Grade 7
English Language Arts
Students broaden and deepen their knowledge and skill in the 7th Grade English Language Arts. Whether reading, writing, speaking, or listening, students will be challenged to grow in their strengths and strengthen their weaknesses. The course will also strive to reveal how important the language arts are in leading a successful and enriched life. Students in 7th Grade Language Arts read powerful, challenging, entertaining selections throughout the year, combined with writing instruction that coordinates effectively with the readings and with the subject matter of other classes whenever possible.
Math
Accelerated Math 7 is a yearlong required course for 7th Graders. This course is informed by the Common Core State Standards. Instructional will focus on four critical areas:
developing understanding of and applying proportional relationships
developing understanding of operations with rational numbers and working with expressions and linear equations
solving problems involving scale drawings and informal geometric constructions, and working with two- and three-dimensional shapes to solve problems involving area, surface area, and volume
drawing inferences about populations based on samples
Science
Life Science is a yearlong required science course for 7th graders. Students will study cells and heredity, the diversity of living things, ecology, human biology. A yearlong focus will be on making connections between these various systems. The content for this course is informed by the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) middle school (6-8) science standards.
Social Studies
World History 7 course is a yearlong, required course for 7th graders at AST. The course goal is that students become lifelong learners of the stories of our past. A deep understanding of the world's rich history can help students become critical thinkers who look toward the future with insight and wisdom, and gain a fuller appreciation of the gift of the present. Topics covered include Early Societies, Greece and Rome, Islamic and African Civilizations, and Asian and American Empires. The course will focus on essential skills in social studies such as map reading, identifying bias, and critical thinking while encouraging students to be global citizens.
Physical Education
The Middle School Physical Education curriculum will concentrate on all areas of physical/social/emotional development. Classes will stress the importance of student participation and sportsmanship while being introduced to a variety of activities and sports. Students are expected to take good care of equipment and locker room facilities, be respectful to the instructor, substitute teacher, and other students in the class, have a positive attitude, exemplify sportsmanship, be on time, and do not use inappropriate language. Washington State Health standards are also embedded into the PE course.
Electives
Middle school students choose two electives each semester from a range of options in Careers &Technology, Visual & Performing Arts, and Language & Culture.