Caveat: 8th grade may experience slight changes in the order of material covered in this scope and sequence as needed to adjust to student and class needs. Any changes will be posted on the class blog. For access to the class blog, click here.
our year at a Glance
Term 1:
Literature: The Call of the Wild (Jack London) The Witch of Blackbird Pond (Elizabeth George Speare) Declaration of Independence Varied poems and short stories Writing Focus: Argument writing focusing on specific themes found within the readings Skills and Standards: Dialectic Notes. Effective communication within a classroom setting--including mini Socratic seminar discussions. Review of active reading strategies (asking questions, making connections, predicting, visualizing, summarizing). Objective vs. subjective writing. Effective research techniques (finding credible sources, plagiarism/academic integrity, citing sources on a works cited page and as an in-text citation). Evaluating ethos, pathos, and logos and how they influence interpretation of writing. Writing introduction paragraphs with an interesting hook and a clear thesis. Topic sentences and essay organization (basic 5 paragraph essay). Using evidence to support analysis. Grammar: Review parts of speech (noun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, articles). |
Term 3
Literature: Animal Farm (George Orwell) Selections of Up from Slavery (Booker T. Washington) Writing Focus: Narrative and expository Skills and Standards: Elements of fiction: plot, setting, theme, point of view, types of narrators, conflict: internal and external, suspense, and climax. Character analysis: types of characters, motives, overall contribution to the story Theme analysis: specifically how this makes Animal Farm and allegory and what should be learned from the reading. Understanding/analyzing allegories, satire, and metaphors. Identifying and using sensory details in writing. Using dialogue. Create an allegorical work of fiction to be presented to the class. Prejudice paper (expository) Grammar: Punctuation: end marks, commas, colons, semi-colons, hyphens, dashes, parenthesis. |
Term 2
Literature: Memoir of a Revolutionary Soldier (Joseph Plumb Martin) Fever 1793 (Laurie Halse Anderson) Writing Focus: Informational/expository writing using literature and additional sources to complete a research paper Skills and Standards: Character and theme analysis. Organizing information writing and ways in which it differs from argument writing. Supporting a thesis with large quantities of strong, varied evidence. Creating research questions. Effective research techniques (finding credible sources, plagiarism/academic integrity, citing sources on a works cited page and as an in-text citation). Socratic seminar class discussions. Grammar: Sentence types: simple, complex, compound, complex-compound. Fragments, run-ons, and complete sentences review.Independent vs, dependent clauses. |
Term 4
Literature: To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee) The Merchant of Venice (William Shakespeare) Writing Focus: Argument, narrative, poetry (focusing on creating different types of poems--free verse, sonnets, etc.) Skills and Standards: Character and theme analysis--specifically the mockingbird theme throughout TKAM Compare/contrast TKAM movie with the book. TKAM trial reenactment. Background of Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, and the Globe Theatre. Analyze events, themes, motifs, symbols, and plot from Shakespeare's play. Elements of poetry: iamb, meter, iambic pentameter, heroic couplet, rhyme scheme, refrains, alliteration, simile, metaphor, figurative language, types of rhyme. Types of poems: sonnets, free verse, haiku. Grammar: Commonly misused words. |