Language Arts

The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.

- Gustave Flaubert

Welcome to the Art of Language!

Why is this class called "Language Arts"? Because we want to learn to analyze and create art with words!

Have you ever heard a clever lyric or a well-timed rhyme that rolls of someone's tongue so smoothly? That's artistry. Ever told a funny joke? That's artistry. Ever felt a strong emotion while reading a book or watching a movie? Artistry!

Everything we learn about literature and writing (alliteration, metaphors, symbolism, etc.) is to help us better appreciate and produce works of art using language. I doubt we'll use many paintbrushes in class this year, but that doesn't make our work any less artful!

Meet Our Language Arts Curriculum!

We will be using EL Education's 8th Grade English Language Arts curriculum. According to its website, EL, which stands for Expeditionary Learning, "was born out of a collaboration between The Harvard Graduate School of Education and Outward Bound USA."

How the EL Curriculum Is Structured

This means the curriculum will look like this:

  • Module 1 -- (Weeks 1-9)
    • M1: Unit 1
    • M1: Unit 2
    • M1: Unit 3
  • Module 2 -- (Weeks 10-18)
    • M2: Unit 1
    • M2: Unit 2
    • M2: Unit 3
  • Module 3 -- (Weeks 19-27)
    • M3: Unit 1
    • M3: Unit 2
    • M3: Unit 3
  • Module 4 -- (Weeks 28-36)
    • M4: Unit 1
    • M4: Unit 2
    • M4: Unit 3


Assessments will be as follows:

Unit-Level Assessments – Each unit includes two assessments, most of which are “on-demand” (i.e., show what you know/can do on your own). Each unit will have a mid-unit assessment and an end-of-unit assessment.

– Mid-unit assessments typically, though not always, are reading assessments: text-based answers.

– End-of-unit assessments typically, though not always, are writing assessments: writing from sources.

– Most assessments have a heavy emphasis on academic vocabulary, particularly determining words in context.

– Assessments are designed to be curriculum-embedded opportunities to practice the types of skills needed on state assessments.

Final Performance Task: This is a culminating project, which takes place during Unit 3 (the final phase) of every module. Performance tasks are designed to help students synthesize and apply their learning from the module in an engaging and authentic way. Performance tasks are developed using the writing process, are scaffolded, and almost always include peer critique and revision. Performance tasks are not “on-demand” assessments. (Note: The end-of-unit 3 assessment often addresses key components of the performance task.)

EL Education's "10 Building Blocks" (Guiding Principles)

1. The Primacy of Self-Discovery

Learning happens best with emotion, challenge, and the requisite support. People discover their abilities, values, passions, and responsibilities in situations that offer adventure and the unexpected. In EL Education schools, students undertake tasks that require perseverance, fitness, craftsmanship, imagination, self-discipline, and significant achievement. A teacher’s primary task is to help students overcome their fears and discover they can do more than they think they can.

2. The Having of Wonderful Ideas

Teaching in EL Education schools fosters curiosity about the world by creating learning situations that provide something important to think about, time to experiment, and time to make sense of what is observed.

3. The Responsibility for Learning

Learning is both a personal process of discovery and a social activity. Everyone learns both individually and as part of a group. Every aspect of an EL Education school encourages both children and adults to become increasingly responsible for directing their own personal and collective learning.

4. Empathy and Caring

Learning is fostered best in communities where students’ and teachers’ ideas are respected and where there is mutual trust. Learning groups are small in EL Education schools, with a caring adult looking after the progress and acting as an advocate for each child. Older students mentor younger ones, and students feel physically and emotionally safe.

5. Success and Failure

All students need to be successful if they are to build the confidence and capacity to take risks and meet increasingly difficult challenges. But it is also important for students to learn from their failures, to persevere when things are hard, and to learn to turn disabilities into opportunities.

6. Collaboration and Competition

Individual development and group development are integrated so that the value of friendship, trust, and group action is clear. Students are encouraged to compete, not against each other, but with their own personal best and with rigorous standards of excellence.

7. Diversity and Inclusion

Both diversity and inclusion increase the richness of ideas, creative power, problem-solving ability, and respect for others. In EL Education schools, students investigate and value their different histories and talents as well as those of other communities and cultures. Schools and learning groups are heterogeneous.

8. The Natural World

A direct and respectful relationship with the natural world refreshes the human spirit and teaches the important ideas of recurring cycles and cause and effect. Students learn to become stewards of the earth and of future generations.

9. Solitude and Reflection

Students and teachers need time alone to explore their own thoughts, make their own connections, and create their own ideas. They also need to exchange their reflections with other students and with adults.

10. Service and Compassion

We are crew, not passengers. Students and teachers are strengthened by acts of consequential service to others, and one of an EL Education school’s primary functions is to prepare students with the attitudes and skills to learn from and be of service.