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Seventh Grade Advanced Reading & Language Arts


 

"Start each day with a heart full of thanksgiving."

 Class Assignments:

April 23 - April 27, 2012

 

Monday: How is poetry used to convey information in our daily lives?

  • Pre-Test
  • Unit Vocabulary
    • Vocabulary List and Defintions

Tuesday: How do similes, metaphors, and other figures of speech, along with sound devices, help the reader/listener experience a poem?

  • What is a Simile?
  • What is Sense Poetry?

Wednesday: How do similes, metaphors, and other figures of speech, along with sound devices, help the reader/listener experience a poem?

Thursday: How do similes, metaphors, and other figures of speech, along with sound devices, help the reader/listener experience a poem?

Friday: Field Day

 

Language Arts:

Class Syllabus

Unit 6: Poetry

Students will focus on learning to appreciate poetry by reading, discussing, and enjoying the words and sounds of poetry. In the beginning, a focus will be placed on poetry as an “art” to enjoy and explore through reading and listening to favorite poems. The next phase of the unit will involve the students in writing a variety of formula poems, such as diamond poems, concrete poems, poems built with parts of speech, colors, images, or emotions. The teacher will utilize this unit as a means of assisting students with building vocabulary, learning/reviewing parts of speech, and following directions. Mini-lessons will be included for parts of speech, figures of speech, and sound devices when and where appropriate. The final focus will involve a creation of a poetry book that students will publish as a keepsake.

Unit 5: Technical Writing

Students will encounter a variety of technical writings in their daily lives. Knowledge of and expertise in the technical writing genre will increase their understanding of these processes in everyday situations. In this unit, students will expand their skills in technical writing by focusing on additional modes of technical communication: business communication, instructions and direction, and web pages. Participating in a series of reading, writing, listening, speaking, and viewing activities related to modes of technical communications will strenghten students’ competence in this genre. Selected activities will also reinforce the importance of clear, concise, and precise directions and instructions for performing multi-step tasks. In addition, students will analyze the effects of media (web pages) images, texts, and sounds on viewers and will understand the importance of evaluating information for validity.

Supplemental Text: Students will read the novel, Hoot, throughout the course of the unit. The content of the novel will be used to create opportunities for students to utlize their knowlwedge and understanding of technical writing.

Important Unit Documents

 

Unit 4: Take a Stand - Persuasive Texts

In this unit, students will understand the purpose and strategies associated with persuasion as they learn how to build a powerful argument and how to present that argument in a convincing voice. Throughout the unit, students will read editorials about various social issues and learn how to decode key words and use strategies which unlock deeper meaning in persuasive writing. Students will also learn to question as they read and as they develop their own position, arguments and supporting evidence.

The following documents, PowerPoints, and web links will be utilized throughout the teaching of this unit. Additional resources will be added as needed. Please check the website frequently to stay abreast of the new information being presented in class. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Important Unit Documents

Persuasive Webquest: advancedreading2.weebly.com

 

Unit 3: Comparing Narrative and Expository Writing

Students will review the first two units covered in Language Arts by reading the novel, pictures of hollis woods. Students will participate in a variety of activities to review key concepts and characteristics of narrative and expository texts. Thematic connections occur throughout the reading of the novel providing students with the opportunity to make personal connections with the characters in the novel.

Student Learning Map

Unit Vocabulary

Daily Activities and Important Documents for use with Novel:

Week 1 Activities

Week 2 Activities

Week 3 Activities

What is Alzheimer's Disease? (article)

Home (poem)

Who is Henry Hudson? (article)

Chapters 1-3 Vocabulary

Chapters 4 and 5 Vocabulary

Chapters 6 - 10 Vocabulary

Chapters 11 - 17 Vocabulary

Chapters 11-17 Vocabulary Crossword Puzzle

Comparing Narrative and Expository Texts PowerPoint

Thinking Critically About a Movie Adaptation worksheet

pictures of hollis woods  Overview

Hollis Woods was an infant when she was abandoned and for 12 years she has been transferred from one foster home to another. To the social agency, she is a "mountain of trouble" because she skips school and runs away, even from the Regans, a family willing to give her a real home. When she is placed with Josie, an elderly artist who is becoming forgetful, Hollis begins to feel needed and doesn't ever want to leave this eccentric old woman who knows a lot about friendship and love. Fearful that the social agency will take her from Josie, Hollis plans a winter escape. This time she takes Josie with her and returns to Branches, the summer home that belongs to the Regans. All along, Hollis longs for her life with the Regans, and records every special moment with them in a gallery of pictures.

