7th grade students made it into the Springfield Republican last week! They gave advice for earth day and how to make our world a better place! Check it out!

Portraits Term 3!

This assignment asks students to take a closer look at themselves and dig deep to think about who they are. They then take several weeks to research different symbols that they could use to represent the person that they have become. Below you will see the end result, along with an excerpt from their symbolism essay, or artist statement, that goes along with their art. The written piece explains what they have chosen and how they have chosen to represent it. Students did an amazing job and we hope you enjoy them. 

"My relationship with my sister and cousin is through music notes. Since we were all small, we used to hang out and my mom and my aunt would always say learn a song for church. This is how we all started to sing together. We all used to hate doing it but now we love it. My cousin always comes over my house and we put on karaoke and sing really loud. We all start to laugh and dance it always makes us happy and helps us forget about anything that is happening around us and all the problems we have. Now we say what would we do if we didn't have to sing what would we do? That is why I chose music notes to represents my relationship with the best two people my sister and cousin."

"My grandma and I have become really close since my dad had that tragic event happen to him but every spring we garden and plant flowers and my favorite of them all is the sunflower. They make me feel powerful and give me the ability to be me, standing tall and bright they don't care about sticking out and that's what I want to do. I put three in my portrait because I have three younger siblings that I'm really close to: the middle sister and then the other two for my brothers. The butterfly means a lot to me because it means a lot to my grandma. It is her favorite animal or bug and is hung everywhere around the house."

"In my portrait, I have a lot of symbols that represents my country. I have two flags in the portrait that represents both of my sides of the family. The hill says the city I’m from, from the side of my mother. The sleeve on of my sweatshirt is the flag of my country and that is the side of my father. When I was four years old we, my family, got warned to get out of my country. That is the place my father is from. We were really mad because we loved the place and we were comfortable. Our family was all there and it was a good life. We did not have a choice to stay or leave. We had to leave and no one in the family was happy about that."

"As a child, everyone had some kind of imagination, some kind of thoughts, or memories. We can’t tell between dreams or memories, what we want to be real versus what really is. As a kid I could still remember when I wasn’t allowed to do things, and the worst moment in my life. I would dream to just have my past back, and nothing to have ever changed. Everyone at one point gets stuck with some reality, and realizes not everything is going to be perfect. We can’t change the past but we can change present time. But some people are so focused on the past that they can’t move forward. One of the most valued things to me is my memories. Representing this I chose a half dead flower, as the memories can not be brought back, but you can always provide more for yourself and others."

"The fox is a spiritual animal. The fox symbolizes intelligence, whether it is for the good or for the bad. The fox also means agile and sneaky. Myths say that the fox was a messenger to the gods. I like the reddish coat and white fur that covers his body. It is not an animal that is recognized as a predator, but is an animal to be afraid of. For that reason I like it. The fox isn’t big or small, but the right size. Not sly or mischievous, but clever. When my family was buying a house, we saw a fox at the house we were looking at and knew it was a sign. That was the house we bought. The fox is one of my favorite animals because it represents me in some ways."

"My grandpa's handkerchief is really important to me because that's the only thing I have that belonged to his. Whenever I wake up I always go to my of drawer of valuable objects and pick it up I always remember the memories of him. Like the time when my family went to my grandparents house and there was music playing and he was talking to everyone. My grandpa always wanted the girls in the family to act like ladies, but he never said that to me because I was eight years old when he died.I remember when I was doing a lot of lemonade stands I didn't have the right table so my grandpa made one for me. It was pink and had shelves with a little bored on the top of it to put Juliet's lemonade and sayings like that.I had a lot of memories, too many to write in one day. He was always my favorite person in the family because I was really close to him.I slept over and they babysat me when I was little.I always had a special connection with him, both of them and I always will."

"When I was really little, as in only weeks old, I was in my wooden cradle that was only inches off the ground. I was under the bright yellowish orange blanket that was softer than feathers. I couldn't really hear anything but I was so focused on the bright yellow blanket that I didn't really mind. It was so pretty and the ruffles in it looked like funny faces that promised laughter. I felt my slobbery lips slip into a toothless grin and I remember tossing and turning to stare at as many silly faces as possible. There was a sudden vibration that repeated itself until the pretty yellow blanket slithered off to reveal my face. I saw a curly redhead with ice blue eyes. A small creature that was about the same size as my cradle sniffed me with itś long black and white nose. Its huge round eyes were chocolate brown with large black pupils stared lovingly down at me. I saw it´s terrifying yellow teeth and caught a whiff of its rancid breath. It had a strange bright red fabric that looped around its neck. I was startled by the sudden disturbance and I cried with big globs of tears streaming down my cheeks. The giant was frightened by this outburst and she picked me up and swaddled me in the pretty yellow blanket."

