1. Welcome!
Scorpion
Curriculum Night!

2. Language Arts~Writing Curriculum
Eighth Grade
Language Arts~Writing Curriculum
Mrs. Cigich

3. Contact Information
E – Mail:
Phone:
** I am available from 8:00 – 8:30 for additional student help daily**

4. Curriculum Writing Concepts: ~Narrative ~Expository/Informational
~Functional
~Argumentative
~Literary Response
Bolded Concepts will be evaluated on formative assessments
The students will have multiple opportunities to master these concepts as they will practice throughout the school year.

5. Curriculum Writing Elements ~Ideas and Content ~Organization ~Voice
~Word Choice
~Sentence Fluency
~Conventions
On each writing concept, we will review and focus on three of these elements. They will be practiced throughout the school year.

6. Curriculum Grammar Concepts:
Prepositional phrase, Parts of a Sentence (subject, predicate [verbs], complements [predicate nominative, predicate adjective, direct object, indirect object],Sentence Structure (simple, complex, compound, compound/complex), Verbals (gerund, participles, infintive), etc
**Once the students are able to identify these, they will be applying them to their sentences cumulatively.

7. Curriculum Reacting to Texts
Students will use a variety of methods to react to texts:
Essays
Blogs
Debate
Cooperative group work/projects
Reciprocal Teaching
A number of web-based tools will also be used – wiki spaces, Discovery Education, Screencast-o-matic, Thinglink, etc.

8. Textbooks Holt Elements of Language Write Source
Quarter 2: Inside Out and Back Again
Quarter 4: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Supplemental kits:
~Debate
~Grammar
~Vocabulary – Greek and Latin Roots; contextual vocabulary

9. Textbooks ALA classes:
Quarter 2:Inside Out and Back Again
Quarter 4: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Vocabulary from The Word Within the Word (Greek and Latin Roots) – These are SAT level words
Grammar
Debate
**The ALA students will be doing many of the same lessons as the grade-level students but at a much more rigorous level.

10. Grading Weighted grading: 20% - CW, HW, participation, work completion
80% - Assessments, Projects, Writing Tasks
* All raw scores will be converted to percentages prior to going in the grade book
* Any assignment/assessment that scores less than 70% can be fixed for a grade change to 70%