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Course Standards
General Course Information and Notes
Version Description
The purpose of this course is to increase reading fluency and endurance through advanced integrated experiences in the language arts. This course incorporates reading and analysis of literary and informational selections to develop critical and close reading skills. At the end of 8th grade students are expected to read and comprehend texts in the 6-8 grade complexity band proficiently and independently.General Notes
Honors and Advanced Level Course Note: Academic rigor is more than simply assigning to students a greater quantity of work. Through the application, analysis, evaluation, and creation of complex ideas that are often abstract and multi-faceted, students are challenged to think and collaborate critically on the content they are learning.Important Note: Reading and writing courses should not be used in place of English language arts courses; reading and writing courses are intended to be used to supplement further study in English language arts.
General Notes:
The content should include, but not be limited to, the following:
- demonstrating successful reading of argument, including recognizing bias and supporting details;
- demonstrating successful reading of fact and opinion, including recognizing inferences and main ideas;
- demonstrating successful reading of high-quality literature, including the use of text craft and literary effects to develop theme and tone;
- demonstrating knowledge of a variety of organizational patterns and their relationships in the comprehension of text, including recognizing purpose and tone of informational reading;
- demonstrating successful understanding of academic vocabulary and vocabulary in context;
- integrating reading and writing, including extensive written responses to print and digital text;
- using effective listening, speaking, and viewing strategies with emphasis on the use of evidence to support or refute a claim in multimedia presentations, class discussions, and extended text discussions;
- collaborating extensively amongst peers.
Instructional Practices: Teaching from well-written, grade-level instructional materials enhances students’ content area knowledge and also strengthens their ability to comprehend longer, complex reading passages on any topic for any purpose. Using the following instructional practices also helps student learning.
- Reading assignments from longer text passages, as well as shorter ones when text is extremely complex.
- Making close reading and rereading of texts central to lessons.
- Asking high-level, text-specific questions and requiring high-level, complex tasks and assignments.
- Requiring students to support answers with evidence from the text.
- Providing extensive text-based research and writing opportunities (claims and evidence).
General Information
- Class Size Core Required
Educator Certifications
Student Resources
Original Student Tutorials
Explore the famous speech “All the World’s a Stage” from Shakespeare’s play As You Like It. In this interactive tutorial, you’ll analyze how connotation and imagery develop a character's perspective.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore the famous speech “All the World’s a Stage” from Shakespeare’s play As You Like It. In this interactive tutorial, you’ll analyze an extended metaphor within the speech and how it contributes to the speech’s meaning.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about Greek and Latin roots (anti, capit, bene, bon, and mal) and 12 modern words that feature those roots. In this interactive tutorial, you'll practice using these words and hopefully add them to your vocabulary!
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about ancient Latin roots — Ante, Post, Scrib, and Script — and practice using twelve modern words connected with these roots to build your vocabulary in this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about three roots from ancient Latin and Greek — Per, Seque, and Mis — and practice using twelve modern words connected with these roots to build your vocabulary in this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Identify and apply context clues, including synonyms, antonyms, and inferences, to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words in passages about the life of Frederick Douglass with this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about five roots from ancient Latin and Greek—frag, fract, cret, syn, and sym—and practice using twelve modern words connected with these roots to build your vocabulary in this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about 3 Latin roots (Am, Ab, and Ad) and 12 new words that feature those roots. In this interactive tutorial, you'll make some interesting language connections and hopefully add some new words to your vocabulary!
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn to paraphrase grade-level content in this boxing-themed tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Continue to explore references to sight in the first chapter of Edward Bloor's novel Tangerine and how they convey different meanings and reveal information about characters.
This interactive tutorial is part 2 of 2. Click HERE to launch Part One.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore the difference between vision and perception and how words related to sight convey different meanings and reveal information about characters in the first chapter of Edward Bloor's novel Tangerine.
This interactive tutorial is part 1 of 2. Click HERE to launch Part Two.
