WELCOME TO 8TH GRADE LANGUAGE ARTS!
This year our textbook is Collections by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Students and parents can access a digital e-book at my.hrw.com.
There are 6 collections in the book. Each collection is theme based:
- Collection 1: Culture & Belonging
- Collection 2: The Thrill of Horror
- Collection 3: The Move Toward Freedom
- Collection 4: Approaching Adulthood
- Collection 5: Anne Frank's Legacy
- Collection 6: The Value of Work
- All year we will work on writing objective summaries, well-written paragraphs, narrative essays, argumentative essays and explanatory essays, as well as working on spelling, vocabulary and grammar.
- We will also be reading the following novels as a class:To Kill A Mockingbird & The Outsiders.
Grade Breakdown for Language Arts Each Quarter:
Writing/Projects/Presentations- 40%
Tests/Quizzes – 40%
CW/HW/Journal – 20%
All assignments are graded with a 5-point grading scale:
5 = A+
4.5 = A
4 = B
3.5 = C
3 = D
2.5 = F
0=missing
I DO NOT ACCEPT a student just taking a zero! I want him/her to LEARN the material. Therefore, students with 0's will be ZAP'd (Zeroes Are not Permitted) which means lunch detention until the missing work is finished!
READING
We have a quarterly reading goal in this class, it is to read 2 books a quarter = 8 books by the end of the year. We have 15 minutes of silent reading per day. If that is not enough time, your student will also need to read at home. Studies have actually proven students that read an additional 20 minutes a night are better readers and have an increased vocabulary. Every student is assigned a "book club book" to read each day, take notes on, and discuss with his/her group on Fridays. When a book is finished notes will be collected and a test will be given.
There will be a separate grade just for Reading.