Welcome to Mrs. Percontino's Webpage- Overview

Here is a link to a slide I made for our open house. It highlights some main points about myself and my class: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1b0_sOSBlaOmJOsP6q0260kcj8GiADCXv-rSGtiMwRx8/edit?usp=sharing

My name is Melissa Percontino, and I am an 8th grade English Language Arts Teacher at Robert Fulton School. I teach ELA to the students in Ms. Bucco, Ms. Gelbard, and my own homeroom.  Although it is only my sixth year as a Wildcat, I am starting my seventeenth year in the North Bergen School District. I love what I do and am looking forward to sharing my passion with my new students.

In my free time, you can find me spending time with my family, listening to music and singing along loudly at concerts, chauffeuring kids to sports and events, cooking and constantly cleaning the kitchen, reading, and staying active. 

I'd like to give you a brief overview of what's to come in the first few weeks of school.  

A Look Ahead into the Curriculum: 

I look forward to meeting you all! There is much to accomplish the first few days of school. We will be getting to know one another in fun and creative ways and also spend a great deal of that time laying down the foundation of rules & expectations, routines, and procedures for the classroom and hallways.  We will go over the daily/weekly schedule and I will do my best to help you organize your things and situate yourself back into our classroom and school. I will also instruct you on how to navigate through my web page,  join my google classroom,  and  reacquaint you with the the Pearson's myPerspectives website and various other platforms. I will also send home a Remind sheet for your parents and guardians to sign. 😊

As the days progress, I will delve deeper into the ins and outs of the myPerspectives/SAVAAS website and you will ultimately take a Beginning of the Year Assessment to help guide my lessons for this school year. I need to know what you need to know, so this universal screening test will be taken at some point. The date has yet to be determined, but I will let you know ASAP. 

Before we are completing work in myPerspectives we will be working on mini lessons regarding standards and topics we will see in the upcoming weeks such as Mentor Sentences, Characterization, Conflict, Plot, and Theme as well as lay the groundwork for formatting Summaries and Short Constructed Responses. 

For the First Marking Period,  will be launching Unit 1 of the text ( books will be distributed by me) which focuses on the theme: Rites of Passage and covers the essential question, "What are some milestones on the path to growing up?"  Through reading multiple texts and genres, viewing multi media, learning and working with content area and academic vocabulary, writing and gathering evidence,  and having many discussions, we will learn about ourselves and the world around us as we become proficient in our ELA standards.

I hope this overview gives you some reassurance that our time together will be both rewarding and enjoyable. Things are subject to change as we progress, but I will be here every step of the way.  Please don't hesitate to reach out if you need anything and make use of the other tabs on this web page that contain vital information regarding your schedule and the school day.