In Part Two, you'll continue to examine references to sight in the first chapter of Tangerine. You'll examine how these references convey different meanings and reveal information about characters.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn more about how dialogue, a character’s thoughts, and key events can reveal aspects of a character as you read excerpts from the exciting science fiction novel Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. As you learn more about Ender, the main character, you’ll piece together information about the world in which he lives and his unique situation given the demands of his environment.
This interactive tutorial is Part Two of a two-part series. Make sure to complete Part One first! Click HERE to launch Part One.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how dialogue, a character’s thoughts, and key events can reveal aspects of a character as you read excerpts from the exciting science fiction novel Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. As you learn more about Ender, the main character, you’ll piece together information about the world in which he lives and his unique situation given the demands of his environment.
This interactive tutorial is Part One of a two-part series. Make sure to complete both parts! Click HERE to launch Part Two.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore excerpts from the nonfiction book George Washington’s Secret Six: The Spies Who Saved America in this interactive tutorial. This tutorial is the final part of a four-part series. In this tutorial, you’ll read two more passages from the book about Washington’s spies. You’ll also determine the central ideas of the passages, identify key details, and practice writing a summary of a text.
You should complete the previous tutorials in this series before beginning Part Four.
Click HERE to launch Part One.
Click HERE to launch Part Two.
Click HERE to launch Part Three.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore excerpts from the nonfiction book George Washington’s Secret Six: The Spies Who Saved America in this interactive tutorial. This tutorial is Part Three of a four-part series. In this tutorial, you'll read another passage from the book, identify the topic, and determine the central idea. Then, you'll review the central ideas from all the passages you've read throughout this series and examine how each central idea helps develop an overarching central idea of all the passages.
Be sure to complete the first two parts before beginning Part Three.
Click HERE to launch Part One.
Click HERE to launch Part Two.
Make sure to do Part Four to complete the series! Click HERE to launch Part Four.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore excerpts from the nonfiction book George Washington’s Secret Six: The Spies Who Saved America with this interactive tutorial. In this four-part series, you'll analyze several passages from the book and learn how to extract key information along the way. In Part Two, you'll read another passage from the book, identify the topic, determine the central idea, and examine how key details help develop the central idea.
Be sure to complete Part One before beginning Part Two.
Click HERE to launch Part One.
Make sure to complete the rest of the series:
Click HERE to launch Part Three.
Click HERE to launch Part Four.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore excerpts from the nonfiction book George Washington’s Secret Six: The Spies Who Saved America with this interactive tutorial. In this four-part series, you'll analyze several passages from the book and learn how to extract key information along the way. By the end of Part One, you should be able to distinguish topics from central ideas and identify central ideas and key details in the text.
Make sure to complete all four parts!
Click HERE to launch Part Two.
Click HERE to launch Part Three.
Click HERE to launch Part Four.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore excerpts from astronaut Scott Kelly’s autobiography, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery, in this interactive tutorial. Using these excerpts, you’ll identify several important experiences in Scott Kelly’s young life that had a crucial impact on his later success. You’ll also determine how these events shaped important ideas or life lessons that Scott learned along the way. Finally, you’ll examine the connection between these important life events and the ideas or lessons Scott learned to determine how he discovered what it takes to achieve the nearly impossible.
This tutorial is Part Three of a three-part series. Make sure to complete Part One and Part Two before beginning Part Three.
Click HERE to launch Part One.
Click HERE to launch Part Two.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore excerpts from astronaut Scott Kelly’s autobiography, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery, in this interactive tutorial. Using these excerpts, you’ll identify several important experiences in Scott Kelly’s young life that had a crucial impact on his later success. You’ll also determine how these events shaped important ideas that Scott learned along the way.
This tutorial is Part Two of a three-part series. Make sure to complete all three parts!
Click HERE to launch Part One.
