1. 100 word challenge – Due Monday 29th August
2. Reading Log (include reading for literacy circles) -Due Monday 29th August
3.  Hotmaths – Due Monday 29th August
4. Reading  task (Lady in Blue) – this will be discussed in the reading lesson Wednesday and due Tuesday 30th August

I can use the 5 BIG QUESTIONS with ‘The Lady in Blue’

There will be NO Classmasters this week (week 6) due to MVIMP camp. We will schedule 2 sessions in week 7, one on Tuesday and one on Friday so be prepared.

1. 100 word challenge – Due Monday 22nd August
2. Reading Log (include reading for literacy circles) -Due Monday 22nd August
3. Reading  task (My Forever Home) – this will be discussed in the reading lesson Wednesday and due Tuesday 23rd August                 My Forever Home                                                                                    Questions for My Forever Home                                                            Describing Characters In Fiction
4. Hotmaths – Due Monday 22nd August

Classmasters will be held on Thursday this week.

There will be NO Classmasters next week (week 6) due to MVIMP camp. We will schedule 2 sessions in week 7.

Due Monday 14th August

1. HotMATH task set
2. 100 word challenge
3. Reading Log
4. Reading  task – 5 Facts of Fiction (Short story – Charles) – this piece will be posted after the reading lesson tomorrow.
5. Classmasters will be held on Fridays from next week – please check the timetable for when you are presenting (see link below)

Class Masters 2017

Due Monday 7th August

1. HotMATH task set
2. 100 word challenge
3. Reading Log
4. Reading theme task – Click on links below

Steamed Windows-short story for homework

Six Things You Need to Know About Themes

Classmasters will be held on Fridays from next week – please check the timetable for when you are presenting (see link below)

Class Masters 2017

These are the notes for the questions to be looked at as you respond to the story “Joseph Bryant”.

Six Things You Need to Know About Themes

THEME- is the important human concept the author wants you to think about during the story.

It is connected to the message– The message is what the author believes about this theme. Their opinion- the moral/ the understanding about what people are like/ what society is like/ what you should or shouldn’t do in life.                               eg- loss can be a theme. The message about this theme might be- we all need to experience loss to help us understand each other OR loss can make you cautious

Read through the six facts, then read the story together, then answer the questions one a time for this story.

1. When you discuss the questions below, make sure you share some quotes/passages from the story that support what you say.- Themes are abstract nouns. Themes are nouns, just things really. But they aren’t the kinds of things one can easily observe with the five senses. They are ideas and concepts and feelings. You can’t see loneliness, for example, you can only see examples of it. Which ideas and concepts and feelings does this story help you understand? What are some parts of the story where you can most clearly see them?

2. Themes are important human issues. People don’t write fiction just to kill time or make a living, they write it to talk about important truths in a unique way. Many ideas in human existence are best explored through examples. Stories can be seen as examples that represent ideas a writer wants to talk about. What does the author want you to talk about after reading this story? What is the author saying about what people are/should be like? What are the examples of this in the story?

3. Stories apply to many readers. Ideas like envy, loneliness, and greed enter into all of our lives at one time or another. The best stories are those that speak to the most readers in the most powerful way. What sort of people might get the most from this story? Can you think of a few different sorts of people with experiences that would mean this story has an important message for them? What parts of the story make you think this?

4. Events represent ideas. It’s not always easy to realise that stories carry both literal and figurative meaning and that the author is choosing specific events to convey specific messages. What’s the event(s) in this that have a figurative meaning? What might it mean? What might it be representing about humans and what we do or expect? Are there ‘things’ in the story that might have a figurative meaning and represent an idea or concept linked to the theme?

5. Experience evolves in patterns. All beings are, to some extent, creatures of habit. Because of this, the same things seem to show up in our lives at different points in time. If an author chooses to use repetition in a story it is usually because they want to emphasise this. There’s often a thread of similarity that ties together the important events in their lives.  What is a repeating pattern or event in this story? What might it be representing about humans and what we do or expect?

6. Fiction is instructional. As a genre, fiction exists to entertain us, but it also exists to teach us valuable lessons, often the kind that are not easy to learn unless we’re wrapped up in a good yarn. We’re supposed to think about them, to identify the author’s opinion of them, and to see if we agree. It’s not enough to just identify the theme, we have to uncover what the story has to say about that theme. The answer to this is the message or moral that the author has chosen to share. What does the author say about the themes in this story? What would they like changed? Do you agree? Would other people disagree? Why?