"I have very few childhood memories but one thing that shoved all the others back was the summer trip of 2016 I took all summer doing, it is my best and most vivid memory of my childhood that is a once-in-a-lifetime trip. I technically went from coast to coast in one summer and I saw awesome things that very few people see but everyone wants to see. I don’t have many friends but the friends I do have are either NPCs or partial jerks but I do have my Dad who got me into lots of things like coding and computers. That got me into Youtube and editing videos of Minecraft and other topics, only recently has he given me people’s videos of the editing software I use and it is a load of help (however if I tell him that, he’ll get too excited and never stop talking to me about it)."

"When I was little kid I was born in the country of Iraq. It was very little time that I had stayed there. That still does not keep me from knowing how dangerous it is. That does not go for every part of the country though, most of it is still in its beauty of Mesopotamia.  In my country when people have relatives, they usually live on the same street. For example, when my dad bought our house in Iraq, he bought it on the same street as my whole family did. After he did that our whole entire family was living on one street and if there were any others outside our street they would have been joined in a snap. When I would get mad I would go to one of the houses to one of my relatives or parents and talk with them. This might sound weird but I sometimes get more mad about choosing which house to go to because if someone helps me out then everybody would be like, why did you not come to me?"

"I remember going to one of my first gymnastics competitions and being so nervous. I was so nervous that I made my mom gave me her jacket so no one could see me as I walked in.

Of course, that only made other people look even more but me being about six years old and not thinking about that, I tripped (I couldn't see) and almost eight people came around to ask if I was okay and I just started sobbing. After a while, I went and found my team and had a great time watching the routines before ours and the older kids in the divisions. Finally, it was my turn for floor and I didn't do badly at all surprisingly. To this day I still remember my exact score; 9.45. This is all represented on my portrait by the blue leotard on my poster because I went to this/ my first competition in it."

My Favorite Teacher Contest

I am so proud to present the winning essay by Luciana Alves. I am so darn proud of her and all of my students for their hard work on these essays. Teaching is a wonderful career, but it can be such a thankless one as well. Ms. Godden's classes and my own tackled the Barnes and Noble My Favorite Teacher Contest out of Holyoke, MA. Luciana's essay was chosen from 85 other essays as the winner for this district. She wrote about Mr. Chotkowski, an 8th grade Modern World teacher. What's so great about this choice, is that Modern World is a brand new class this year created by Mr. C himself. If you'd like to know more, read the essay below for yourself. It's worth the few minutes this morning!

Luciana Alves

February 17, 2017

Word count: 484

The Road to Success

What is a good teacher? A good teacher looks over your work, helps you fix your errors, and helps you understand what you did wrong. A good teacher is compassionate about their work, and doesn’t complain about their profession everyday. They have amusing and appealing teaching strategies and have fun but they also get their work done and have different ways of doing it. They are creative and caring and you can always count on them. While teaching, they’ll have a good sense of humor about things and they’ll put a fun twist on learning. That teacher is Mr. Chotkowski, my Modern World teacher.

He is always energetic and in a good mood and makes the class feel alive. Even on the worst day, he brightens up the room by asking us how our weekends were or just making us laugh. He makes us feel better. In our class, we have a couple students who don’t like doing their work, but Mr. Chotkowski makes what we’re learning about fun. Like this week, we did interviews for our dream job. We were put in groups and whoever did the best gets to go in front of the whole class and get interviewed by everyone. This prepares us for upcoming jobs after college that we might get. It also prepares us for talking in front of big crowds or in an interview.

Mr. Chotkowski is strict with homework but not too strict because he’ll give us time to do it but then he tells us that in college or at your job they won’t say it’s okay that you forgot to do it. He recently taught us about autonomy and what it means to get work in on time, task, technique, and team. We got to pick our own profession or our “dream job” and he’s going to put us into groups and see how our professions work together to build or make a project. He wants to see how our professions react to time, task, technique, and team and what the outcome is and what we’ve come up with.

