Middle School - English Class - Miss Killelea

The middle school English curriculum is comprised of the study of four areas: vocabulary, literature, grammar and writing. It is the philosophy of the teachers that all four disciplines be integrated throughout the year to develop adept thinking, writing and processing skills.

The goal of the middle school English curriculum is to prepare students for high school level work. In addition to academic preparation, students will gain autonomy and responsibility in regard to their work. Students will graduate from Bishop Dunn with the reading, writing and cognitive skills required for a successful high school experience. We offer a traditional grade-level program as well as an accelerated course of study for all three grades.

Textbooks

The following series are used in the English program:

Literature: Copper, Bronze and Silver, Prentice Hall

Elements of Writing: Introductory Course, First Course and Second Course, Holt, Rhinehart, Winston (grammar text)

Rules of the Game 1-3, EPS (grammar workbook)

Vocabulary Workshop A-C, Sadlier Oxford (grade-level program)

Vocabulary From Classical Roots A-C, EPS (accelerated program)

Grades 6, 7 and 8

Vocabulary
The study of vocabulary is continuous on all three grade levels, with an assessment at the end of each lesson or unit. Children are expected to learn the definitions of words, as well as be able to use the words correctly in their writing. Children in the accelerated program also learn the Latin or Greek roots of words and are expected to know the origins of the words they are studying.

All students in the middle school program are introduced to etymology and learn how to discern the meaning of a word, based on its root word(s).

Grade Six

Literature

The children are exploring plot, character, setting and theme in the form of short stories from our literature text and novels.

Grammar

The sixth graders will be concentrating on identifying sentences. They will be able to identify the four kinds of sentences, as well as determine fragments and run on sentences. We will also review basic grammatical concepts such as subject/predicate and identifying nouns and verbs in a sentence.

Grade Seven

Literature

The seventh graders are starting the school year by reading short stories in our literature text, Prentice Hall Literature: Bronze.  They will study plot structure and character development by reading short stories, including ones written by Ernest Hemingway, Gary Soto, Pearl S. Buck, Isaac Asimov, Washington Irving and Gwendolyn Brooks. The Watsons Go to Birmingham-1963 and The Outsiders are the novels we will be reading.  The students will write a variety of pieces including both informal and formal essays.

Members of the accelerated class will be reading the novels, Murder on the Orient Express, The Primrose Way, Summer of My German Soldier and an abridged version of Shakespeare's Hamlet.  These students will also study the poetry of Seamus Heaney, Robert Frost, Tennyson, Langston Hughes, as well as other poets.

Grammar
We are reviewing the eight parts of speech and identifying them in sentences.  The students are reviewing kinds of sentences, identifying sentence fragments and run-on sentences as well as subject verb agreement. Accelerated students will be introduced to subject complements.

Grade Eight

Literature
In preparation for the January ELA state tests, the eighth graders are sharpening their “reading for meaning” and writing skills based on documents presented to the students in a testing environment.  We are reading short stories and poems in our literature text, as well as the novels, I Am the Cheese and Summer of My German Soldier.The eighth grade accelerated students are reading the classic, A Separate Peace, The Killer Angels and Pride and Prejudice. The eighth graders will also study the poetry of Walt Whitman, W.B. Yeats, Shakespeare and others.

Grammar
Topics being reviewed include subject-verb agreement and identifying the eight parts of speech in paragraphs. The honors class is reviewing parts of speech, subject complements and phrases and clauses.