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Welcome to 8th grade!

ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS COURSE OVERVIEW


Welcome to Mr. Woodcocks classroom, Room 306, where you will be studying English Language
Arts for the year. The classes are 55 minutes long and take place at the same time each day.
The main texts we will read together as a class this year are:

The Diary of Anne Frank, a play by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett
(part of the McDougall Littell textbook)
Of Mice and Men, a classic novel by
John Steinbeck
American Born Chinese, a graphic novel
by Gene Luen Yang

Students will quickly learn that although the setting of


each text is very different (the Netherlands, rural
California, American suburbia/mythological China),
there are similarities. Each of the texts explores the
issues of identity and exclusion and connects to our
guiding questions for the year, which are listed below.
Essential questions for 8th grade English:

How can one be an individual and also be part of a group?


What are creative ways we can express our unique identities?
Who are marginalized people in todays society?
How do marginalized people find hope?
How do members of a marginalized culture build identity differently from members of a
dominant culture?

How I teach:
I often use free writes and journal entries as a way for students to informally record their thoughts
as they read. I like to use these responses as the basis for class discussion, as it allows students to
organize their thoughts before sharing them with a wider audience. Students will keep a dedicated
writers notebook for this purpose.
Students will write one literature analysis essay, at least two pages in length, in response to each of
the major texts listed above. By the time students complete 8th grade at Grand Center Arts Academy,
they will be familiar with how to write an academic research paper, appropriately quoting sources,
as well as including a Works Cited page. Students will also have the opportunity to try their hand at
personal narratives and persuasive essays.

Grammar, usage, mechanics and style


I will carve out time each week mostly during the Power Up warm-up activities to work in a focused way on
grammar, usage, mechanics, and style (abbreviated to GUMS). Guidelines for specific topics have been worked out
with other English teachers at GCAA to ensure there is a suitable flow between grade levels. These skills are
consistent with the Show Me Standards, used in Missouri, and the Common Core State Standards, a national
framework for teaching that is used across most public schools. Details of what is expected at the 8th grade level
can be found at http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/L/8.
Media Fridays
Whenever possible I will use Fridays class to look at the media by discussing articles from magazines, newspapers,
and online sources. There are multiple reasons for this doing this: It provides a change of pace at end of the week; it
takes advantage of my professional background in journalism; and it engages with a key recommendation of the
Common Core State Standards. Namely that educators embrace a broader concept of literacy by giving students the
opportunity to work with many kinds of writing, not just literature.

Grading

You can expect new grades to be entered in the online gradebook at least once a week. The English grade will be
weighted in the following ways:
Homework completion grade (10%)
This is based on a homework check at the start of class and is focused on shorter assignments; longer assignments
are covered by the major projects and term paper grade. Some assignments are graded for completion only.
Classwork individual (20%)
- Power Ups at the start of class. A combined grade will be given for all the Power Ups used in a given week.
- There will be periodic spot checks of writers notebooks to ensure that students staying organized and are on
track with informal writing assignments.
Classwork group work (10%)
Assignments during class time, working with others. Examples: summarizing and explaining a piece of text for the
whole class; creating a poster as a group; performing a skit.
Tests on vocabulary and language usage (15%)
Tests on literature (15%)
- In general tests will be on Thursdays. This allows for adequate preparation and review before a test; it also means
that students who are absent have the chance to take the test on a Friday, rather than waiting until after the
weekend.
- For each text there will be at least two quizzes to demonstrate an understanding of the text, and two vocabulary
tests based on words drawn from the text.
- Study guides for vocabulary tests will be handed out as hard copies and posted online prior to the test.
Major projects and term papers (30%)
- Formal essays will be graded using the six traits of writing scoring guide. This scoring guide uses the following
categories conventions, ideas, organization, sentence fluency, voice, and word choice and is available on the
class website.
- The grading of other projects depends on the nature of the project but I will always provide a checklist and
scoring guide to students before a major project is due.
LATE WORK POLICY: Any assignment received late by the teacher will receive a 10 point reduction in score (out of
100) for each day it is late. I will not grade assignments that are more than a week late. The only acceptable excuses
for late work are documented family emergencies and a student being absent due to illness. Note: This policy is
identical to that used by Mr. Terrance, the 8th grade Social Studies teacher.
EXTRA CREDIT: Extra credit is available in my classes but not until the last 3-4 weeks of the quarter. At that point I
will give students a packet with a variety of options that can help lift their grade.
Email: tim.woodcock@grandcenterartsacademy.org
Phone: (314) 533-1791 x6306
Class website: http://mrwoodcockgcaa.weebly.com/

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