English Language Arts Grades 7-8 (2023)
Lesson Plans

Reading (7-8.R)

Students will learn to proficiently read and comprehend grade level literature and informational text, including seminal U.S. documents of historical and literary significance, at the high end of the grade level text complexity band, with scaffolding as needed. *Standard R.4 includes an asterisk to refer educators back to the Text Complexity Grade Bands and Associated Lexile Ranges in the introduction of the standards.

Standard 7-8.R.4:

Read grade-level text* with accuracy and fluency to support comprehension. (RL & RI)

• A Directed Listening-Thinking Activity for "The Tell-Tale Heart"
  What's that sound? Students participate in a Directed Listening-Thinking Activity (DLTA) using "The Tell-Tale Heart," make predictions, and respond in the form of an acrostic poem or comic strip.
• A Long Walk To Water Connection Experience
  In this co-taught 80-minute face-to-face lesson (assessment is homework or given time in a second class session) students will rotate through stations to make personal connections with the book, A Long Walk to Water by  Linda Sue Park. (Stations can be removed or customized to allow for time, budget, or supervision constraints.) Please note, this lesson works best when you have several adult volunteers to run stations. This lesson is best co-taught with an ELA teacher who will be reading and discussing the book with their students. (It can be slightly adapted to fit similar stories.) It is also an effective way to deepen understanding and connections after the class has read the book. Thumbnail Image: Woodwayne, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
• Annotate Text in Google Docs
  Students learn how to annotate text in Google Docs.
• BBC My World Media Literacy
  My World Media Literacy, developed in partnership by BBC Learning, BBC World Services, and Microsoft, is a free educational platform for students ages 11-14 designed with the goal of increasing global media literacy and the evaluation of information presented in modern journalism. Featuring ten 45-minute lesson plans, each with activities and a companion video, these 21st century resources increase students? critical thinking skills needed to be responsible consumers of news while inspiring them to become citizen journalists in order to navigate the news and form their own opinions.
• Book Reports
  This lesson plan meets the secondary requirements for The Engish Language Arts Standard Reading: Literature Grades 7-12 with the option of meeting the additional standard of Speaking and Listening. This lesson offers specific details with flexibility for implementation in the classroom. Students can work independently or in groups and be able to create their final book project using technology. 
• Learn Global English as a Second Language: Countable and Uncountable Nouns, Present Continuous Tense, Times, Dates & Numbers, Review of Consonants and Vowels, Review of Articles (Lesson 4)
  This lesson teaches Countable and Uncountable Nouns, Present Continuous Tense, Times, Dates & Numbers, Review of Consonants and Vowels, Review of Articles. A countable noun is anything that is large, you can count how many, or you can separate the items. We are going to look at these countable nouns, because they can have a singular or a plural including countable nouns with an es and s, ending and a consonant with a y at the end. A countable noun is something that is large, meaning you can see or identify the different ones. An uncountable noun is something that is too small to count. For example, water. Can you count water? You cannot. Water is an uncountable noun. WeÕll look at the words we use to identify, how much or how many of a noun when the noun is uncountable. An article is a, an, or the. You always have to have an article when you are looking at singular nouns, countable or uncountable. From there weÕll talk about how much or how many and learn about numbers and dates and the days of the week. Finally weÕll make the present continuous tense with the verb ÒbeÓ and look at ÒsentencesÓ.
• Learn Global English as a Second Language: Present Simple Tense Sentence Forms (Positive, Negative, Question), Contractions (Does Not/Doesn't, Is Not/Isn't), Pronunciation (Voiced and Voiceless Sounds, Words Endings (S, CH, IZ) (Lesson 3)
  This lesson teaches Present Simple Tense Sentence Forms (Positive, Negative, Question), Contractions (Does Not/Doesn't, Is Not/Isn't), Pronunciation (Voiced and Voiceless Sounds, Words Endings (S, CH, IZ).
• Learn Global English as a Second Language: Review of the Present Simple Tense with Irregular Verbs, Present Simple Tense vs. Present Continuous Tense (why are they different?) and Possessive Adjectives (Lesson 1)
