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In Eighth Grade English, students will be emerged in language and thinking processes in order to communicate and create understanding. Students will have to read, write, communicate, think critically, and perform in meaningful ways through interaction with various texts, genres, and real-world tasks. Students are expected to gain and apply reading strategies, comprehension strategies, a recursive writing process, collaborate with peers, and communicate their ideas.

Reading, writing, communicating, thinking critically, and performing in meaningful, relevant ways within and across disciplines are essential practices for accessing and deeply understanding content. Immersion in the language and thinking processes by each discipline guides students to develop and cultivate a deeper understanding of particular disciplines. Prior to 8th Grade, students should have developed skills to interpret various text, produce clear and coherent writings, demonstrate a range of vocabulary, analyze the development of text, and effectively communicate. By the end of Eighth Grade English, students will have read a variety of texts in print and multimedia formats: fiction, literary nonfiction, poetry, and drama, informational (expository, persuasive, argumentative) texts in multimedia formats, and three genres of writing (argumentative, informative, narrative).

 Unit I for each quarter should be the primary instructional focus. Unit 2 is designed to provide a secondary instructional focus that allows for the use of paired text activities to develop increased comprehension of a topic or subject, develop a range of reading strategies, increase abilities to think about a topic from different perspectives, and support students to write in more authentic ways.

Quarter 1: Narrative Unit

Quarter 2: Informational/Expository Unit

Quarter 3: Argumentative Unit

Quarter 4: Cumulative Review Unit

 Overarching Concepts

The following serve as fundamental concepts for all units of instruction within Eighth Grade English:

• Construct new knowledge by engaging in self-directed inquiry and then use multiple resources to gain understanding
• Synthesize new information with their current thinking/knowledge
• Use a variety of reading and comprehension strategies in order to gain understanding and make meaning from a text
• Use decoding skills to determine the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words
• Use a recursive writing process and genre-specific strategies in order to produce clear and coherent writing that adheres to standard English grammar and conventions
• Use a reciprocal communication process to evaluate and guide the delivery of ideas to an audience

Required Materials

• 3 ring binder
• one subject notebok
• tab dividers
• black and/or blue pens

For All Classes: ear buds, pencils, loose leaf paper, highlighters (multi-colored), color pencils, and glue sticks