Cochran Middle School

We strive for personal and academic excellence

While building relationships and honoring our cultural and social diversity.

The major purpose of this course is to promote a balanced language arts program. Students are provided with opportunities to move from the interpretation of a text to meaningful connection between the text and their experiences through a series of language arts activities that will enable them to listen, speak, think, and write about literature. The thematic framework provides an opportunity for students to use skills to explore ideas, attitudes, ideals, and values, as they relate to self and larger community.

During the course of the year, students will be focusing on four genres of literature as outlined in the California Content Standards for English Language Arts. These genres are: Narrative, Expository, Response to Literature, and Persuasive. Below is a brief description of each genre and its standards, as well as the teaching dates and testing dates for each genre.

Middle School – 3 Track

Instructional Window

Component I

Narrative Instructional Window

Component 2

Exposition/Research Instructional Window

Component 3

Response to Literature Instructional Window

Component 4

Persuasion

RESOURCES:

State Standards, English Language Arts Instructional Guide, Adopted Texts--The Language of Literature, McDougal Littell and Timeless Voices, Timeless Themes, Prentice Hall Literature series.

Narrative (8 weeks)

In this component students will read text to examine features of literary themes, analyze how authors create characters to convey themes, and how authors use character development to affect the plot of a story.

Standards/Skills Focus:

• Theme, character traits, plot development, setting, point of view, and literary devices

• Writing Strategies - narrative stories/personal narratives; literature analysis/responses

Expository (8 weeks)

In this component students will read a text to make reasonable assertions through accurate supporting citations and by creating outlines, logical notes, summaries, and reports.

Standards/Skills Focus:

• Compare and contrast organizational patterns, outlines, logical notes, summaries and reports, make assertions supporting citations, revise writing, origins and meanings of foreign words, and unknown words with novel meanings.

• Writing Strategies - research reports; analysis of expository texts

Response to Literature (8 weeks)

A significant factor in this component is the reading-writing connection. Students will be asked to read a text selection and then write a well-organized essay in response to that text. They must: (1) state their thesis or purpose; (2) explain the situation; (3) follow an organizational pattern appropriate to the type of composition; and (4) offer persuasive evidence to validate arguments and conclusions needed.

Standards/Skills Focus:

• Writing strategies – Focus on recurring themes across works of literature, use of effective organizational patterns, including comparison and contrast; organization by categories, and arrangement by spatial order, order of importance, or climatic order, develop an interpretation exhibiting careful reading, organize the interpretation around several clear ideas, develop and justify the interpretation through sustained use of examples and textual evidence; Critique the credibility of characterization and the degree to which a plot is contrived or realistic; Simple, compound, compound-complex sentences, grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling.

Persuasion (8 weeks)

Persuasion is the fourth form of writing. Its purpose is to move a reader, by argument, to a belief, position or course of action. It encompasses skills used to identify, evaluate and analyze the credibility, accuracy and efficacy of an author’s argument and the elements of application required for students to construct successful arguments of their own. In addition, this component includes end-of-year and test preparation resources. Standards previously assessed are included as an “End-of-Year review.”

Standards/Skills Focus:

• Monitor expository text for unknown words or words with novel meanings, coordination and subordination of ideas, use correct capitalization, choose the form of writing that best suits the intended purpose, revise writing to improve paragraphs, determine the adequacy and appropriateness of the evidence, make reasonable assertions about text, supporting citation, unsupported inferences, fallacious reasoning, persuasion and propaganda in text, analyze features of theme, credibility of characterization.

Extra Credit – Extra credit will only be given to students who have kept a good academic standing throughout the course, and for reasons such as illness were unable to complete several assignments. Opportunities for extra credit should be requested in advance.

English textbook, Consumable Concept Lessons Book, pens/pencils, paper, a 3-ring binder and a readers/writers notebook

There may be homework assigned Monday through Thursday. Students must bring their consumable textbooks and their readers/writers notebooks everyday. If students loose their books they must purchase new ones.

Homework   15%

Class work/ 15%                                                                           100-90% A

Culminating Task 40%                                                                     80-89% B

Class Preparedness 5%                                                                   70-79% C

Participation 20%

Bell Work 5%                                                        60-69% D

59-0 F

Classes: