About Mrs. Jenkins I was born and raised on a farm in Sulphur Springs, Tennessee. I graduated from Daniel Boone High School in 1993, where I was very involved with athletics. In 1997, I graduated with a BS degree from ETSU in Elementary Education. I received my Masters from Tusculum College in 2005. My husband is Jeremy Jenkins. We have been married for 13 years and have 2 children, Jackson and Josie. I am passionate about teaching Reading/Language Arts in order to expose young minds to literature and watch them grow in writing. About Mrs. Bacon: I was born and raised in Johnson City, Tennessee. I graduated from Science Hill High School in 1998. At Science Hill, I was actively involved in the Science Hill Choir and Chamber Choir. This led to my interest in music and the reason why I began Milligan College as a Music Education major. As I proceeded through my education, I decided to change my major to PreK-8th certification. I definitely use music in my classroom though! I graduated from Milligan in 2002 with a Bachelor’s degree. I have been married to Bruce for 10 years, and we live in the family farm house on his families farm. We are blessed beyond measure with 3 children: Kyleigh age 7, Kenzie age 5, and Jake who is 9 months old. I am enthusiastic about my job teaching Reading/Language Arts for two fifth grade blocks each day. I also teach a Science and Social Studies block last period. As we transition to Common Core, it has been a huge advantage to teach Reading/Language Arts with the content subjects. I have been able to correlate Reading/Language Arts standards using nonfiction close read texts while covering the Science/Social Studies standards as well.

• What are we learning?

• Mrs. Bacon and I (Mrs. Jenkins) both teach Reading/Language Arts, Science, and Social Studies in Fifth Grade. In doing so, we are both team teaching to integrate content areas into our Reading/Language Arts classrooms. We work together to plan standard based mini lessons, hands-on activities, guided reading groups, student workstations, student research centers, and much more.

• Today we are incorporating a new Common Core standard Shift 5, Writing from Sources, in our classrooms. Our students are learning from specific complex texts used in the Social Studies classroom. Rather than referring to the textbook, students are expected to learn from what they read. These informational texts are then being integrated into our Reading/Language Arts classroom to provide students the connections of integrated learning. Shift 5 is requiring that student writing needs to emphasize the use of evidence to inform or make an argument. Today our learners are using evidence from an article entitled, "The Decision to Drop the Bomb." Within our Guided Reading workstation, learners will be using text evidence to form an opinion/argument on the pros or cons of using the atomic bomb. Again, we are using what students are learning in the content area of Social Studies in Reading/LA. After forming an opinion/argument, students will be organizing their thoughts into an outline in order to write an essay. This is requiring learners to shift from writing personal narratives and engage in more opinion based elaboration writing with evidence. We are providing the opportunity for our students to write from multiple sources about a singe topic. Our students can analyze and synthesize ideas across many texts to draw an opinion or conclusion. They are moving toward generating their own informational writing.