Curriculum / September / October / November / December / January
Name / Welcome--Identity / Creepy Story / Thanksgiving / Holidays / Rights & Responsibilities
Emphasis/Focus / Who are we? and Whom am I? How do we all live together? / Get into reading / Gratitude & Family / Civil Rights Movement
Skills, Strategies, etc. / Poetry Elements & Forms
Analytical Thinking—
Point of View, Inferences, Prediction
Public Speaking—Me in a Bag
Daily Grammar / Literary Elements—
Character, Plot, Setting, Conflict, Personification, Foreshadowing
Analytical Thinking—
Fact/Opinion, Inferences
Daily Grammar / Literary Elements—
Character, Plot, Setting, Conflict, Personification
Analytical Thinking—
Fact/Opinion, Inferences
Foreshadowing
Daily Grammar / Literary Elements—
Irony, Allegory, Allusion
Idioms / Analytical Thinking—
Comparison, Document Analysis, Historical Analysis
Study Skills, Web Site Analysis
Idioms
Reading / Poetry—The Boston Evening Transcript; Introduction to Poetry;
Success;Autobiography in V Chapters; The Road Not Taken
Stories—Twain, A telephonic conversation, Raymond’s Run, Mrs. Flowers, Broken Chain / Stories—Soft Rains (and video), The Pedestrian, The Landlady (and video), The Interlopers, The Open Window, Dracula, The Lottery, The Packerhaus Method, The Monkey's Paw (and video), The Tell-Tale Heart
Poetry—The Raven / Poetry—
Thanksgiving;The Courage My Mother Had;Legacy II; Secret Heart; Those Winter Sundays
Stories—The Wise Old Woman; The Treasure of Lemon Brown
Novel—
The Midwife’s Apprentice(Catherine Cushman) /
Poetry—
Chanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa
Stories--
The Selfish Giant;
The Gift of the Magi;
A Chaparral Christmas / Poetry—
Langston Hughes
Stories—
Camp Harmony
Non-fiction / Brain on Technology articles
Book—Red Scarf Girl / Salem Witch Trial articles, web sites, etc.; Edgar Allan Poe biography,Lov’d Alone (Poe Play); Bog People, Spontaneous Human Combustion, Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, Chupacabra, Zombies (Wild Side Series) / Finance Park preparation
Boston Massacre Propaganda (to support S.S.) / Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa material; The Last Days of a Heroine (Anne Frank)
The Diary of Anne Frank (readers’ theatre in Elements of Literature) / The Circuit; I Have a Dream; The Power of Non-Violence; Once There Were Two (SRA book);
Cesar Chavez, Jackie Robinson (in Crit Reading Heroes book); Emmitt Till (Crit Read.); Various Background Web Sites
Writing / Poetry; 8th Grade Letter to Self; Twain dramatization; IMAGE project; Step Up to Writing review / Witch Hunt Essay
Poe Writing Assignment / Thanksgiving Poems
Veterans Day Poems / Holiday Story Dramatization; Holiday Scene Description / Self Reflection—Evaluation of Goals set in Fall
8th Grade LA / Third / Quarter / 3rd / 4th / Fourth / Quarter
Curriculum / February / March / April / May / June
Name / Extreme Adventures / Are we ‘wild’? / Tuning up / Life in other times / Life in other places
Emphasis/Focus / Adventures in the Wild—why people do extreme things (pre-work for Call of the Wild) / Reading Strategies Review / Reading Strategies Review / US— Going West & Civil War;
Skills, Strategies, etc. / Comparison (across time and cases)
Study Skills—
Cornell Notes; KWLC charting, etc.
Latin Vocabulary / Reading—Anthropomorphism (Call)
Setting (LotF)
Test taking strategies
Latin Vocabulary / Test taking strategies
Latin Vocabulary / Daily Grammar
Latin Vocabulary / Daily Grammar
Reading / Poetry—
Sam McGee / Novel—The Call of theWild (Jack London); Lord of the Flies (William Golding)
OSPI released items / OSPI released items / Novels—Reading Circle
Stories—An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (and video) / Stories from Elements of Literature—Brer Possum’s Dilemma; Coyote and Brer Rabbit; They Have Yarns;
The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County;
Non-fiction / Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World; Race to the North Pole; Seattle role in Klondike Gold Rush; Sled Dog readings; Into the Wilderness; The Rush for Gold; Selling Seattle; Various other explorers (on student’s own)
Wild Side: The Last Great Race on Earth / Various Wild Side selections
Critical Reading selections / Various Wild Side selections
Critical Reading selections as Test Preparation
Writing / Note-Taking; Poetry Reviews / On-going reading work, culminating essay on wild vs. civilized in human life / Citations, in support of S.S. CBA / Culminating project on Reading Circle Novels / Multi-paragraph letter to incoming 8th graders
Common Core Standards for Reading—
Key Ideas and Details
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.1 Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.3 Analyze how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story or drama propel the action, reveal aspects of a character, or provoke a decision.
Craft and Structure
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including analogies or allusions to other texts.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.5 Compare and contrast the structure of two or more texts and analyze how the differing structure of each text contributes to its meaning and style.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.6 Analyze how differences in the points of view of the characters and the audience or reader (e.g., created through the use of dramatic irony) create such effects as suspense or humor.
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.7 Analyze the extent to which a filmed or live production of a story or drama stays faithful to or departs from the text or script, evaluating the choices made by the director or actors.
- (RL.8.8 not applicable to literature)
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.9 Analyze how a modern work of fiction draws on themes, patterns of events, or character types from myths, traditional stories, or religious works such as the Bible, including describing how the material is rendered new.
Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.10 By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at the high end of grades 6–8 text complexity band independently and proficiently.