An exceptional teacher is reasonable about grades or homework, and takes time to help students out if they need to bring their grade up. Last week, Mr. Chotkowski said that whoever dressed up for our interviews in front of the class gets an extra ten points added to their grade so their grade will go up. Almost all of the class dressed up because he was reasonable enough to give us that option. The other day, he put us into groups based on our profession and we have to build a project that coordinates us with our professions. He gives us all of those options to have fun and be creative. Mr. Chotkowski has influenced me because he is selfless and helps kids that need it, he talks with confidence every single day, and finally you can tell from his face that he enjoys teaching with a passion!   

How you are judged:

• Compelling nature of teacher’s inspiring qualities (50%)
• Sincerity of student’s appreciation (25%)
• The quality of expression and writing (25%)

Finally Presenting... six word memoirs!

Sixth Grade Six Word Memoirs

Fall 2016-Spring 2017

Enjoy - and please write your favorites in the comments below! 

Patriot Pen Essay Contest Winner!

I am so proud to announce the Patriot Pen Essay winner for the fall of 2016 in the town of West Springfield.

And the winner is....

Haley Curtis!

Congratulations to Haley for winning first place... and $500 dollars!

Taryn Conway came in second place... and won $250!

Alex Cunningham came in third place... and won $100!

Below are some photos from our small ceremony congratulating the winning students. AND if you keep reading, you will get to read the winning essay by Haley Curtis!

  

Alex - 3rd Place

  

Taryn - 2nd Place

Haley - 1st Place

  

All the winners together! 

All the winners and their loved ones! 

The 1st Place Winner: 

The America I Believe

By: Haley Curtis

America, we believe it to be safe, equal and loving, and we keep working our way up to be the greatest as we can be. To be loved, cared for, and protected, I believe in what America is, and what we stand for which is equality, and freedom. I trust my country, and I trust our military, as long as we keep evolving from where we are to be better there is nothing to worry or fear.  We are equal and free, there's no taking down the America I believe in.

The diversity in America ranges from all over the world. Immigrants come here for their equality and freedom. They come to be treated right and fairly. In 1964 the Civil Rights Act ended all the local laws to ban segregation, making America come together. Making one another feel capable of taking down our fears and threats of discrimination is what I believe in. I believe one day we will have built a country where no one is discriminated, where no one can destroy America. I believe there is no better country, America is stronger. This is the reason why I believe in only the best for America and I do not forget but apologize for our times of intolerance for one another.

Dedication to love is what holds America together. The military must have the companionship for this country to devote themselves to serve and protect an estimated 300 million people of America. The passion for one another and our country is what keeps our nation together. We feel safe because of the ones that love and care for us. For example, my father cares and loves me with all his heart. That's why he gives me certain rules I have to follow  for my protection. If my father did not love me, I would be neglected or in foster care, or even on my own. Without the care of the military, we would be unprotected and vulnerable.

The America I believe in can never be destroyed, it can only be repaired. We love and we protect, we are equal and free, nothing has proven me wrong. Sometimes bad things have to happen, so we can learn from it and move on from the past. America the place I call home is where I sleep safely at night. I believe that we are a safe, free and loving.

8th Grade Sunglasses

After reading and analyzing “Sunglasses” by Angela Shelf Medearis, students created a custom pair of sunglasses. The sunglasses show how they view themselves. The opposing side illustrates how others perceive them. Students also spend time writing a haiku to go with their sunglasses.

The poem:

"Sunglasses"

I wear these dark glasses

because they’re really cool

(and because I don’t want you to see

the fear

in my eyes).

I walk like I do

because

I’m trying to keep

from running.

I try to stay alive with a rap

style that drives ‘em wild

with what I say each and every day

because

no one seems to

understand me

when I’m talking anyway.

The glasses: 

Side 1: 

 Side 2: 

 Side 1: 

 Side 2: 

 Side 1: 

 Side 2: 

 Side 1: 

 Side 2: 

 Side 1: 

 Side 2:

 Side 1:

 Side 2:

 Side 1: 

 Side 2: 

 Side 1: 

 Side 2: 

6th Grade 6 Word Memoirs!

The first 6 word memoir was written by Ernest Hemingway.

Legend has it that when Ernest Hemingway was challenged to write a six-word story, he came up with, “For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

Since this time, writers from all over the world have taken up this challenge - and we then asked our 6th graders to! Check them out!