7th & 8th READING & SP./ COMP. & ENGLISH.

READING

WORDLY WISE - vocabulary use & building, is one of the many components of upper grade READING. The work book will be used most school weeks.

Your student will have to complete exercises A& B for Mondays, exercises C & D for Tuesdays, and the “biggie” exercise E for Thursdays. THURSDAY is the quiz / test day for WORDLY WISE : one qz. for a Reading grade with a different qz. for English grade – thus, reviewing highlighted material & definitions, and completing the “passage” answers should be the expected part of Wednesday night homework.

CLASS READER.: Your child will have a Reading text book & a poetry book for in-class reading & discussion: Stories to Remember & Poems to Remember for 8th , and Stories to Enjoy & Poems to Enjoy for 7th Oral & or written assignments in class will ensue from these readings.

CLASS STUDY BOOKS: Each grade level will extensively study two or three novels each year - see BOOK LIST for exact titles. Vocabulary work, comprehension, creative projects, memorization as well as quizes and a final book test all contribute to the intensity of this study. It is vital for each student to have & bring their own copy of the book to class every day during this time.

READING LIST FOR Monthly REPORTS & PROJECTS - a copy of this is available on our school web site, and is displayed in the classroom.

Your child has received their individual copy of the BOOK LIST and has had an overview of requirements Follett Educational Supplies will provide the READING LIST books at below cost with no tax and no shipping costs! Your student should have brought home their choice of books by now. ( not bad for second week in school!)

A CHECK LIST, which can be downloaded, is provided to form a step by step guide for the summary & theme on the book report for all grades.. This check list needs to be checked off and stapled to the back of the summary. By 7th & certainly 8th most students ought to be working on this assignment independently with just the proofreading help from parents or older siblings. Certain books will entail an in-class assessment with open book, not always a written report.

FREE CHOICE READING: Twice during the year students will be able to choose from the class bookshelf for individual reading, completing a book in a week or so and keeping a “Log”for this reading.

LITERARY CIRCLES: Groups of 4-6 students will read one of a set of 4or 5 titles. They will organize themselves about how to complete the reading, share their questions & answers and present their findings to the other groups.

SPELLING / COMPOSITION:

JOURNAL WRITING : once a week, is an informal typing opportunity in the lab. where students can have thirty uninterrupted minutes to respond to a choice of various topics. Journal is not graded for quality of content but rather for effort in output. Though, basic English grammar & writing rules need to be adhered to. Journals are checked each week, graded each mid and end of quarter.

WRITING: Linked daily with ENGLISH class for 10 -15 minutes of “QUICK WRITES” on a different topic each day.

After five or six topics have been accumulated, they will be reviewed by student to choose one for revising/ editing for another draft.

Peer review, critiquing, sharing aloud & silently, & editing are part of the process to produce a final draft for a grade. Turning in the original drafts is a vital part of full grade for a student’s final draft.

SPELLING: once a week – Monday for 7th & Tuesday for 8th.

Students will be given a list of 20 words to study for a test a week later. 7th GRADE’S words are from a list of commonly misspelled words, & 8th GRADE’S words derive from a college prep. vocabulary book.

8th GRADERS will have a Spelling Test on Thursdays Until the week of Standardized Testing the Sp. Test will involve the identification of misspelled words from a list students will have studied. After IOWA TESTS the regular list of words will be tested orally. 7th GRADERS need to know the parts of speech of the words, and 8th GRADERS have to learn both part of speech & definition of the spelling words. There is always the “missing word “ to remember too. The night before the Spelling Test should entail some preparation & study.

ENGLISH

Student work with Loyola Press’ Voyages In English textbook & Exercises in English workbook to learn & reinforce the fundamentals of grammar,usage & expression.

The emphasis in English classes will be on WRITING incorporating the fundamentals of GRAMMAR

We will begin the year with the basics of punctuation, from the back of their workbook. These pages of rules (& exercises ) they will then keep in their Quick Write folders for reference.

Then, in their daily writing assignments & rewrites they will put into practice what they have learned.

All the grade level specifics of : categories, recognition, & usage, of: Nouns, Pronouns, Adjectives, Verbs, will be covered.

This background of grammar & exposure to many styles of good writing in Reading class and discussion of authors’ work, as well as efforts at perfecting their own writing , reinforces for students the value and effectiveness of ENGLISH in all forms of communication.

ENGLISH is interrelated and blends seamlessly with READING, & SP. COMP.

English grades are earned with Book Report work in Reading, and with Wordly Wise written answers on the”passage” exercise, and from the final drafts on Quick Write topics, as well as from Grammar work.

I do not weight grades for certain assignments - I believe in the”swings & roundabouts” theory of combining the student's strengths & weaknesses in the varying aspects of a particular subject, for an overall average.

There are many opportunities for Bonus. & “extra points” answers in all 3 subjects.