7Th Grade Language Arts Fall Semester Study Guide

7th Grade Language Arts Fall Semester Study Guide

Section 1: Myths and Compare and Contrast

Standard(s):ELAGSE7RL6: Analyze how an author develops and contrasts the points of views of different characters or narrators in a text.

Directions: Read Article 1: The Four Seasons and Article 2: Hades Takes a Wife: Persephone. Then, compare and contrast the two articles on the same story using a Venn Diagram.

Article 1:The Four Seasons

Zeus, the king of all the gods, had two brothers and three sisters. Each had an important job. His sister, Demeter, was in charge of the harvest. If Demeter did not do her job, the crops could die, and everyone would starve. It was important to keep Demeter happy. Everyone helped out with that - both gods and mortals. It was that important.

As the story goes....

Demeter loved her little daughter, Persephone. They played together in the fields almost every day. As Persephone smiled up at her mother, Demeter's heart swelled with happiness, and the crops grew high and healthy. Flowers tumbled everywhere. As time passed, Persephone grew into a lovely goddess. That's when the trouble started.

Hades, the king of the underworld, was a gloomy fellow. He normally hung out in the Underworld.

One day, Hades felt restless. He decided to take his three-headed dog out for a chariot ride. Cerberus, his dog, usually stood guard at the gate to Underworld. But Hades gave his pup a break now and then. He scooped up Cerberus, and left a couple of spirits in charge instead.

Hades flew his chariot up to earth. Cerberus leaped out of the chariot and ran around, sniffing flowers with all three of his heads. The dog ran up to a lovely young woman, the goddess Persephone. Some people might have been startled if a three-headed dog came tearing up. But Persephone only laughed and scratched his heads.

Hades loved that old dog. He watched his dog playing happily with Persephone. He heard Persephone's delighted laugh. Hades fell deeply in love. Before anyone could stop him, he grabbed his niece, his dog, and his chariot and dove deep into the darkest depths of the Underworld.

Hades locked Persephone in a beautifully decorated room in the Hall of Hades. He brought her all kinds of delicious food. Persephone refused to eat. She had heard if you ate anything in Hades, you could never leave. She had every intention of leaving as soon as she could figure out how to do so.

Over a week went by. Finally, in desperate hunger, Persephone ate six pomegranate seeds. She promptly burst into tears.

She was not the only one crying. Demeter, her mother, missed her daughter terribly. She did not care if the crops died. She did not care about anything except finding her daughter. No one knows who told Zeus about it, but it was clear this could not go on. Zeus sent his son Hermes to work a deal with Hades.

This was the deal Hermes worked out: If Persephone would marry Hades, she would live as queen of the Underworld for six months each winter. In the spring, Persephone would return to earth and live there for six months. No one especially liked the deal, but everyone finally agreed.

Every spring, Demeter makes sure flowers are blooming and crops are growing and the fields are green with welcome. Every fall, when Persephone returns to the underworld, Demeter ignores the crops and flowers and lets them die. Each spring, Demeter brings everything to life again, ready to welcome her daughter's return.

To the ancient Greeks, that was the reason for seasons - winter, spring, summer, and fall.

Article 2:Hades Takes a Wife: Persephone

The first living visitor to the Underworld, though an unwilling one, was the goddess Persephone. The only daughter of Zeus and Demeter (the goddess of grain, agriculture, and fertility), Persephone was an innocent maiden who loved to play in the fields where eternal springtime reigned.

But Hades had other plans for Persephone. Hades, god of the Underworld, fell in love with Persephone and wanted her as his bride. His brother Zeus consented to the marriage—or at least refused to oppose it. Yet he warned Hades that Demeter would never approve this coupling, for she would not want her daughter spirited off to a sunless world. At Zeus's suggestion—or with his tacit understanding—Hades resolved to abduct the maiden.

Persephone was gathering flowers one day on a plain in Sicily. Hades suddenly appeared, thundering across the plain in his four-horse chariot. The god swooped down upon Persephone, scooped her up with one arm, and took her away.

The appearance, abduction, and disappearance happened so swiftly that none of Persephone's companions witnessed the kidnapping. And though she called out to them—and plaintively called for her mother—no one heard her pleas. The earth opened up before Hades' chariot and the god drove the jet-black horses down into the chasm. As Hades and Persephone disappeared into the depths, the hole closed up behind them.

