Standards and Benchmarks - The following standards are addressed this quarter:

Standard History 1:  Students understand the chronological organization of history and know how to organize events and people into major eras to identify and explain historical relationships.

Benchmark  A:  Students know the general chronological order of events and people in history.

Standard History 3:  Students understand that societies are diverse and change over time.

Benchmark A:  Students know how various societies were affected by contracts and exchanges among diverse people.

Standard History 4:  Students understand how science, technology, and economic activity have developed, changed, and affected societies throughout history.

Benchmark A:  Students understand the impact of scientific and technological developments of individuals and societies.

Standard History 5:  Students understand political institutions and theories that developed and changed over time.

Benchmark A:  Students understand how democratic ideas and institutions in the United States have developed, changed, and/or been maintained.

Standard History 6:  Students know that religious and philosophical ideas have been powerful forces throughout history.

Benchmark B:  Students know how societies have been affected by religions and philosophies.

Standard Geography 1:  Students know how to use and construct maps, globes, and other geographic tools to locate and derive information about people, places, and environments.

Benchmark A:  Students know how to use maps, globes, and other geographic tools to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial perspective.

Standard Geography 2:  Students know the physical and human characteristics of places, and use this knowledge to define and study regions and their patterns of change.

Benchmark B:  Students know how and why people define regions.

Standard Geography 4:  Students understand how economic, political, cultural and social processes interact to shape patterns of human populations, interdependence, cooperation and conflict.

Benchmark B:  Students know the nature and spatial distributions of cultural patterns.

Benchmark E:  Students know how cooperation and conflict among people influence the division and control of the earth's surface

Standard Economics 2:  Students understand how different economic systems impact decisions about the use of resources and the production and distribution of goods and services.

Standard Economics 3:  Students understand the results of trade, exchange, and interdependence among individuals, households, businesses, governments, and societies.

Benchmark A:  Students understand that different economic systems employ different means to produce, distribute, and exchange goods and services.

Benchmark A:  Students understand that the exchange of goods and services creates economic interdependence and change.

Standard Civics 1:  Students understand the purposes of government, and the basic constitutional principles of the United States republican form of government.

Benchmark C:  Students understand the principles of the United States Constitutional Government. 

Standard Civics 2: Students know how to use structure and function of local, state , and nationally government and how citizen involvement shapes public policy.

Benchmark D: Students know how public policy is developed at the local, state, and national levels.

Language Arts Standards
Standard 2: Students read, write and speak for a variety of purposes and audiences.
Standard 3: Students read, write and speak using conventional grammar, usage, sentence structure, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling.
Standard 4: Students apply thinking skills to their reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing.

Writing
The Cross Curricular Writing plan is used as a guide for writing assignments.

Science Standards
Standard 1: Students understand the processes of scientific investigations and design, conduct, communicate about, and evaluate such investigation.
Standard 3:  Life Science Students know and understand the characteristics and structures of living things, the processes of life and how living things interact with each other and their environment.   Students know and understand the characteristics of living things, the diversity of life, and how living things interact with each other and with their environment.  Students know and understand interrelationships of matter and energy in living systems.  Students know and understand how the human body functions, factors that influence its structures and functions compared with those of other organisms.  Students know and understand how organisms change over time in terms of biological evolution and genetics.

SAIL Discovery
The Discovery class is comprised of 3 elements. The primary focus is taken from Dr. George T. Betts and Jolene K. Kercher’s Autonomous Learner Model (ALM). This model is explained in more detail below. The second element of Discovery is Advisory. This is a time where I, as the SAIL Coordinator, can be available to students to discuss possible transition issues into middle school, to provide organizational support, and to just be there to ensure a smooth beginning of the year. The third aspect of the class is to provide additional time for Homework Completion as well as Accelerated Reader.

Autonomous Learner Model
“The Autonomous Learner Model (ALM) for the Gifted and Talented was developed specifically to meet the diversified cognitive, emotional, and social needs of learners. Originating at Arvada West High School in Arvada, Colorado, it is now successfully implemented in kindergarten through high school with the gifted and talented as well as all learners in the regular classrooms. Emphasis is placed on meeting the individualized needs of learners through the use of activities in the five major dimensions of the model: Orientation, Individual Development, Enrichment, Seminars, In-depth Study."
~ Autonomous Learner Model: Optimizing Ability. Betts, George T. and Kercher, Jolene K., ALPS publishing, 1999.

• Orientation Dimension  - provides learners, teachers, administrators, and parents the opportunity to develop a foundation of the concepts of giftedness, talent, intelligence, creativity, and the development of potential. Learners learn more about themselves, their abilities, and what the program has to offer. Activities are presented to give learners an opportunity to work together as a group, to learn more about group process and interaction, and to learn more about the other people in the program.

• Individual Development Dimension  - provides learners with the opportunity to develop the cognitive, emotional social and physical skills, concepts, and attitudes necessary for life-long learning.

• Enrichment Dimension - provides learners with opportunities to explore content which is usually not part of the every day curriculum.

• Seminar Dimension - gives learners in groups of three to five opportunities to research a topic, present it as a seminar to the rest of the class and other interested people, and to assess it by criteria selected and developed by the learners.

• In-Depth Study Dimension  - empowers learners to pursue areas of interest through the development of a long-term small group or individual in-depth study. The learners determine what will be learned, how it will be learned, how it will be presented, what facilitation will be necessary, what the final product will be, and how the entire learning process will be assessed.