8th Grade English Language Arts

8^th grade English Language Arts: Our 8^th graders will learn the mastery levels of concepts in Grammar such as sentence structure, parts of speech, and paragraph and essay structure.  We use Step-Up to Writing techniques that help solidify students’ use of these essential skills.  Students continue to learn fundamentals and various techniques to reading both fictional and non-fictional literature as well.  They are also re-introduced to concepts such as plot, five stages of a story, mood and tone, and author point of view just to name a few.  When they go deeper into the course, students will be asked to apply these concepts to passages, texts, novels, and other readings to enrich their reading techniques.  As our 8^th grade students become more acquainted with these aspects of literature, they are also reading novels such as The Old Man and the Sea and Anne Frank.  We will use these novels to help the students continue to build their reading comprehension levels and their vocabulary as well.  These amazing novels will be read as a class with integrated projects and/or assignments built into the unit so that students really understand the novel in a fun and engaging way!  Vocabulary is connected to all aspects of English so students are required to understand the use of new vocabulary words.  Students will build their own personal “dictionary” that will consist of words that come from the vocabulary unit and words that students encounter during SSR (sustained silent reading).  These words will be put on index cards in order for them to develop a higher order of thinking and the ability to use them in their daily language.  Something new that is being implemented throughout St. George School is BrainHive, which is an online library for students to use as a resource for obtaining reading books and AR books.  This now leads me to AR, Accelerated Reader, is also an up and coming resource at St. George where we can track students’ reading and comprehension levels and help them build essential reading skills.  This class also incorporates group activities throughout all areas and aspects of English.