Unit 2: Narrative Texts

Students continue to enhance their understanding of the narrative genre by reading and responding to a variety of narrative text (including short stories and memoirs), noting strategies used by authors that may be applied to their own work. Students will also discover connections between their own lives and those of the ficitonal characters and events. As students become more confident through connecting with how authors use fictional elements to influence readers' thinking, they will move into more challenging works.After drafting narrative compositions, students will use revision strategies to clarify, refine and extend their ideas, and will edit for conventions before publishing and celebrating their writing.

Unit 1: Expository Texts


This interdisciplinary unit combines reading, writing, and research skills with science and social studies topics. The unit will not only broaden students’ understanding of research methods, reading informational texts, and writing expository compositions but also increase their understanding and expertise across subject areas. In the unit, students will work in small groups to develop a class magazine (The Informed Traveler) for the assigned country in Africa, Asia or the Middle East (or other countries studied in seventh grade). Group members will then research the culture, famous historical events, geography, climate, historical and/or contemporary figures of interest, native plants and animals, interesting sites, etc. The students will use their information from research to develop their expository pieces to include in the magazine. Students will emphasize correctness of information as well as structure and engagement strategies in the articles as well as the overall layout of the group’s magazine. Each member of the group will also include a bibliography of sources for his/her section.

Important Documents:

Daily Handouts & Information:

Webquest Link:

  • http://bcmslanguaglee.weebly.com

Advanced Reading:

Current Novel Study: The Breadwinner

Parvana’s life changed suddenly when the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan. Both of her parents lost their jobs; her mother is unable to work because the Taliban has forbidden it, and her father’s high school was bombed during a raid. Parvana is no longer able to attend school, and she must accompany her crippled father every day to the market to earn money by reading and writing letters for the largely illiterate population of Kabul. When Parvana’s father is captured and arrested by Taliban soldiers, it is up to Parvana to support her family on her own. At the urging of her mother, sister, and her mother’s friend Mrs. Weera, Parvana disguises herself as a boy so that she can freely roam the city without suspicion. She earns money in any way she can: by writing letters, digging up bones from corpses, and selling cigarettes with her friend Shauzia. One day she discovers a young woman refugee hiding, and Parvana brings her home to keep her safe. Finally Parvana’s father returns home, to Parvana’s great joy. At the book’s end, the family’s future is still uncertain, since Parvana’s mother, sisters, and brother, are en route to another town that has been suddenly captured by the Taliban, and Parvana and her father must travel to meet them.

 

Novel Study: Distant Waves

Book Overview:

Daughters of a famed clairvoyant, the five Taylor sisters begin the twentieth century desperately searching for a home. Their mother takes them to the small town of Spirit Vale, where she makes a living by talking to the dead. The future, however, is something even she cannot clearly see.

The Taylor sisters are not destined to stay in Spirit Vale for long. Mimi's fate is mingled with that of rich society, and threatened by a secret surrounding her birth. Jane becomes involved in a feat of scientific intrigue that has the potential to alter the course of history--and the course of her greatest love. The twins, Emma and Amelie, appear ready to follow in their mother's footsteps. And the youngest, Blythe, will stop at nothing to make her dreams of wealth and fame come true.

All of the sisters' destinies converge on board the Titanic. A transatlantic voyage that promises great wonders--including a surprise wedding--soon turns into a fight for survival. Not everyone will make it through...for neither love nor sisterhood can escape the threat of death. Or can they?

Novel Study: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas 

Book Overview:

This work was set in Berlin, 1942. When Bruno returns home from school one day, he discovers that his belongings are being packed in crates. His father has received a promotion and the family must move from their home to a new house far far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence running alongside stretches as far as the eye can see and cuts him off from the strange people he can see in the distance. But, Bruno longs to be an explorer and decides that there must be more to this desolate new place than what meets the eye. While exploring his new environment, he meets another boy whose life and circumstances are very different to his own, and their meeting results in a friendship that has devastating consequences.

Important Documents:

Reading Webquest:

Teacher Contact Information:

  • Phone: 229-263-7521

    • Planning Period: Monday - Friday 1:30 - 3:00

  • Email: blee@brooks.k12.ga.us

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