8th Grade Honors English Quarter 3 Curriculum Map
Teacher: Ms. Surber
Big Ideas:
1. What are life’s hidden messages?
2. What makes a poem?
3. What’s in style?
Essential Questions:
1. How do we identify and interpret symbols in poetry?
2. How do we identify and analyze theme?
3. How do we identify, analyze, and compare universal themes?
4. How do we use a story map to analyze plot development?
5. How do we identify and analyze figurative language?
6. How do we identify, analyze, and compare length and meaning of stanzas?
7. How do we identify and analyze sound devices?
8. How do we identify, analyze and compare rhyme schemes?
9. How do we analyze repetition in poetry?
10. How do we identify and analyze rhythm and meter and their effects?
11. How do we identify and analyze speaker?
12. How do we identify and analyze tone in stories and in poetry?
Standards
8.1.2
8.1.3
8.2.3
8.2.5
8.2.7
8.2.9
8.3.1
8.3.2
8.3.5
8.3.6
8.3.7
8.6.5
8.6.6
Learning Targets
8.1.2 Understand the influence of historical events on English word meaning and vocabulary expansion.
8.1.3 Verify the meaning of a word in its context, even when its meaning is not directly stated, through the use of definition,
restatement, example, comparison, or contrast.
8.2.3 Find similarities and differences between texts in the treatment, amount of coverage, or organization of ideas.
8.2.5 Use information from a variety of consumer and public documents to explain a situation or decision and to solve a
problem.
8.2.7 Analyze the structure, format, and purpose of informational materials (such as textbooks, newspapers, instructional or
technical manuals, and public documents).
8.2.9 Make reasonable statements and draw conclusions about a text, supporting them with accurate examples.
8.3.1 Determine and articulate the relationship between the purposes and characteristics of different forms of poetry (including
ballads, lyrics, couplets, epics, elegies, odes, and sonnets).
8.3.2
8.3.5 Identify and analyze recurring themes (such as good versus evil) that appear frequently across traditional and
contemporary works.
8.3.6 Identify significant literary devices, such as metaphor, symbolism, dialect or quotations, and irony, which define a writer’s
style and use those elements to interpret the work.
8.3.7 Analyze a work of literature, showing how it reflects the heritage, traditions, attitudes, and beliefs of its author.
8.6.5 Use correct punctuation.
8.6.6 Use correct capitalization.
Assessments
Tests, quizzes, summaries, short answer and essay questions, projects, application activities, skill application and
matching quizzes, oral response, daily oral language responses
Resources and Materials
McDougal Littell Literature Grade 8 Literature
“The Diary of Anne Frank” by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett
“from The Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank
“from A Diary from Another World” by Gerda Weissmann Klein
“from The Last Seven Months of Anne Frank” by Hannah Elisabeth Pick-Goslar
“A Blind Man Catches a Bird” by Alexander McCall Smith
“Simile: Willow and Ginkgo” by Eve Merriam
“Introduction to Poetry” by Billy Collins
“Macavity: The Mystery Cat” by T. S. Eliot
“Vermin” by E. B. White
“the lesson of the moth” by Don Marquis
“Identity” by Julio Noboa
“It’s All I Have to Bring Today” by Emily Dickinson
“We Alone” by Alice Walker
“Speech to the Young: Speech to the Progress-Toward: by Gwendolyn Brooks
“Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes
“On the Grasshopper and Cricket” by John Keats
“Ode on Solitude” by Alexander Pope
“One More Round” by Maya Angelou
“Not My Bones” by Marilyn Nelson
“Boots of Spanish Leather” by Bob Dylan
“from The Song of Hiawatha” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“An Indian Summer Day on the Prairie” by Vachel Lindsay
“The Sunflowers” by Mary Oliver
“The Lady or the tiger” by Frank R. Stockton
“The Monte Hall Debate”
“A Hike in New York City” by Sam Levenson
Fantastic Word Puzzles
McDougal Littell Resources: Grammar, Writing, Power Points, Media Study, Online Resources
Instructional Activities, Strategies, and Differentiation
Summary, Projects, Participation / Discussion
Questions / Handouts, Media Study, Outlining,
Short answer / essay type questions
Writing Workshop: Interpretive Essay
Key Ideas: Symbols, Poetry, Theme, Plot development, Speaker
Key Idea Questions for each selection:
1. What impact will you have on the world?
2. How can words create pictures?
3. What’s the smartest animal?
4. Does beauty matter?
5. Can you be rich without money?
6. What is good advice?
7. When does form matter?
8. When do you feel most free?
9. When do poems tell a story?
10. How do you make decisions?
Key Vocabulary: Symbol, Theme, Universal theme, Synthesize, Figurative Language, Sound devices, Stanza, Rhyme
Scheme,
Key Reading Strategies: Make inferences and draw conclusions, Synthesize information, Make generalizations, Set a
purpose for reading, Develop strategies for reading, including visualizing, clarifying, and setting a purpose for reading,
Paraphrase stories or lines in poetry, Outline information, Support an opinion
Grammar Skills: Use active voice, Capitalize correctly, Use commas and other punctuation correctly
Writing: Introductions, Body Paragraphs, Transitions, Conclusions, Short Story, Personal response to a poem