Joseph Bryant

By Anneke

Love is a dumb and dangerous word. People misuse the word more than any other in the dictionary. “I LOVE this apple, don’t you?” or “I just LOVE this shirt!” but do they actually mean it? Most people don’t understand the actual definition of love. I do, which is why it frustrates me so much when people say that they love each other when they don’t. I know for a fact they don’t. And don’t even get me started when people say they are “in love” with someone else. That phrase is destroyed by couples that say how they are “in love” with someone after a month of texting. They don’t and never will understand the true meaning of love.

How do I know what the word means? Joseph Bryant is the reason why, he was my third grade sweetheart. When we played tag during recess, he always went out of his way to tag me to be it. We would always walk in line together and sometimes when the teacher wasn’t looking, we would hold hands. He always shared his colored pencils and markers with me. He is the reason why I can do basic maths and he is the reason why I can count to 10 in Spanish. He is also the reason why I know the true definition of love.

You might be thinking, ‘You were in third grade, you didn’t know any better,’ but I did. One day when we were getting ready to go outside, Joseph pulled me out of line to go get a drink with him. I was nervous that I would get in trouble, but with Joseph, I knew I was safe. I followed him to the drinking fountain where I would have the conversation that I will remember forever.

I thought Joseph was going to kiss me or tell me that he wanted me to be his girlfriend, I remember having butterflies in my stomach and wondering what my mother would say if I had to tell her that I got myself a boyfriend. But I soon snapped back into reality once Joseph told me that he had cancer. Being in the third grade, I didn’t really know what cancer was. I jumped up and screamed and shouted and said “Oh my goodness, congratulations Joey!” but soon after my exclamation, I realized my reaction was inappropriate. Joseph then explained to me what cancer was and that he wasn’t even sure what it meant but that his mom said he wouldn’t be feeling good and he would have to spend a lot of time in the hospital. His mother also told him that he would soon have to stop going to school, which meant I would not see him anymore, which meant I would have to find a new best friend and crush. I didn’t know how to respond correctly so I just hugged him, for a very long time. As we were hugging, he whispered to me, “I love you, Charlotte Rose,” and gave me a peck on the cheek. Just as he was pulling away, our class returned from recess outside, forcing me to snap back into reality once again.

Later that day, my mother picked me up from school and asked how my day was. I started the conversation with, “Same old, same old. Lunch was gross and the kids are mean and smelly.” But then I remembered my conversation with Joseph so I asked my mother, “What is cancer?” and immediately she started crying. Joey’s mother had contacted my mother earlier in the day, making her aware of the current situation. “Oh honey, it means Joseph will be very sick for a long time. I talked to his mother and she’s going to make sure that we can set up dates where if Joseph is feeling okay, you can visit him in the hospital.” It took a second, I remember, for everything to set in. I would be losing my best friend and I didn’t know how to respond. I was angry and upset and so confused; what did Joseph ever to deserve this? He always shared with others and he always did his homework! He was also my best friend and I thought at the time, he would be my future husband as well.

Three years went by. Three painful years of visiting Joseph every single day in the hospital. Well, almost everyday; sometimes he was too sick for me to visit. Joseph ended up having a Wilms tumor, a type of cancer that starts in the kidneys. He held on for longer than any of the doctors or nurses thought he would. Despite his condition, he would have flowers everyday in his room for me and he would always thank me for visiting even though I always told him that it wasn’t necessary and that there wasn’t anywhere else I would rather be.

I think why I fell in love with Joseph was because he wasn’t afraid of the unknown, and of course because his mom bought the smelly markers and he would let me borrow them. But Joseph was also the strongest person I’ve ever met. Even if he was in complete pain, he would always have a smile on his face.

Joseph passed away after those three years. He fought against his disease every single day. Maybe that’s why I loved him; he knew things were not going to get better, yet he still tried. He struggled and watching him struggle was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. But towards the end, I could see him slowing down. He would grin instead of smile from ear to ear when I would come to see him. Our conversations would get shorter and that lead to his breaths getting shorter which then lead to his days getting shorter. Being so young, I was intrigued by someone who was so sick, but managed to try and stay the same person. Joseph did everything he could to hide his struggling from those around him because he knew it would upset us, which it did. On his last day, when he was really having a hard time, the nurses warned us that Joseph might not be getting better and the hospital was only able to do so much to help him. I went over to his bed and whispered, “I love you, Joseph Michael,” and went home for the night, knowing that my murmur of love would most likely be the last words that I would exchange with my best friend.

I would not ever cry more than I did that night. Loving someone that is gone forever is one of the hardest things you can do. You can still love them, but you can never hear their laugh again or see their smile or hold their hand. You can just try and remember how everything felt with them to the best of your ability but everyone knows it won’t ever be the same. Nothing will be the same, ever.

And Joseph Bryant, my fifth grade sweetheart, is the reason why I know the true definition of love.