8th Grade Curriculum
English class is rigorous in the 8th grade with many state assessments to administer throughout the school year and the state writing exam in February. The following will give you a guideline as to what we will be doing in class this year. I look forward to working with you and your student this year.
ELEMENTS OF LITERATURE
(Core Textbook)
The following are skills we will focus on throughout the year.
Reading Skills and Strategies
Monitoring comprehension, making inferences, making predictions, distinguishing fact from opinion, determining the main idea, using context clues, identifying purpose, comparing and contrasting, using text structures, and summarizing.
Elements of Literature
Conflict, plot, theme, imagery, climax, foreshadowing, character, main idea, setting, point of view, figures of speech, suspense, narration and point of view.
Language/Grammar
Parts of speech, agreement, pronouns, modifiers, phrases, clauses, kinds of sentences, combining sentences, complements, capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and usage.
Vocabulary/Spelling
Words to Own (reading vocabulary), spelling strategies, and character traits.
Writing
Narrative writing, persuasive writing, expository essay, descriptive essay, character sketch and analysis, and research writing.
Listening and Speaking
Participation in a group, retelling of a story, debating, oral reading, drama, discussing, speech, interviewing, and book talks.
Viewing and Presenting
Using graphs, charts, and posters, designing projects for presentation, viewing video for information, designing brochures.
NOVEL UNITS
Students will be reading and responding to several different novels throughout the year. As a class we will be reading Wish You Well (Diff.), The Hound of the Baskervilles (Diff.), The Beekeeper’s Apprentice (Diff.), To Kill a Mockingbird (Diff.) , Night (Diff.), The Diary of Anne Frank, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, and The Island on Bird Street. In addition to these classroom novels, students will be responsible for reading two novels outside of class each quarter.
INDEPENDENT READING
Students will be reading independently each Friday. They are required to bring a book to class to read that day. If your student is absent on Friday, he/she will need to get a reading log from me and read for 40 minutes outside of class to receive the reading points. Each quarter students have TWO outside reading books as homework. They will complete a “book product” for each of those books. Each quarter one of the books needs to be of the required genre. Here are those due dates:
Genre Due Dates
Quarter 1 Mystery September 24, October 15
Quarter 2 Realistic Fiction November 19, January 7
Quarter 3 Science Fiction/ Fantasy February 11, March 11
Quarter 4 Historical Fiction April 15, May 13
JOURNALING
We will be journaling in class each day. If your student is absent he/she will need to make up the missed entry to receive credit. Journaling is a quiet time spent reflecting on what we have learned, how we feel about what we learned, or as a pre-reading activity to activate prior knowledge about a topic. These daily journals are an excellent opportunity to practice writing to a given prompt, an important skill to have for the state writing exam and the writing graduation exams in high school.
SPELLING/ GREEK & LATIN
For Spelling, (Eng. 8), each Monday your student will take a spelling pretest in class and have a worksheet which will be due the following day. On Tuesday, your student will be assigned spelling homework out of the spelling book. Homework consists of think and practice (riddles, synonyms, word pairs, word association, sentence completion, drawing conclusions, words in context), strategic spelling (seeing meaning connections), proofreading and writing (proofreading for usage), and vocabulary building (review of definitions, word study, analogies, and Latin roots). The homework is due each Thursday. On Friday, we take the spelling test. The Diff. classes will be continuing their Greek and Latin vocabulary study this year; they will not be doing spelling. On Monday, they will practice the vocabulary with notecards, which are due the following day. They will have some book practice that will be due on Wednesday. On Friday, they will take the exam for their weekly lesson.
GRAMMAR (Daily Oral Grammar)
Grammar will be a daily sentence practice via mini-lesson of a few grammatical/punctuation rules. The focus of grammar study is to determine errors in sentences and correct those errors. There will be a weekly quiz on the grammar focus for the week.
STATE STANDARDS
Below is a list of the 8th grade state standards that we will be teaching and assessing throughout the year. In addition to the state standards, students will be tested for writing proficiency with the 8th grade state writing exam (in February).
Reading
- By the end of eighth grade, students will identify the basic fact and essential ideas in what they have read.
- By the end of eighth grade, students will locate, access and evaluate resources to identify appropriate information.
- By the end of eighth grade, students will identify basic forms of text (poetry, drama, prose) and various literary genres.
- By the end of eighth grade, students will identify the structure and elements of fiction and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding.
- By the end of eighth grade, students will identify and apply knowledge of the structure, elements, and meaning/purpose of nonfiction or informational material and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding.
- By the end of eighth grade, students will read and compare a variety of literature including narratives and stories.
- By the end of eighth grade, students will interpret the meaning of literary works, nonfiction, films, and media by using different analytic techniques.
Writing
- By the end of eighth grade, students will identify and apply knowledge of the structure of English language and standard English conventions in their own writing.
- By the end of eighth grade, students will apply a process to develop and improve written texts as appropriate to the intended purpose, audience, and form.
- By the end of eighth grade, students will produce varied texts which communicate effectively in expository and narrative prose.
- By the end of eighth grade, students will use creative and critical thinking strategies and skills to generate original and meaningful products.
Speaking
- By the end of eighth grade, students will participate in both large and small groups and contribute their own information or ideas in order to acquire new knowledge.
- By the end of eighth grade, students will make oral presentations that demonstrate appropriate consideration of audience, purpose, and information to be conveyed.
Listening
- By the end of eighth grade, students will apply listening skills in a variety of new settings.