Enjoy the images of my classroom above. It's a great place to hang out and learn. If those images pique your interest, click the image below to take an in-depth, digital field trip of my classroom complete with explanations describing the reasoning behind its student-centered, spartan aesthetic.
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Greetings,
If you're viewing this page, you might be a parent, guardian, 8th-grade Dunkirk Middle School student, or college student enrolled in my Fredonia State course. You might be a coworker, or teacher from another district to whom I presented a workshop. I sincerely welcome you all to my classroom, or more appropriately, my digital classroom. Here, you'll find every resource I provide, every policy I enforce, and every lesson and material I teach during the year. I encourage you to read deeply, click curiously, and explore the farthest reaches of this site. It represents my life's work, and as such it evolves as rapidly as my learning in the field of education.
I bid you my sincerest welcome.
Mr. Karpie
What other district enjoys these kind of beautiful views of Lake Erie?
Our Schoolyear at a Glance!
Our Schoolyear at a Glance!
Read through the units below to see the scope and sequence of our school year together! Everything is a little bit flexible because learning takes time and students are not dependent variables (they're VERY independent) but this is the approximate timeline of our school year!
[Weeks 1-2] [2 Week Unit] [September]
No Final Project - Just general, classroom learning.
Managing a classroom is both an art and a science. I've found that the best way to manage a classroom is to set crystal clear expectations that define what success looks like for both yourself and your students, and then to measure the rate of success with incredible accuracy. When it is clear how to be successful, it makes it much more difficult to fail, whether behaviorally or academically.
During our refugee unit, our anchor text is Refugee by Alan Gratz. We group students based on their reading level, and assign each group to read one of three refugees whose stories are told. This is our most basic unit, and kids basically demonstrate reading comprehension by summarizing their refugees journey!
[Weeks 3-9] [September - November] [Six Week Unit]
Success Skills
Success Skills
Read deeply for understanding. [8R1, 8R2, 8R7, 8R8, 8R9]
Identify bias and multiple perspectives. [8R3, 8R6, 8R8, 8R9]
Write informative texts to support a claim [8W1, 8W4, 8W5, 8W6, 8W8]
Choose compelling and insightful evidence [8SL5, 8W4, 8W6, 8W8, 8W10]
Make connections across "texts." [8R1, 8R2, 8R5, 8R3, 8R9, 8W4]
Refine and revise work by engaging with a structured peer-review process. [8W5]
Our second creative writing mini-unit will center around traditional, short stories. Students will use a plot structure chart, and some mrkarpie.com exclusive, original tools to create an amazing 3-5 page story. This first week is dedicated entirely to developing the skills necessary to produce a well-written story. We'll look at conflict, "showing" vs. "telling," characterization, setting, and imagery while simultaneously refining our story ideas through daily, individualized teacher feedback.
SS1 [Weeks 13-15] [November] [3 Week Units]
SS2 [Weeks 26-29] [March / April] [3 Week Units]
Success Skills
Success Skills
Intentionally organize and write a narrative text. [W8.3a, W8.3b, W8.3c, W8.3d, W8.3e]
Produce and revise clear writing that is free of errors. [W8.4, W8.5, W8.6]
Our unconscious bias unit traces inequality from the 1860's through today. Specifically, the unit focuses on unconscious bias, and how much of the inequality that lingers in our country isn't the blatant, purposeful racism of the 1960's, but is in fact more subtle, and in some ways, more insidious than that. We'll even engage in a Harvard Study to measure our own unconscious bias, and to help advance the field of inequality research.
