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7th grade students have a Unit 4 test this Wednesday. Their Unit 4 Work Packets are due the same day. We will be working on them in class, but they will need to finish them at home. Let's see how many can turn them in on time!

The big news coming up is next week's California State Writing Test on Tuesday, March 6th. Make sure your son or daughter gets plenty of sleep Monday night and a nutritious breakfast Tuesday morning. The test will start at 8:30 a.m. in the MUB and takes about an hour and a half. We don't know what kind of writing prompt they will get, so quiz your child on the various essay formats we have practiced this year.

Finally, next Friday, March 9th, to celebrate all their hard work, we will have our Third Annual End of the Writing Test Celebration! This is an entirely student run affair at lunchtime in our classroom! You would be amazed at how they've matured since September! It is a special rite of passage for them to organize, carry out, and clean up after this special celebration! We are all very excited!

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What an amazing experience we had this Wednesday! The San Francisco Shakespeare Company performed Macbeth for our junior high students. Don't forget: each summer you can take a blanket & picnic lunch and see Free Shakespeare in the Park. One of the best activities around! Here are some students from our first period with the performers.

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Wild Bird Release

Last Tuesday a woodpecker that lives in a bird box outside our house ran into our living room window. I went outside and found him on the ground with his eyes closed. I gently put him in a little box and took him to the Peninsula Humane Society/SPCA's new Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. The wonderful people there put him in a special incubator for birds with head trauma and nursed him back to health.

This morning I picked up the woodpecker, brought him home, and released him back near his bird box. As you can see from this video taken by my husband David, the woodpecker is as good as new!

He is a Downey Woodpecker, and so I've named him Robby after one of my favorite actors, Robert Downey, Jr.! I'll keep you posted on his activities. And if "he" is really a female, well call our friend Roberta! I'll be seeing some of you today at the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center's Open House at 1450 Rollins Road in Burlingame. See you there!

The Oxford English Dictionary

A very special thanks to Owen who brought in his family edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. The original, like I told the students, is in 20 volumes, and university libraries usually have a set in their reference sections. Demand the best! Especially in your dictionaries! The edition we saw today in class is the 2 volume Compact set that comes with a Bausch & Lomb magnifying glass to read the tiny print. There are other Oxford Dictionaries of shorter length for daily use, but it is now possible to access the Oxford Dictionary online.

And for those of you interested in the history of the dictionary, you can read this amazing New York Times bestseller: The Professor and the Madman.

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Dear Middle School Parents,

Thank you so very much for the generous holiday gifts. I plan to use the Amazon card to get some music I had when I was a teenager. And perhaps a fabulous scholarly book on the ancient world! Thank you. I am grateful beyond measure! And especially, thanks for everything you do to help me help your child.


Molto Grazie,
Gwen Minor

“I will prepare and some day my chance will come.”---Abraham Lincoln
This has been one of my favorite quotes and has guided me in difficult times. It is a very positive message about working hard and knowing that your time will come eventually.
Mrs. Minor’s 7th grade students are preparing for the Tuesday, March 6th California Writing Standards Test. They have learned how to write a variety of Narrative Essays, Descriptive Essays, and Expository Essays. February is reserved for the learning of Persuasive Essays. A good way to help your child is to ask him or her to show you the Essay Writing unit booklet, which shows the structures we are using. Help with Response to Literature (an expository form) can be as simple as talking to your child about character, setting, theme, literary techniques, and lessons learned from any story we have read. This will develop their thinking skills and help them to respond when the time comes.