AUGUST 2021: QUARTER 1

MS. HAGIN'S
LANGUAGE ARTS CLASS
Quarterly Newsletter for Ms. Hagin's 8th Grade ELA Classroom

WELCOME TO 8TH IN THIS NEWSLETTER:

GRADE!
Welcome... 1
Hello parents, guardians, and students! I'm Ms. Hagin,
Classroom Culture... 2
and I'll be your Language Arts teacher for the year!

A Typical Class... 3
A LITTLE ABOUT ME Learning and the Brain... 4
There's nothing I love more than a rainy day where I Considerations for English
get to cuddle up with a cat, some coffee, and a
Language Learners... 5
good book. Even better is when I have a moment to

write! Sounds cheesy, right? Well, good news for Thanks and Works
you... that's basically my classroom!
Cited... 6

A Preview of My Teaching Philosophy

I believe every student has a chance to go one step

farther. I've learned that one step farther can make

all the difference for a student. You can read more

about this on page 2 of this newsletter.

A LITTLE ABOUT THIS

NEWSLETTER
I created this newsletter to keep parents, guardians,

and students in the loop about my classroom and our

goals for the school year. I believe that transparency

is important for understanding the choices I'm

making as an educator. My hope is that these

choices will help every student build a lifelong love of

learning.
CLASSROOM
CULTURE
THE BASIC GUIDELINES
Be kind, always.
We're all in this together.

Be punctual.
This is something I struggle with myself

sometimes... let's work on being on time

together!

Listen to understand, not to reply.

Even if this means taking a moment to think.

Listen closely and ask questions.

At the beginning of each school year, we will all

come together to expand on these expectations as a

class.

THE GROWTH MINSET

Fear of failure is very real. By shifting a

student's focus away from their fear to

embolden the improvement process, students

flourish because they have room to grow and

succeed by their own standards. By helping

them achieve this mindset, they focus more

on the learning process rather than the many

possible end results.

If instead of looking outwardly for the

encouragement, they look inwardly, they can

find the motivation within themselves to

treat stress as another part of the learning

process and not be intimidated by it.

WHAT A TYPICAL CLASS
MAY LOOK LIKE
At the start, everyone will have 10 minutes
to read any book of their choosing.
My classroom library is full of novels and

books of all varieties, so choose freely!

If you need help deciding on a book,

come talk to me for recommendations!

Next is warm-ups!
Each class, we will likely have an activity

based on an informational format. This

can include videos, articles online, or

even music.

The purpose of this is to get your gears

turning for the day's lesson.

Leading by example.
I try often to teach by using activities

where I model a process (as in, show how

something is done) for the class.

Many of my lessons have real-world

applications. My hope is that these

lessons will be practical for your lives in

high school, and even as adults.

Digital literacy.
It's a fact that technology has become a

constant factor in our lives. It's only

going to keep getting more advanced, so

we must work with it, not against it.

Together, we will use a variety of

methods to help you express your ideas

to the fullest extent!

 "Culturally
LEARNING AND THE
responsive BRAIN
DID YOU KNOW?
pedagogy has
the ability to help According to Zoretta Hammond (2015),

responsive teaching is a multi-faceted

culturally

students build approach to learning environments that promotes

something called neuroplasticity.

intellective
KEY TERMS:
capacity, also
Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT):
called fluid "Recognizing students' cultural displays of

intelligence and learning ... as a scaffold in order to

promote effective information processing"

intellective (Hammond, 2015).

Pedagogy:
competence." Usually refers to teaching techniques.

According to Cole (2019), "Pedagogy in

education concentrates on the different

(Hammond, 2015) learning styles of students."

Neuroplasticity:
The brain's ability to create or reorganize

connections through learning, leading to

"an unlimited amount of gray matter in

response to our continuous learning"

(Hammond, 2015).

WHY THIS MATTERS IN THE

CLASSROOM
When a brain is calm and relaxed, it acts as an information

sponge. When a brain is stressed or senses danger, including

emotional danger, it triggers fight or flight mode (Hammond,

2015).

When we build relationships in the classroom through CRT , we

actively encourage brain growth because we give the brain a

space to be calm and relaxed. This can be achieved by shaping

pedagogy into a classroom culture that is inviting, collaborative,

affirming, and challenging in all the right ways. Students have a

chance to free their minds... and fill their brains!

 CONSIDERATIONS WHAT IS A HIGH-
FOR ENGLISH CHALLENGE HIGH-
LANGUAGE SUPPORT
LEARNERS CLASSROOM?
According to Milner et al. (2019),
In Figure 1 below, there's an axis
high student engagement should
representing the kind of
be a priority in all classrooms and
classroom engagement that
"requires an explicit and
results in certain outcomes for
intentional focus on learning
students. With low-support and
tasks that are rigorous, draw
high-challenge, students are at
upon student references, offer
risk of becoming too anxious or
multiple pathways for learning,
frustrated. In a low-support and
Working together with students,
and give students an active role
low-challenge classroom,
we strive for the same outcomes
in knowledge construction."
students are mostly bored. On
but offer supports that make it

the other side of that, in a high-

possible for their learning to take

support but low-challenge

WHAT DOES THIS place in a less stressful way.

classroom, students get too MEAN FOR Some of the many suggestions

comfortable. None of these are

ENGLISH from Gibbons (2015) include

good for authentic learning.

LANGUAGE
opportunities for students to

However, In a high-challenge write in their mother tongue,

high-support classroom, LEARNERS? formatting papers through a

students see massive success!

Since high-challenge and high- sequence, phrases or sentence

HIGH CHALLENGE engagement is necessary for stems to experiment with,

Learning/engagement authentic learning, tasks and working in groups or pairs, as

HIGH SUPPORT

zone
work should NOT be simplified... well as offering texts in both
LOW SUPPORT

Frustion/anxiety zone
(the zone of proximal

development)
it should be scaffolded instead English and the students' mother

(Gibbons, 2015). This is the most tongue. Combined with the

equitable and meaningful growth mindset mentioned on

Comfort zone Boredom zone

approach. (To learn more about page 2, students have plenty of

(Figure 1) LOW CHALLENGE (Gibbons, 2015) scaffolding, read below.) space and chances to succeed!

What is Scaffolding in the Classroom?

Just like the name suggests, This means that the student will

scaffolding is creating be able to apply this

supports around a student's experience to other learning

learning experience. These opportunities in the form of

supports eventually turn into mental strategies, critical

a stable foundation for thinking, and problem-solving

knowledge. The goal of this is techniques. These things

that once the scaffolding is become incredibly valuable

eventually removed, the both in and out of school! In

student's learning will be able fact, the ultimate goal is real-

to stand on it's own. world applications to these

skills.
THANKS FOR READING!
If you have any additional questions about this school year and what we're doing, don't hesitate to reach

out. I'm very excited to get started on this year with all of you!

Email:
hhagin@msudenver.edu

Phone:
720 - 340 - 8382

WORKS CITED
Cole, K. (2019, June 11). Pedagogy in Education: More Than a Buzzword. Retrieved from

https://www.schoology.com/blog/pedagogy-education-more-buzzword

Gibbons, P. (2015). Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning: Teaching English Language Learners in the

Mainstream Classroom. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Hammond, Z. (2015). Culturally responsive teaching and the brain: Promoting authentic engagement and rigor

among culturally and linguistically diverse students. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin, a SAGE company.

Milner, H. Richard, et al. "These Kids Are out of Control": Why We Must Reimagine "Classroom Management"

for Equity. Corwin, 2019.