English Language Arts Ms. Francis Eighth Grade Goals

Classroom Goals:  To strengthen student grammar skills in the following areas:  Capitalization  Punctuation  Subject-Verb Agreement  Spelling  To expose students to a wide range of writing to include the following:  Persuasive/Argumentative  Narrative  Descriptive  Expository  Newspaper  MLA Research

Classroom Goals (con’t): To encourage reading across a variety of genres:  Fiction  Historical Fiction  Non-fiction  Informative  Poetry  To nurture the creative spirit of students.  To allow for individual input and ideas through Socratic methods.  To promote organizational skills through the following strategies:  Interactive Notebooks  Cornell Note-taking  Dialectical Journals  Concept Mapping

Classroom Goals (con’t): To cultivate deep-level, critical thinking skills:  Depth of Knowledge focus on Levels 3-4  Bloom’s Taxonomy Levels 4-6  Costa’s Levels of Questioning: English  To encourage analyzing and synthesizing of text through close reading strategies and annotation.  To allow students the opportunity to write for a wide variety of purposes.  To review story elements, literary devices, poetry terms, etc.

Classroom Routine/Rules: Students will follow the same routine daily:  Arrive to class in a timely manner  Collect Interactive Notebook from shelf and take seat  Read the daily standards, objectives and activities for the day.  Complete the “Do Now” activity listed on the board.  Once “Do Now” is completed, wait until other students finish.  Wait for additional direction from the teacher.  At the conclusion of class, teacher will remind students to return notebooks to shelf.  Class will be dismissed by the teacher.  Students will follow class rules: Be Ready; Be Responsible; Be Respectful; Raise your hand.

Novel/reading list for year:  Soldier’s Heart—historical fiction Civil War novella by Gary Paulsen  Monster—a young-adult screenplay/diary by Walter Dean Myers  The Diary of Anne Frank by Francis Goodrich and Albert Hackett  The Devil’s Arithmetic—Holocaust novel by Jane Yolen  The Book Thief—World War II Novel by Markus Zusak (Advanced)  The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton  The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain  Animal Farm—anti-utopian novella by George Orwell (Advanced)  A Midsummer Night’s Dream—a comedy by William Shakespeare (Adv.)  Other reading units include some of the following:  Poetry unit—including the following poets: Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Maya Angelou, Walt Whitman, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and William Shakespeare  Short Story Unit—featuring the writings of Edgar Allan Poe  Greek/Roman Mythological Unit

Writing Syllabus for Year: Students will write for a myriad of purposes:  Narrative “Most Scary Experience” essay  MLA research PowerPoint on students’ favorite authors*  Quarterly independent reading book reports  Poetry booklet: Haiku, Diamante, “I Am” poem, English Sonnet, etc.  Descriptive essay—bring item from home to describe  Persuasive MLA essay—Holocaust topic  Argumentative essay, with partner*  Short, constructed, text-based writing responses  Compare/contrast essay  Expository “How to” essay*  Various journaling activities throughout the year *Some papers require an oral presentation to accompany writing.

Outside Reading  Outside reading novel—one report per quarter—some options for book reports are listed below:  Traditional summary  Newspaper-style report  Character bottle  Character analysis  Convert story to screenplay  “Story Plot” diagram  Comic Strip  Puppet Show  Mystery Box  Blog/review

Supplies: The notebook requirement is specific as students will be creating Interactive Student Notebooks (ISN) in which most of their class work will be completed.  Notebook  One Subject (at least)  100 pages (at least)  College ruled (Walmart has a version that costs $1.00; the Mead or Staples brands usually cost between$2.00-$3.00)

Supplies (continued):  Tape  Scissors  Glue Sticks  Highlighters (four colors)  Small Post It Notes  Pencils/pens (all colors) Suggested supply donations:  Loose-leaf paper  Tissues  Hand Sanitizer  Clorox wipes