English 8

Reading

Students will have exposure to a variety of authors, genres, and texts this year. We will read short stories in their entirety, some novels, and a variety of excepts from novels.

We will also read a variety of poetry, and students are expected to annotate each poem we read.

Writing

In a typical year, we write approximately eight essays from a list of forty essay prompts.

Students should master essay writing by the end of the first semester. Our focus will be on elaboration, unity of ideas with appropriate transitions, and the mechanics of writing.

Grammar

We will focus on subject verb agreement with intervening phrases, pronoun antecedent agreement, wiring complete sentences, subject and object pronouns, comparatives and superlatives, quotation marks in dialogue, correct use of adverbs, capitalization, and eight comma rules.