Language and Literature (Period 5)

This course is aligned with the Common Core Standards for 7th grade English.

The course has goals for the areas of reading, writing, speaking and listening, and language in an effort to make students able to read and write confidently in all subject areas. In the area of reading students will further develop their abilities to determine a text’s main ideas and to analyze them based off of textual evidence. They will learn to analyze how an author organizes their text and the purpose of the chosen point of view. The students will develop the skills to compare and contrast the written and multimedia versions of a text, and how different writers approach the same topic. In terms of writing, the students will continue to develop their skills in writing argumentative, informative, narrative, and research texts. They will be able to produce clear writing that has appropriate organization and style for the topic at hand. The students will learn to use technology to produce and publish their writing and to link and cite sources.

The students will continue to develop their research skills by drawing evidence from different texts that support their own writing. To develop their speaking and listening skills students will learn to ask good questions that lead to group discussion and to modify their own views in accordance with new information and ideas expressed by those around them.

The students will also practice speaking in front of a group while using relevant descriptions, facts, and details to support an opinion. Throughout their writing and speaking students will continue to show their command of the English language, particularly in the uses of phrases and clauses and varied types of sentences. While writing students will continue to practice conventions, specifically the use of commas to separate coordinate adjectives.