Contact Information: Mrs. Lisa Jenkins 8 th grade Language A(rts)

First Semester(Evolving) Guiding Questions -Living Author Study (letter writing) -Business Letter -Memoir -The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton **Writer’s Autobiography **Self-selected pieces How do we communicate? Why am I the way I am? How do preconceived notions affect our own lives? Second Semester(Evolving) Guiding Questions -Technical (How-to) Paper -Poetry -55 Fiction -To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee **Self-selected pieces Why do we write? How do I judge creativity? Does structure help or hinder my life? To what extent do society's attitudes impact the way we think and act?

Responses to Guiding Question: How can our own preconceived notions affect our own lives?  “Although most of the time we don’t mean to do this, we make preconceived notions, or in other words we jump to conclusions about almost every new person we meet.”  “The world is always connecting people to certain expectations and categories.”  “All throughout history you can find something about people or a group of people dishonoring the human dignity that everyone has.”  “We judge people by what we see on the outside, what they dress like, what they act like, who they hang out with, we all have preconceived notions about everyone.”  “I hear a lot of people say when someone looks at you; you are representing who you are. Appearances affect our opinions but they can be different then the image they have.”  Preconceived notions are a lazy way for the mind not to interact with others.

Grades/Feedback for language arts will be based on the following: Writer’s Notebook (10%) FOCUS: Practice portion of class Content (14%) FOCUS: Ideas, voice and organization in writing. Style and Language Usage(13%) FOCUS: conventions, word choice and fluency. Organization (13%) FOCUS: writing for the appropriate genre, audience and context. Writing is the heart and cornerstone of our class.

 Comprehension and Skills (25%) FOCUS: Quizzes, tests, skills workbook, electronic communication  Reading Counts(15%) FOCUS: Student goals for the Reading Counts Program  Work Habits (10%) FOCUS: Non academic items-responsibility, meeting deadlines, completion.

 Writing  Maintain Writer’s Notebook  Develop two pieces of writing every six weeks (Electronic Portfolio)  Share writing with others  Various genres  On line activities  Reading  Complete reading responses 3-5 nights a week  Read prepared Socratic Seminar literature for discussion  Follow assigned chapters for class novels  Read connecting Literature book pieces

 Based on students lexile scores (MAPS data)  A reading range is 50 above and 100 below the lexile score  Students take an electronic quiz to earn points or complete a book goal  Students may take a quiz 2 times  Students must have an 80% or better to earn credit for the book selected

 Individual reports for students and teachers  Individualized book lists based on a student’s reading interests  Ability to set book goals or point goals for each student  Opportunities for students/teachers to create tests

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