of weeks, I hope to hear every student read at least a paragraph aloud during class. I will then assign a distinction of 1, 2, 3, or 4 to roughly correspond with below basic, basic, proficient and advanced. While it appears on AERIES, This is in no way a graded assignment. Nor is it scientific or formal. Rather, it is a simple formative baseline for me to track growth. When hearing your student read aloud, I will consider many factors including tracking, errors, pacing (believe it or not , most try to read too fast), recognition of dialogue, inflection, volume, and comfort with challenging vocabulary. I plan to complete this informal assessment multiple times this year and to gradually emphasize struggling readers more and more. In a perfect world, everyone ends with a 4 by May. Please understand that this initial score is the least reliable as anxiety is a key issue. I expect many kids are simply scared to read, and we will work through those fears slowly. If you would like to help your student read more confidently, have them read aloud to you at home. Just a paragraph here or there. If they hate it, that’s a pretty good indicator that they need to do it more. Lastly, reading aloud is a very helpful process, but it does not always translate into reading comprehension. If you see your son or daughter reading for school or pleasure, ask them about it. What are they reading? What is it about?...

Thanks.

Kurt Rix

Back to School Night 2011

Website and Contact Information

Rules and Procedures

Grading

Framework and Overview 7th and 8th

Things to Know...

Five Starts in Writing

1. Make a startling claim

2. Pose a question

3. Offer a definition

4. Draw a comparison

5. Make a general statement (not a great choice for a hook)

Things to Know

Binder Reminders/Agendas are crucial to success.

Absences are crippling to performance.

The dress code is in force and doable.

It is hard to be too strict.

Kids lose stuff...expensive stuff.

Kids lie.

Kids steal.

Kids respond to structure and respect adults who maintain it.

Class time is precious.

High school demands students are responsible for themselves.

Contact Information

It is my preference that you use my webpage, mrix.blogspot.com, to access class information.

To contact me please email me at krix@chicousd.org.

I have a voice mail as well but it is very difficult and inconvenient to check here at school.