Grade 8 Reading

In this unit, students will begin by writing personal narratives to strengthen writing fluency and focus, and to establish classroom routines for feedback and revision. Students will then read Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution by Ji-li Jiang and examine how the author uses first-person point of view, dialogue, detail, and narrative structure to share her experiences growing up during China’s Cultural Revolution. Through reading and discussion, students will explore themes of identity, family loyalty, peer pressure, authority, and personal change.

In this unit, students will examine how writers and historical figures challenged, debated, and expanded the meaning of the phrase “all men are created equal” during the Civil War era. Students will read excerpts from Walt Whitman, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Ann Jacobs, Abraham Lincoln, and other voices connected to slavery, abolition, and the Civil War. Through poetry, memoir, speeches, historical accounts, and primary sources, students will analyze perspectives on equality, opportunity, justice, and freedom.

In this unit, students will read Gris Grimly’s graphic novel version of Frankenstein, paired with Mary Shelley’s original text, to explore questions about humanity, responsibility, society, and scientific discovery. Students will analyze Victor Frankenstein’s relationship with his creature, examine the creature’s perspective, study allusions to mythological and biblical texts, and debate whether Victor owes the creature companionship. Students will also read poetry, speeches, and informational texts about technology and innovation to consider whether humans control technology or are controlled by it.

In this unit, students will read selected excerpts from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet while learning strategies for understanding Shakespearean English. Students will practice putting Shakespeare’s language into their own words, identifying extended metaphors, examining the structure of a Shakespearean sonnet, and memorizing and reciting lines from the Prologue. Through close reading, discussion, translation, and performance, students will build confidence with Shakespeare’s language and themes.

In this unit, students will use close reading to examine memoirs, poems, images, videos, and primary source materials connected to the Holocaust. Students will explore how individuals and societies became participants, bystanders, witnesses, victims, survivors, and resisters during this atrocity. Through texts such as “I Cannot Forget,” Shores Beyond Shores, A Child of Hitler, Maus, and Night, students will analyze Nazi propaganda, the rise of antisemitism, the role of the Hitler Youth, the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Kristallnacht, ghettos, and death camps. Students will also consider questions of memory, responsibility, and how people respond when faced with injustice and genocide.

In this unit, students will investigate the Space Race, an 18-year competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. Students will explore the people, events, and innovations that shaped this period, including Soviet cosmonauts, President Kennedy, Buzz Aldrin, Katherine Johnson, and other astronauts and scientists. Students will build information literacy skills by generating research questions, evaluating sources, and conducting independent research. Through discussion, writing, and a Socratic seminar, students will examine the complexity of the Space Race and its impact.