  In this lesson, we're going to look very closely at grammar. We'll look at the present simple tense and the present continuous tense and compare them. When specifically do we use each one and why? The present simple tense, we use for habits, routines, everyday, often. We make the present simple tense by adding an S or ES to the he, she or it, singular person. The present continuous tense, we use for something that is right now. We make the present continuous tense with the verb B plus the main verb ending in ING. Next we'll also look at possessive adjectives. This lesson will teach you how to show belonging to you.
• Learn Global English as a Second Language: Spelling Rules, (Using I after E, dropping the final E, changing a final Y to I, add es, doubling a final consonant Ð ing, ed), Review of Verbs, Nouns, Pronouns, Upper/lower case, Identifiers, Present simple tense, Present continuous tense, Vowels & Consonants, Prepositions of Place, Forming Sentences (Lesson 5)
  This lesson teaches spelling rules, (using i after e, dropping the final e, changing a final y to i, add es, doubling a final consonant Ð ing, ed), review of verbs, nouns, pronouns, upper/lower case, identifiers, present simple tense, present continuous tense, vowels & consonants, prepositions of place, forming sentences. We are going to look at spelling rules, make sure that you are correctly writing your words and then look at everything that we have learned so far in Lessons 1 through 4. The main rules that everyone will learn are the following. Rule number 1: i before e except after c. Rule number 2: drop the final e. Rule number 3: change the Y to I. Rule number 4: When you have a word that ends in a vowel and then a consonant, (like the word stop)you double the final letter.
• Learn Global English as a Second Language: The Alphabet, Consonants & Vowels, Capitalization & Punctuation, Personal Pronouns, The Verb 'to be', Articles a/an/the (Lesson 1)
  This lesson teaches an introduction to the alphabet and the sounds and names of the letters, consonants and vowels. We look at personal pronouns (I, you, he, she, it, we, the) and the verb Òto be,Ó "I am" "you are" "he is." We also look at the negative verb Òto be,Ó "I am not" "you are not" "he is not" and a question form of the verb Òto be,Ó "am I" "are you," "is he." The English alphabet has 26 letters. WeÕre going to teach you those letters along with consonants and vowels. The vowel letters are A, E, I, O, and U. The consonants are everything else. B, C, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, T, V, W, X, Y and Z. Next we'll move on to learn capitalization, sentences and punctuation, pronouns, verbs and articles.
• Learn Global English as a Second Language: Vocabulary, Nouns (people, places, things) Regular & Irregular Verbs, Identifiers (this/that/these/those), Prepositions (Lesson 2)
  This lesson teaches Vocabulary, Nouns (people, places, things) Regular & Irregular Verbs, Identifiers (this/that/these/those), Prepositions. Nouns: We start with nouns which are a person, a place, or a thing. They are the essential vocabulary when you are talking about something or someone. Identifiers: This, that, these and those are identifiers that tell you which ones you want or which nouns you want. Prepositions: Prepositions give you even more information about the noun. A preposition tells you the direction, the location, or the time of a noun. Verbs regular & irregular: A verb, it gives you the action. It really tells you what is happening, what people are doing, where people are going.
• The Constitutional Convention: What the Founding Fathers Said
  To what shared principles did the Founding Fathers appeal as they struggled to reach a compromise in the Constitutional Convention? In this lesson, students will learn how the Founding Fathers debated then resolved their differences in the Constitution. Learn through their own words how the Founding Fathers created"a model of cooperative statesmanship and the art of compromise."
• The Grapes of Wrath: Voices from the Great Depression
  By examining primary sources, including songs, newspapers, interviews, and photographs of migrant farm workers in California during the Great Depression, students create a scrapbook from the point of view of a migrant worker, providing evidence of the colloquial speech used by the migrants and the issues affecting their lives. Using Voices from the Dust Bowl, 1940-1941 and Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Black-and-White Negatives, students select photographs and use the sound recordings of voices of the migrant workers to create captions, letters, and/or songs based on these primary sources. This lesson can be used in connection with a unit on the Great Depression, and specifically on The Grapes of Wrath.

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