English

How exciting it will be to see how your words can impact the greater world around you! While researching and writing about issues related to student activism, you will see how one voice can truly make an impact.

Building upon skills and structures introduced in Lower School, you will hone your craft as a writer. You will explore the power of language by supporting your claims and opinions with research and examples. Our narrative writing projects will include a deeper understanding of personal narratives and memoirs, writing and reading examples in class.

Do you like talking about books you like to read? Just like adults do in their book groups, you will meet with small groups to discuss high interest literature. These discussions will help you to get to the heart of the story in a fun and interactive way. Having more choice in what you read will help build your reading comprehension and fluency.

Did you know you can use video games to explore the setting of a story? Do you enjoy building web sites? Are you an amateur videographer or have a flair for using iMovie? You will have many opportunities to use technology in the classroom by developing book projects related to your reading.

Let’s do away with traditional vocabulary books and use your phone or computer to learn new vocabulary at your own pace and level. We use Membean, a fun and interactive program sure to teach you new words for enhancing your writing projects throughout the year.

Get your creative writing juices flowing right away in seventh grade English! We start the year by reimagining our summer reading selections, examining untold portions of the stories, alternative endings, and unexamined perspectives. This mindset is a perfect springboard into some of our later work together, where we will examine dominant and counter narratives in literature and history.

Want to win arguments? We’ll learn how as we learn to construct thesis statements and use evidence like good lawyers. Through a collaborative project with our science department, refine your research skills as you argue for and against topics, asking many questions. Should pets be in the classroom? Should schools serve chocolate milk in the dining hall? Is nuclear power the best form of energy? Are single-sex classrooms an effective way to learn?

Present your original slam poetry before your peers in a coffeehouse setting, design your own online poetry portfolio, use your phone or iPad to continue improving your vocabulary using Membean, begin your exploration of Shakespeare, and become the best seventh grade reader and writer you can be.

What is your responsibility as a citizen of the world? How can you use your own skills and voice to bring about change?

In eight grade English, you will engage in genre study of science fiction, examine the Holocaust and the wrongful incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, personally connect with a local organization doing important work in our community, and learn more about racism, its history in the United States, and what your role is in combating it.

You will explore social justice through texts such as A Phoenix First Must Burn, an anthology of short science fiction stories; Night by Elie Wiesel; and Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, by Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi – books that challenge their readers to contemplate what working for justice means.

You will develop fix-it strategies for when you are stuck while reading as well as sophisticated language for how to talk about literature.

You will learn to turn your strong feelings about your reading into a well-reasoned, well-crafted literary essay as well as short pieces that allow you to hone your ability to find something to say about what you are reading.

This year, you will develop a variety of reading and writing and critical thinking strategies and skills for the Upper School and beyond.