Two days before Thanksgiving: Beginnings of Islam and Poetry Etcetera

In Social Studies 7 - Rise of Islam - We will examine the beginnings of Islam and the rise of the Islamic Empire in the next three weeks. This week, we will connect Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and draw on their religious similarities and differences. This makes perfect sense, having just completed a discussion of Early Christianity, and how it broke with Judaism, leading to the Canonization of the New Testament under Constantine the Great.

In Language Arts 7 - We will embark in a mini two day seminar of poetry writing and reading. This kickoff will take the class back to poetry up to Winter Break, with periodic assignments in both LA7 and SS7, as we examine the different writers and forms to develop our own voices not just as poets, but as writers. We will focus on great words and great sentences. We will use the six word memoir and expand that to the sestina. We will work with rhyme and rhythm. We will harvest our ideas from our narrative and argumentative writings, as well as from our readings.