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2009 - 2010
(approved 8/27/09)
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Language Arts |
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The language arts program at the middle school is designed to develop, reinforce, and refine essential skills in reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing in alignment with the New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards for Language Arts/Literacy. These elements are integrated into the program through exposure to a variety of literature and informational text. In addition, students are given frequent opportunities for writing to develop application of the writing process with emphasis on organization, voice, vocabulary, sentence fluency, and mechanics. Oral and audio communication skills are developed and integrated into activities related to reading and writing. By developing and mastering this range of communication skills, students can extend their learning to all content areas. Reading is an integral part of the language arts program with emphasis on developing reading skills needed for both literature and information text. Students explore reading with a focus on text to self, text to world and text to text connections. Students will read a variety of literacy genres by authors such as Avi, Langston Hughes, S.S. Hinton, Lois Lowry, Paul Zindel, and William Shakespeare among others. Students are exposed to drama, poetry, and contemporary and traditional classics in fiction and memoir. As part of their study of literature, students are required to participate in individual reading activities and to display their understanding of literature through a variety of assessments with emphasis on writing. Interpretative and analytic questioning and oral skills are also developed through literacy study. Sixth grade students will combine two instructional periods to include language arts and reading. Writing and composition skills are developed through a variety of forms that include narrative stories, descriptive and expository essays, newspaper articles, research papers, literary critiques, poetry, letters, and dialogues. Students use Write Source 2000 and Writers, Inc. as part of the K-8 sequence which includes the 6 +1 Traits of writing, a technique that employs the teaching of writing in all genres. Students are provided with rubrics to convey clear expectations for all writing pieces. As students develop as writers, they are encouraged to use their imagination and creativity as well as to develop a unified and coherent writing style. A process approach to writing is taught in all grades, and students are expected to demonstrate their understanding of this process. Therefore, writing assessments include activities which utilize brainstorming, organizing, drafting, conferencing, revising, and proofreading before a work is submitted in its final form. Word study is acquired in context from the literature the students read as well as from vocabulary texts. The grammar component emphasizes mechanics and usage which have direct application to writing. In grades six through eight, students focus on the use of commas, colons, and semicolons. They also work with the implementation of sentence variety recognizing and using simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences. The text Skills Book (Great Source) is used to reinforce grammar instruction. Media Center instruction is another integral part of the language arts curriculum. Students employ their technology skills as they discover the vast array of information available to them in a variety of mediums. All students receive instruction in the utilization of electronic indexes, the Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, dictionaries, almanacs, encyclopedias, and multi-media materials. Lessons may be planned cooperatively by the media specialist and the classroom teacher and are generally developed in conjunction with classroom activities. Use of computers in the middle school language arts program includes word processing and instructional support. In addition to the language arts class, seventh and eighth grade students also participate in a writing lab which meets in three day cycles. This additional writing class supports and reinforces the writing skills included in the New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards for grades seven and eight. Both the language arts class and the writing lab provide students with the opportunity to integrate communication skills with multi-media presentations. Presently there are two levels of instructional grouping in the grade eight language arts program. Level one is designed for those students whose communication skills exceed the expectations of a traditional eighth grade language arts program. These students read beyond what is required in class and are capable of writing cohesively in a timed writing setting. Level two is designed for those students who are making normal progress in language arts as evidenced by reading and writing scores on standardized tests, marking period grades, a student writing sample, and teacher recommendation.
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