[Weeks 16-21] [December-February] [6 Week Unit]
Success Skills
Success Skills
Read deeply for understanding. [8R1, 8R2, 8R7, 8R8, 8R9]
Identify bias and multiple perspectives. [8R3, 8R6, 8R8, 8R9]
Write informative texts to support a claim [8W1, 8W4, 8W5, 8W6, 8W8]
Choose compelling and insightful evidence [8SL5, 8W4, 8W6, 8W8, 8W10]
Make connections across "texts." [8R1, 8R2, 8R5, 8R3, 8R9, 8W4]
Refine and revise work by engaging with a structured peer-review process. [8W5]
During our free-verse poetry unit, we'll study the intricacies of language for its own sake. We'll make language as beautiful as it's possible for language to be. We will capture the essence of the meaning of life, whether that essence is reflected in finishing a marathon, climbing Kilimanjaro, or the feeling right before you finally ask out that SUPER cute dude in your science class that you've ALWAYS had a massive crush on!
[Weeks 23-25] [February / March] [Three Week Unit]
Success Skills
Success Skills
Write poems that show intentional use of language to serve the purpose of the individual poem. W 8.4, W 8.11b, L 8.5, L 8.6
Collaborate with peers to create, critique, and improve writing. W 8.4, SL 1b, SL 2, L 8.3
Interpret and analyze poems by rubric success criteria. RL 8.11, SL 2, L 8.3
In our "Food Chains" unit we learn about the food chains that feed America, and we attempt to identify the problems our current food system causes, while uncovering some possible solutions to fix our food system in the future. This unit culminates in students creating a website which will share information, and attempt to guide the eating choices of their fellow Americans. While we use some supplemental texts, this unit is based on the book The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.
Optional Unit [March / April] [Four Week Unit]
Success Skills
Success Skills
Read deeply for understanding. [8R1, 8R2, 8R7, 8R8, 8R9]
Write informative texts to support a claim. [8W1, 8W4, 8W5, 8W6, 8W8, 8.10]
Design a website to augment text. [8SL5, 8W4, 8W6, 8W8, 8W10]
Present information with integrated multi-media tools. [8SL4, 8SL5, 8SL6]
Refine and revise work by engaging with a structured peer-review process. [8W5]
Shh! Don't talk too loudly. We're at a crime scene! The only way to solve "whodunnit" is by applying your finely-honed skills collecting evidence, and coming up with insightful explanations to support a reasonable claim. Did I say "reasonable claim?" I meant, to solve a murder and make the streets safe again.
Take a moment to peruse the crime scene photographs that will serve as the cornerstone of our "close read" materials.
[Weeks 30-34] [April] [Four Week Unit]
Success Skills
Success Skills
Collect, analyze, and organize evidence in an authentic setting: [8R1, 8R3]
Evaluate arguments, claims, and evidence for effectiveness and thoroughness: [8R6, 8R8]
Write an evidence-based claim paragraph based on crime-scene research: [8W1, 8W6]
Discuss alternative theories and orally present final evidence based claim to classmates: [8SL1, 8SL1a, 8SL3, 8SL48SL6]
In our inquiry-based research unit, students ask their own questions, find and evaluate their own sources, organize and complete their own close reads, and basically drive their own learning, at their own pace.
This is our capstone, where everything that's been learned all year comes together to allow students to take their learning beyond the confines of the classroom.
[Weeks 35-39] [May] [Five Week Unit]
Success Skills
Success Skills
Read deeply for understanding. [8R1, 8R2, 8R7, 8R8, 8R9]
Identify bias and multiple perspectives. [8R3, 8R6, 8R8, 8R9]
Write informative texts to support a claim [8W1, 8W4, 8W5, 8W6, 8W8]
Choose compelling and insightful evidence [8SL5, 8W4, 8W6, 8W8, 8W10]
Make connections across "texts." [8R1, 8R2, 8R5, 8R3, 8R9, 8W4]
Refine and revise work by engaging with a structured peer-review process. [8W5]
[Week 40] [June] [One Week Unit]
No Final Project - Just general, classroom learning.
The last "unit" in our curriculum is all about reflection. Not necessarily academic reflection, but that plays a part. We'll think about our experiences in 8th grade, what we learned, both in school and about ourselves and our friends. You'll notice this unit page is rather less organized and academic than the rest. Each year it looks a little different.
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