Heather Varda

Hello rising sixth graders!

My name is Heather Varda and I will be teaching the sixth grade Language Arts and Social Studies this year. My background has been in teaching English; I’ve been with students from elementary school to high school, and have recently been teaching Freshman Composition for the Jefferson Community College. I’m very excited to work with sixth graders at St. Francis!

We will be focusing on Japanese, Chinese, Indian and African history, while also honing the skills of developing paragraphs and essays to further practice writing. Also, I believe in studying new vocabulary, and we will look at Classical Root words. We will begin with discussing and answering some questions from the book Under a Blood Red Sun, the required summer reading for Social Studies. This will be our first unit of study in history- Japan. Please make sure your child has read Under a Blood Red Sun before school begins on August 20, so we can have the class all on the same page for the beginning of the school year.

Additionally, please have your sixth grader have a mini report written on a novel they have read over the summer. Be sure it includes an introduction to what the book was about and introduces the main character(s), and then develop a paragraph that discusses/describes a certain aspect of the book (or scene) that really impressed them the most, concluding with a paragraph that discusses who they would recommend the book to and why. OR they may write a letter from the perspective of a character from within the book that demonstrates that character’s personality and hopes/concerns for future events from their “world”. Be sure it has a heading of who the letter is addressed to, and a signature from the character at the bottom (along with your child’s name). I’m looking forward to getting early writing samples, and also seeing what their interests are.

The books for Language Arts will be purchased by you, the parents, in order for your child to build his/her library at home. These books could be purchased from Amazon.com, or from Borders/Carmichaels- however Borders/Carmichaels may need a few days to complete an order request, as they may not keep enough quantities of these books in stock. All will be paperbacks, and the following is a list of what we will read in Language Arts for this year (in order):

Walk Two Moons, by Sharon Creech

The Giver, by Lois Lowry

Buddha Boy, by Kathe Koja

House of the Scorpion, by Nancy Farmer

The Bite of the Mango, by Mariatu Kamara

I will most likely add copied texts and short stories to this list, for additional material to read in class, and I will provide the copies of these.

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