8th Grade Historical Literacy consists of two 43 minute class periods. Writing is one 43 minute block and reading is another. The teacher has picked themes based on social studies standards, and a read-aloud novel based on social studies serves as the mentor text for writing and reading skills. More social studies content is addressed in reading through teaching nonfiction reading skills and discussion.

For advanced students who wish to build confidence and skills in spoken English. Focuses on the appropriate oral presentation of material in a variety of professional contexts: group discussions, classroom explanations and interactions, and theses/research proposals. Valuable for those who intend to teach or lecture in English. Includes language laboratory assignments. The goal of the workshop is to develop effective speaking and listening skills for academic and professional contexts.

By analyzing Dear AbbyŐs ŇrantÓ about bad grammar usage, students become aware that attitudes about race, social class, moral and ethical character, and ŇproperÓ language use are intertwined.

A checklist in student language used by middle school students to self-assess their biography reports.

Students read literary and informational texts about knowledge and intelligence to understand what happens when humans try to manipulate the minds of others and how our understanding of intelligence has evolved over time. Students express their understanding of these ideas by exploring how authors draw on traditional stories and develop characters and themes to teach us about ourselves and others.

Using their new skills in deconstructing advertisements, students will look at advertisements through the lens of gender.  Students will be encouraged to critically analyze the cultural stereotypes for men and women. Students will deconstruct advertisements based on gender representation.Rationale: Students will begin to see how believing in stereotypes can lead towards a negative self image for men and women.  This is Part 4 of a 5 part Unit: Media Manipulation: What Are They Really Saying?

The lessons in this unit provide you with an opportunity to use online resources to further enliven your students' encounter with Greek mythology, to deepen their understanding of what myths meant to the ancient Greeks, and to help them appreciate the meanings that Greek myths have for us today. In the lessons below, students will learn about Greek conceptions of the hero, the function of myths as explanatory accounts, the presence of mythological terms in contemporary culture, and the ways in which mythology has inspired later artists and poets.

Using the theme of identity, students will work through various activities to learn the characteristics of a Narrative Essay. This particular unit will/should take place prior to writing the Narrative Essay. Many of the lessons address how to identify, create, apply and analyzeheme, dialogue punctuation, figurative language and citing direct and indirect evidence.

This brief unit about participles is part of a larger unit about verbals and is in the planning to be a part of a very large unit about grammar.  This unit is intended to aid student knowledge about how words and sentences fit together as well as to improve their writing skills as they learn to model different sentence formats.

Using voice-to-text features to complete written assignments.  Students with reading/writing difficulties often struggle with getting their thoughts on paper.  Using a voice-to-text feature allows students to better focus on their thoughts and less on the mechanics of fine motor skills, spacing and spelling.

Through forums, a video, and a slide show, students will learn how to recognize and write simple sentences, compound sentences, and complex sentence.

These assessments accompany this unit to help gauge student understanding of key unit content and skills.

The Content Assessment pushes students to synthesize unit content knowledge or unit essential questions orally or in writing. The Content Assessment should be used as the primary assessment because it shows mastery of unit content knowledge and standards. This assessment should take approximately one class period.

The Fluency Assessment measures students’ ability to read a grade-level text with accuracy and prosody, at a proficient rate. Teachers should use the information gathered from the assessment to monitor students’ fluency and plan for any necessary intervention groups. This assessment is quick and should happen at the end of a unit. Teachers should plan to pull students one-on-one to do this while the rest of the class is independently reading or writing.

For this lesson, students will review what adjectives are, learn how to identify them in writing, and write with them to describe a picture. They will share their writing with their classmates through a wiki or a forum.