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Literature Grade 8:
In literature class the students will read, write, listen, and speak for
1) information and understanding
2) literary response and expression
3) critical analysis and evaluation
4) social interaction
All classes will participate in the following activities:
- Reading novels, short stories, plays, poems, and nonfiction pieces all focused around a thematic unit of study
- Expository, narrative, descriptive, and persuasive writing
- Peer-revision
- Class discussions/debates about topics related to literature
- Group work, projects, and presentations
- Keeping a reader’s response log while reading novels to promote critical thinking
- Independent reading
- Writer’s workshop
Students will learn more literary elements and devices, specifically those they will encounter in high school. They will write even more critically and experiment with a number of skills, like comparing literary works and interpreting quotes. Students will also be responsible for writing a sizeable research paper in addition to their regular course work.
In eighth grade, the students will explore the following thematic units:
- “Flowers for Algernon” –Daniel Keyes
- “The Devil and Tom Walker” –Washington Irving or “The Moustache” –Robert Cormier
- Nothing but the Truth – Avi or Animal Farm –George Orwell
- A Dark Time (the Holocaust and World War II)
- The Diary of Anne Frank (play)
- A choice of 3 novels
- Excerpts from Night – Elie Wiesel
- Short stories pertaining to the theme
- Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry –Mildred D. Taylor or To Kill a Mockingbird –Harper Lee
- Poems by Maya Angelou
- “I Have a Dream” speech
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream
- Sonnets
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