Click HERE to launch Part Three.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore excerpts from astronaut Scott Kelly’s autobiography, Endurance: A Year in Space, A Lifetime of Discovery, in this interactive tutorial. Using these excerpts, you’ll identify several important experiences in Scott Kelly’s young life that had a crucial impact on his later success. You’ll also determine how these events shaped important ideas or life lessons that Scott learned along the way. Finally, you’ll examine the connection between these important life events and the ideas or lessons Scott learned to determine how he discovered what it takes to achieve the nearly impossible.
This tutorial is Part One of a three-part series. Make sure to complete all three parts!
Click HERE to launch Part Two.
Click HERE to launch Part Three.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Study excerpts from the essay “America and I” by Anzia Yezierska and learn about how she immigrated to America from Russia in the early 1900s. In this interactive tutorial, you'll analyze the comparisons she makes between her dream of life in America with the reality of her experience as an immigrant in America.
This tutorial is Part Four of a four-part series. Make sure to complete the previous tutorials before beginning Part Four.
Click HERE to launch Part One.
Click HERE to launch Part Two.
Click HERE to launch Part Three.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Study excerpts from the essay “America and I” by Anzia Yezierska and learn about how she immigrated to America from Russia in the early 1900s. In this interactive tutorial, you'll analyze the comparison she makes between being in America but not being seen as American. Analyzing this comparison will help you better understand how her vision of life in America was different from the reality she experienced after arriving.
This is the second tutorial of a 4-part series, so make sure to complete Part One before beginning Part Two. Then, make sure to complete the rest of the tutorial series.
Click HERE to launch Part One.
Click HERE to launch Part Three.
Click HERE to launch Part Four.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Study excerpts from the essay “America and I” by Anzia Yezierska and learn about how she immigrated to America from Russia in the early 1900s. In this interactive tutorial, you'll analyze the comparison she makes between the reality of living in Russia and her vision of what life will be like in America. You'll also identify her use of vivid contrasts to better understand what motivated her to go to America.
This tutorial is Part One. Make sure to complete the other tutorials in this series!
Click HERE to launch Part Two.
Click HERE to launch Part Three.
Click HERE to launch Part Four.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn 12 new academic vocabulary words in this interactive tutorial! You'll practice the words' synonyms, antonyms, parts of speech, and context clues in order to add them to your vocabulary.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore excerpts from the novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian written by Sherman Alexie. In this interactive tutorial, you'll learn about how a character is developed through a novel written as a diary. You'll examine how the author carefully reveals the history, thoughts, feelings, and perspective of the main character.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Explore the poem “The Railway Train” by Emily Dickinson in this interactive tutorial. Learn about personification and vivid descriptions and determine how they contribute to the meaning of a poem.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn more about that dreaded word--plagiarism--in this interactive tutorial that's all about citing your sources, creating a Works Cited page, and avoiding academic dishonesty!
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Analyze the central idea in multiple texts in this interactive tutorial. You'll read several short texts in which authors disagree about the effects of sugar consumption. You'll practice identifying their different central ideas and the various types of evidence used to support them.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how authors create mood in a story through this interactive tutorial. You'll read a science fiction short story by author Ray Bradbury and analyze how he uses images, sound, dialogue, setting, and characters' actions to create different moods. This tutorial is Part One in a two-part series. In Part Two, you'll use Bradbury's story to help you create a Found Poem that conveys multiple moods.
When you've completed Part One, click HERE to launch Part Two.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn 12 new academic vocabulary words, identify their parts of speech, synonyms, and antonyms, and use them in context with this interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to create a Found Poem with changing moods in this interactive tutorial. This tutorial is Part Two of a two-part series. In Part One, students read “Zero Hour,” a science fiction short story by author Ray Bradbury and examined how he used various literary devices to create changing moods. In Part Two, students will use words and phrases from “Zero Hour” to create a Found Poem with two of the same moods from Bradbury's story.