The Long Winter of Her Discontent

Demeter soon came to collect her daughter, but could not find a trace of Persephone. Distraught and desperate, Demeter searched high and low for her daughter. She traveled to the farthest corners of the earth, searching for nine full days and nights without ever stopping to eat, drink, bathe, or rest. Demeter was in a fury. She destroyed lands, crops, and livestock as she bewailed the loss of her daughter.

She threatened to make the earth barren forever and thus destroy all of humankind if she did not find Persephone.

Finally, on the tenth day, the goddess Hecate told Demeter that Persephone had been carried away, but she did not know by whom. The two goddesses went to Helius, the god of the sun, who saw everything that happened on Earth. Helius did tell her what had happened, but also tried to persuade Demeter that Hades—as Zeus's brother and ruler of one third of the universe—was not an unfit husband for Persephone.

Demeter refused to accept Hades as a suitable husband for her precious daughter. Enraged by the news of Persephone's abduction (and Zeus's possible complicity), she refused to return to Mount Olympus. Instead she roamed the earth in the guise of a mortal, forbidding the trees to bear fruit and the earth to nurture vegetables and herbs.

After a full year of famine had plagued the earth, Zeus realized that if he allowed Demeter to persist, all of humankind would starve—leaving no one to honor and make offerings to the gods. Zeus sent a parade of gods and goddesses to Demeter to beg her to come back to Olympus and to restore fertility to the earth.

But Demeter refused to budge until her daughter stood by her side. Zeus had no choice: He relented, promising to bring Persephone back to her mother.

The Renewal of Spring

Hermes, summoned by Zeus, raced down to Hades to fetch Persephone. Hades shrugged compliantly and agreed to let her go. Persephone had not eaten a single thing—whether from sorrow, loss of appetite, or stubbornness—since her arrival in the Underworld. But before she left, Hades urged Persephone to appease her terrible hunger by eating a single pomegranate seed. Sadly, this apparent act of kindness was a trick: Anyone who tastes the food of Hades must remain in the Underworld.

The deed having been done, Rhea—the mother of Zeus, Demeter, and Hades—proposed a compromise that her children reluctantly accepted: Since Persephone had eaten there, she had to dwell at least part of every year in the Underworld. Rhea suggested that Persephone spend six months (or, according to some, three or four months) as Queen of the Underworld and the rest of the year with Demeter.

After agreeing to the deal, Demeter restored Earth's fertility and returned to Olympus with Persephone. But when the time came for Persephone to return to the Underworld, the earth became colder and less fertile until her reemergence months later.

Since the abduction of Persephone, spring and summer have given way to autumn and winter, and the earth's fertility has followed the progression of seasons. In the fall, seeds—like Persephone herself—were buried underground. But in the spring, Persephone and the earth's crops came out into the sun once more.

The Four Seasons Hades Takes a Wife: Persephone

Section 2: Literary Devices

Standard(s): ELAGSE7L5: Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.

Directions: Decide which Literary Device is being used in each example or writing passage.

Word Bank:Hyperbole, Characterization, Imagery, Allusion, Flashback, Conflict, Alliteration, Denotation, Foreshadowing, Connotation, Analogy, Euphemism

“She sells sea shells by the seashore.”

______

Sarah was having a bad hair day today. It looked crazier than the Weeknd’s!!

Red is to apple as yellow is to lion.

“He was almost twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide. He looked simply too big to be allowed, and so wild – long tangles of bushy black hair and beard hid most of his face, he had hands the size of dustbin lids and his feet in their leather boots were like baby dolphins.”

______

Sally wants to go to the mall with her friend Lauren, but Lauren wants to go to the park and play Frisbee golf.

The teacher told us that we were acting childish. I was annoyed with what she said because even though it was true that I was a child, it also implied that she wasn’t thinking highly of my actions at the time.

Childish, childlike, and youthful all have the same definition or direct meaning.

Instead of telling my daughter that her grandma died, I told her that she had passed away, but we would see her again someday.

Whenever somebody asks to take a drink from my coke it makes me remember having to share a water bottle on hikes with my slobbery brothers. I cringe at the thought of choosing to share it.

Whenever Ryan hears the creepy music make its way on the TV he knows that somebody is about to be murdered in the scary movie!

Oh my gosh! Thank you so much for helping me study for that test, you’re a life saver!!

The night was black as ever, but bright stars lit up the sky in beautiful and varied constellations which were sprinkled across the astronomical landscape.

Section 3: Eight Types of Nouns

Standard: Standard(s): ELAGSE7L1: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking & ELAGSE7L3: Use knowledge of language and its conventions when writing, speaking, reading, or listening.

