What an experience at Seneca Middle School ! It is a completely different educational system. Here every teacher is free to select whatever he wants to teach as long as he follows the South Carolina Curriculum Standards as established by the State Department of Education. In my school, periods last for about 45 min. on Monday and Tuesday, but 90 min. for the rest of the week. I like this, because it gives the teacher and students the chance to cover a lot, using different activities. In the Cat's class period, which lasts for 30 min with classes just for boys or girls, they learn social and moral values. To motivate and encourage students, teachers have the SMS Wildcats cards, that are given to clever students to have privileges within the school.
To link between the subjects, students learn about the Greek myth in their social studies periods, so my partner teachers have selected "The Lightning Thief" novel, which is related to the Greek Myth to cover the "types of fiction and nonfiction standard" . They design various activities that reflect students' understanding of the events and, at the same time, follow the standards. One of the activities I like most is "The Hermes Herald" newspaper, in which students create a newspaper/newsletter based on events in the novel.The Publisher program is used in this activity. Each student is part of the following departments:
* Lead story reporter.
* Ask Aphrodite advice column.
* Astrology department.
* Editorial staff.
* Advertising department.
The teacher is the editor-in-chief and arranges meetings to see what each department has come up with. Consequently, all the time students write, read, proofread and edit. This is really a good project that develops the reading and writing skills. My partner teachers are creative and use the internet a lot
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