Click HERE to launch Part One.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Cite text evidence and make inferences about the "real" history of Halloween in this spooky interactive tutorial.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn 12 new academic vocabulary words in this interactive tutorial! You'll practice the words' synonyms, antonyms, parts of speech, and context clues in order to add them to your vocabulary.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn 12 new academic vocabulary words in this interactive tutorial! You'll practice the words' synonyms, antonyms, parts of speech, and context clues in order to add them to your vocabulary.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about dramatic irony and its impact within a story. In this interactive tutorial, you'll read excerpts of a story about Abraham the circus elephant. You'll read about Abraham's unexpected adventure as you examine the effects of dramatic irony within the text.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to identify and explain allusions within a text. In this interactive tutorial, you'll examine how texts create meaning by referencing well-known individuals, characters, and myths.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how authors use allusions and analogies within informational texts. In this interactive tutorial, you'll practice identifying analogies and allusions used in context to better understand their purpose.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Analyze the interaction between characters and specific events to help reveal aspects of the infamous Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. In this interactive tutorial, you’ll examine how specific character interactions and plot events help provoke Scrooge to make a decision about the way he lives his life.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to cite evidence and draw inferences in this interactive tutorial. Using an informational text about cyber attacks, you'll practice identifying text evidence and making inferences based on the text.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about puns--a type of figurative language--in Philip K. Dick's science fiction short story "The Eyes Have It." In this interactive tutorial, you'll identify puns, interpret their various meanings, and explain how the author’s use of puns adds humor to the story.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about four common text structures that are often used in informational texts: chronological order, compare and contrast, problem/solution, and cause and effect. In this interactive tutorial, you'll practice identifying each type of text structure while reading several informational texts about dinosaurs.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn to identify and analyze the development of theme in this interactive tutorial. We'll read excerpts from "The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs and examine how several different themes are developed throughout the text. We'll explore how each theme is conveyed in the story as the plot unfolds.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to determine the meaning of "mystery words" using several different strategies in this interactive crime-themed tutorial. You'll learn how to recognize a word's job or function in a sentence to help determine its meaning. You'll also practice identifying key words and word parts to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn to analyze and evaluate arguments for their soundness and relevancy. In this interactive tutorial, you'll read several short passages about raising the legal driving age. You'll practice examining the evidence presented to determine whether it's sound and relevant to the argument at hand.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about two types of figurative language—similes and metaphors—in this interactive tutorial. You'll read several classic poems, including "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost and "Hope" by Emily Dickinson. You'll examine how each poem uses metaphor to convey a specific idea to readers.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Practice making connections between key individuals discussed in an informational text. In this interactive tutorial, you'll read a short text about the connection between high school football and concussions. You'll practice identifying specific details and making connections between individuals based on the text.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to find the central idea of an informational text in this interactive tutorial! In this train-themed tutorial, you'll learn how to identify the central idea and identify its supporting details. You'll also practice summarizing the text to highlight its most important points.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how to make inferences using the novel Hoot in this interactive tutorial. You'll learn how to identify both explicit and implicit information in the story to make inferences about characters and events.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about different kinds of story structures that authors use in this interactive tutorial. You'll examine several types of story structures, including linear and nonlinear structures, as well as open and closed story structures. You'll practice identifying the various features of these different structures.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Study excerpts from the essay “America and I” by Anzia Yezierska and analyze the comparison she makes between her actual work experience in America and her dream of finding work that would bring out the best in her. Analyzing this comparison in this interactive tutorial will help you understand how Anzia's vision of life in America was different from the reality she experienced after immigrating to America.
This is the third tutorial in a 4-part series. Make sure to complete Parts One and Two first. Then, complete the rest of this tutorial series.
Click HERE to launch Part One.
Click HERE to launch Part Two.
Click HERE to launch Part Four.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn about 3 Greek and Latin roots (spect, path, and omni) and 12 modern words that feature those roots. In this interactive tutorial, you'll practice using these words and hopefully add them to your vocabulary!
Type: Original Student Tutorial
Learn how figurative language contributes to the meaning of an informational text. In this interactive tutorial, you'll examine excerpts from President Obama's 50th Anniversary Speech of the March on Selma. You'll specifically analyze his use of imagery and metaphors and how they add to the meaning of his speech.
Type: Original Student Tutorial
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