Welcome to Mrs. Ristau's THE POWER OF THE PEN page! I am in hopes that this website will be of great use to all of you. The tabs listed at the top of this page will navigate you to various areas that your child will be exposed to across the course of the academic year as he/she traverses down the road to effective written communication.
The tabs incorporate the following: CONTACT You can contact me via this link. This will come directly to my school email address. I can also be reached during the school day @ (804)-493-9818. If I am in class, I will get back to you as soon as possible; please be sure to leave your name and number so that I can return your call as quickly as possible. If you need to meet with me, I am also available throughout the day.
ESSAYS This will take you to the pages where you will be able to access online assistance, via noted resources, to assist you and your child in the planning and composition of essays; I will update these monthly with additional information. These pages will allow you to access information early so that your child can get a head start on things and possibly submit their assignments early to their teachers. ALL ESSAYS WILL BE DONE AND SUBMITTED THROUGH A PROGRAM CALLED GOOGLE CLASSROOM; THIS IS AN ONLINE PROGRAM; THUS, THE STUDENTS CAN ACCESS THEIR ESSAYS FROM HOME AS WELL AS SUBMIT THEM.
GRAMMAR The resources found here will guide the students through practice areas that will supplement their in-class activities with their teachers. In some cases, the teachers will have already provided the students with the necessary usernames and passwords; thus, the students can access them directly with the classrooms with their teachers, or they can go through this website to access the links to the given websites for further practice at home. Video tutorials and PowerPoints will also be posted here to further enhance the students' grammatical knowledge when it comes to mechanics and usage.
VOCABULARY The resources found here will assist the students indissecting a given word and understanding its phonetic parts so that they can then use that knowledge to assist them in figuring out the meanings of other unfamiliar words and phrases. As such, this area will provide the students with necessary information and links (tools) to assist them in expanding their vocabulary both in reading and in writing.
RESOURCES The resources listed here are inclusive of web sites that will further assist your child across the course of the academic year; these are great areas for your child to practice further on in areas in which they may be struggling, and this is inclusive of both reading and writing. The Standards of Learning (SOLs) for Language Arts 6, 7, and 8 (based upon the 2017 SOLs) are also listed here; it is actually a direct link to the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) website, and there is a wealth of useful information there as well.
In terms of TUTORING, the students have a couple of different options.
*IN-PERSON: This will occur every Tuesday from 3:15-4:15pm; the students who need help will sign up on a clipboard in the classroom in advance and will make arrangements to be picked up by no later than 4:15pm.
The students can sign up online the tutoring link provided in the title above. When the link is clicked on, it will take the students to a Google form where they can identify the areas in which they need help; it will also ask them to select the day and the time that they need help. Once they have completed the form, it will send me a notification through the capturing of the students' email addresses; this will let me know what time to meet with them virtually through Google Meet. This will afford the students the opportunity to seek help outside of school hours from their homes.
N. Ristau Writing Specialist Montross Middle School 804-493-9818 [email protected]
"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out." ~Robert Collier