Greetings 8th graders!

Welcome to 8th grade ELA-- your language arts home at Grice Middle School. I am so excited to work with you all this year. Right off the bat, I want to let you guys know where I stand in my teaching philosophy. I think I owe it to you to tell you the ways in which I plan to provide you with the best and most interesting learning opportunities that I can:

• I believe in DISCOVERY

• I believe in making this course important to YOUR LIVES.

• I believe in open, candid COMMUNICATION

• I believe in learning is a continuous PROCESS

• I believe in building RELATIONSHIPS

• I believe in YOU... the generation that will face a world of challenges.

Course Objectives:

The focus of 8th grade ELA is to build upon skills that you began to acquire during your years in middle school and help prepare you for high school. We will read fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, and watch movies. In short: you will read (and ENJOY) more than you’ve ever read, and produce more quality writing than you’ve ever written. Our goal is use our newly developed skills to interpret and analyze literature. We will write literary analyses, narratives, and open-ended responses throughout the course of the year. If I’ve done my job well, you’ll be extremely proud of your achievements in this class. This syllabus outlines expectations for you as students, including classroom conduct and behavior, preparedness, assignments, and other related issues.