Bring the vocabulary of film to life through the processes of filmmaking. Students learn terminology and techniques simultaneously as they plan, film, and edit a short video.

8th Grade Historical Literacy consists of two 43 minute class periods. Writing is one 43 minute block and reading is another. The teacher has picked themes based on social studies standards, and a read-aloud novel based on social studies serves as the mentor text for writing and reading skills. More social studies content is addressed in reading through teaching nonfiction reading skills and discussion. Standards reflect CCSS ELA, Reading, and Social Studies Standards for History.

This three-session lesson focuses on characterization. Students determine how a character's traits reveal particular character traits, using a list of adjectives as a guide. Then, they write descriptions of those characters. Characters from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone are used for modeling.

Description:  As part of our new ELA curriculum, the students spend about 7 weeks reading and studying human intelligence and how all people are smart in different ways. At the end of the unit, students are to create an informative presentation.  I decided this would be the perfect place to incorporate CTE into my ELA curriculum by having students read, research, write and then present Google slideshows which would connect their possible future careers with their current learning styles and how they each feel they are “smart”.  

The day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed, a teacher in a small town in Iowa tried a daring classroom experiment. She decided to treat children with blue eyes as superior to children with brown eyes. FRONTLINE explores what those children learned about discrimination and how it still affects them today.

Students will learn about careers and entrepreneurial businesses that exist within their own community by taking pictures and interviewing people working. This is a great way of creating career awareness or encouraging a more in-depth study of entrepreneurial careers. This can be used as a way for students to hone communication skills; become more familiar with different kinds of jobs, and expose them to a wealth of career possibilities. This activity can also be used to foster business/community partnerships. It can be used as a formative activity to prompt student motivation and interest, or as a summative assessment through which content is assessed for the inclusion of the targeted learning objectives.

In this module, students will develop their ability to read and understand complex text as they consider the challenges of fictional and real refugees. In the first unit, students will begin Inside Out & Back Again, by Thanhha Lai, analyzing how critical incidents reveal the dynamic nature of the main character, Ha, a 10-year-old Vietnamese girl whose family is deciding whether to flee during the fall of Saigon. The novel, poignantly told in free verse, will challenge students to consider the impact of specific word choice on tone and meaning. Students will build their ability to infer and analyze text, both in discussion and through writing. They then will read informational text to learn more about the history of war in Vietnam, and the specific historical context of Ha’s family’s struggle during the fall of Saigon. In Unit 2, students will build knowledge about refugees’ search for a place to call home. They will read informational texts that convey universal themes of refugees’

Find the rest of the EngageNY ELA resources at https://archive.org/details/engageny-ela-archive .

This is a video that explains in-depth what GRR (gradual release of responsibility) is and talks about the four different stages.  A great tool for any teacher in any content area.

Students practice analyzing word meanings by learning root words and affixes. They use the Internet to define root words, prefixes, and suffixes. Next, they get in groups to design a Make-A-Word card game using a prefix, root word, and suffix. Students reflect on their learning by analyzing the game and the importance of knowing prefixes, root words, and suffixes.

These rubrics can be used when students are working in literature circle groups to assess their collaboration and public speaking skills. There is one rubric for the teacher to assess student preparedness and contribution to the group as well as speaking and listening skills. Another rubric has been adapted to allow for students to peer-assess and self-assess at the end of a literature circle cycle. The rubrics provide clear expectations for group collaboration aligned to the Common Core State Standards for Speaking & Listening. 

A teacher uses self-assessment as a formative practice within the classroom. Students self-assess their writing with a stop light system: green (confident with first draft), yellow (unsure and wants clarification), or red (needs support) based on a writing exemplar. Next, they partner with a student with an opposite color to provide feedback or obtain feedback. Finally students use the feedback to revise their writing.

As students read novels - we want to engage them in collaborative talk about text.  This example from Walker Middle school allows students to watch a sample of what a Socratic seminar might look like. 

The video helps students turn an essay prompt into an introduction for an essay through the use of manipulatives.