Directions: Use the sentences to answer the following questions.

Eight Types of Nouns: Common, Proper, Singular, Plural, Collective, Abstract, Concrete, and Possessive Nouns.

Sentence 1: “Tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it yet.”
—L. M. Montgomery,Anne of Green Gables

Identify all the nouns in the sentence and what types of nouns they could be. Each noun can be more than one. For example, Sarah could be a proper or singular noun.

Sentence 2:“One must be careful of books, and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.”
—Cassandra Clare,The Infernal Devices

Identify all the nouns in the sentence and what types of nouns they could be. Each noun can be more than one. For example, Sarah could be a proper or singular noun.

Sentence 3:“Sometimes I can feel my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.”
—Jonathan Safran Foer,Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Identify all the nouns in the sentence and what types of nouns they could be. Each noun can be more than one. For example, Sarah could be a proper or singular noun.

Sentence 4:“As Estha stirred the thick jam he thought Two Thoughts and the Two Thoughts he thought were these: a) anything can happen to anyone, and b) it is best to be prepared.”
—Arundhati Roy,The God of Small Things

Identify all the nouns in the sentence and what types of nouns they could be. Each noun can be more than one. For example, Sarah could be a proper or singular noun.

Sentence 5:“America, I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing.”
—Allen Ginsburg, “America”

Identify all the nouns in the sentence and what types of nouns they could be. Each noun can be more than one. For example, Sarah could be a proper or singular noun.

Sentence 6:“In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart.”
—Anne Frank,The Diary of Anne Frank

Identify all the nouns in the sentence and what types of nouns they could be. Each noun can be more than one. For example, Sarah could be a proper or singular noun.

Sentence 7:“We cross our bridges as we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and the presumption that once our eyes watered.”
—Tom Stoppard,Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Identify all the nouns in the sentence and what types of nouns they could be. Each noun can be more than one. For example, Sarah could be a proper or singular noun.

Sentence 8: “You don’t have to live forever, you just have to live.” —Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

Identify all the nouns in the sentence and what types of nouns they could be. Each noun can be more than one. For example, Sarah could be a proper or singular noun.

Section 4: Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

Standard(s): ELAGSE7RL7: Compare and contrast a written story, drama, or poem to its audio, filmed, staged, or multimedia version, analyzing the effects of techniques unique to each medium (e.g. lighting, sound, color, or camera focus and angles in a film); ELAGSE7RI7: Compare and contrast a text to an audio, video, or multimedia version of the text, analyzing each medium’s portrayal of the subject (e.g., how the delivery of a speech affects the impact of the words); ELAGSE7SL1: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 7 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly; ELAGSE7L2:Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

Directions: Remember the activity we did previously on Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. We read the story from our textbook, then listened to the audio, and finally watched the video version. Use the arguments and claims from our discussions to fill out the similarities and differences in the 3 part Venn Diagram.

Audio Version Video Version

Written Version

Section 5: Three Types of Verbs

Standard(s): ELAGSE7L1: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking & ELAGSE7L3: Use knowledge of language and its conventions when writing, speaking, reading, or listening.

Directions: Use the sentences to answer the following questions.

Three Main Types of Verbs: Linking, Helping, and Action Verbs.

Sentence 1: “Tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it yet.”
—L. M. Montgomery,Anne of Green Gables

Identify all the verbs in the sentence and their type.

Sentence 2:“One must be careful of books, and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.”
—Cassandra Clare,The Infernal Devices

Identify all the verbs in the sentence and their type.

Sentence 3:“Sometimes I can feel my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.”
—Jonathan Safran Foer,Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Identify all the verbs in the sentence and their type.

Identify all the verbs in the sentence and their type.

Sentence 5:“America, I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing.”
—Allen Ginsburg, “America”

Identify all the verbs in the sentence and their type.

Sentence 6:“In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart.”
—Anne Frank,The Diary of Anne Frank

Identify all the verbs in the sentence and their type.

Identify all the verbs in the sentence and their type.

Sentence 8: “You don’t have to live forever, you just have to live.” —Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

Identify all the verbs in the sentence and their type.

Section 6: Compare and Contrast

Standard(s):ELAGSE7RI1: Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text;ELAGSE7RI3: Analyze the interactions between individuals, events, and ideas in a text (e.g., how ideas influence individuals or events, or how individuals influence ideas or events);ELAGS78L1: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking;ELAGSE7L2: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing; and ELAGSE7RI3: Determine two or more central ideas in a text and analyze their development over the course of the text; provide an objective summary of the text.