Course InfoRmation

Seventh Grade English Language Arts

ELA Grade 7 is a full-year course offered to students at the Middle School level. The English/Language Arts Units of Study is structured around the philosophy of Lucy Calkins, founder of the Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University. The philosophy highlights the idea of Balanced Literacy through a workshop model. 

The seventh-grade reading curriculum includes Investigating Characterization, Determining Themes, Historical Fiction, and Literary Nonfiction, and culminates with Identity and Belonging, a Novel Study of The Outsiders that explores characters and themes.  The workshop approach allows for a teacher-instructed mini-lesson followed by independent student work. The mini-lesson includes the teaching point for the day, modeled writing or interactive read-aloud using a mentor text, an opportunity for students to turn and talk, and the “forever” link. This approach also allows for one-on-one and small-group guidance within a homogeneous classroom setting.

In writers workshop students focus on specific text types: narrative, informative and explanatory text, and argument. The differentiated workshop approach allows students to be engaged with reading and writing experiences appropriate to their point in development and allows teachers to assess students at regular intervals to inform their instructional decisions. Instruction focuses on assisting students to build independence as readers, writers, speakers, listeners, and language users. Students will build a base of knowledge across a wide range of subject matter and will respond to the varying demands of audience, task, and purpose.

Overall, the seventh grade curriculum is organized by units of study, which engage the maturing reader and writer in a variety of opportunities to interact with outstanding young adult literature and to use the writing workshop structure to create fluent and cohesive works of writing in the forms of narrative, argument, and information writing. Each unit includes the following: goals, standards, essential questions, teaching points, and assessments.

Eighth Grade English Language Arts

ELA Grade 8 is a full-year course structured around the philosophy of Lucy Calkins, founder of the Reading and Writing Project at Columbia University. The philosophy highlights the idea of Balanced Literacy through a workshop model. These units focus on an array of genres. The workshop approach allows for a teacher-instructed mini-lesson followed by independent student work. The mini-lesson includes the teaching point for the day, modeled writing or interactive read-aloud using a mentor text, an opportunity for students to turn and talk, and the “forever” link. This approach also allows for one-on-one and small-group guidance within a homogeneous classroom setting.

The 8th Grade Curriculum includes two stand-alone units: Launching Literacy and Poetry; three reading units in the form of book clubs - Horror Book Clubs, Dystopian Book Clubs, and Social Issues Book Clubs; and three writing units to complement the reading units - Horror Literary Essay, Research Writing, and Comparative Literary Analysis Essay. Each unit includes the following: overarching unit goals, standards, essential teaching points/questions, assessments, and suggested activities. Each unit includes the following: goals, standards, essential questions, teaching points, and assessments.