English

The Middle School English program develops passionate readers, writers, and scholars who use the power inherent in communication to transform the world. Through reading literature, students learn to understand themselves, their communities, and the diverse world around them. They become writers who can produce clear and coherent writing appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

We are committed to developing students who are independently able to:

• Read closely in order to offer insightful interpretations of texts that goes beyond the literal level

• Assess how point of view, purpose, and audience shape the content and style of a text

• Support claims with specific evidence

• Maintain rich and rewarding independent reading lives

• Organize, develop, and refine writing to communicate clearly

• Analyze the patterns and structure of language

• Use writing as a means of striving for social justice

Because our school is committed to academic excellence, progressive education, and ethical learning, our instructional methods include:

• Exposing students to a wide range of literature, chosen for its balance of genres and authorial voices in both contemporary and classic texts

• Guiding students in making reading choices through access to robust classroom libraries, as well as the Tate Library

• Using literary texts as models for students’ own writing

• Using writing to discover and deepen thinking

• Embedding grammar and vocabulary instruction in the context of writing and reading 

• Using technology to facilitate revision and collaboration