CURRICULUM NIGHT
September 9, 2014
Language Arts – Ms. Jordan Pankey, Mrs. Marilyn Player
Tips for a successful year
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Keep absences to a minimum.
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Do regular appointments at different times of the day if
possible, or schedule them during PE or advisory
Encourage your student to talk to the teacher about
make-up work or zeroes.
Be proactive but give your student the chance to work
problems out... Just not too long a chance 
Help your child learn organizational skills, time
management, and prioritizing—skills that will last a
lifetime!
Be interested and listen.
Encourage and demonstrate reading for pleasure.
Grading Policy
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Grades are weighted:
40% classwork, homework, and other daily assignments
 60% assessments—papers, projects, and tests
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Grades accumulate throughout the semester
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You will receive detailed progress reports every 4 ½ weeks,
but there will not be a grade posted at the end of the 1st or
3rd nine weeks
At the end of the semester, a semester exam will be
given, and the final grade will be calculated, 85% from
the semester grade and 15% from the exam grade.
The final class average is an average of the first and
second semesters.
The College and Career Readiness Standards
(CCRS, aka “Common Core”)
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Reading Standards
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Writing
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Text Types and Purposes
Production and Distribution of Writing
Research to Build and Present Knowledge
Range of Writing
Speaking and Listening
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Key Ideas and Details
Craft and Structure
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity
Comprehension and Collaboration
Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas
Language
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Conventions of Standard English
Knowledge of Language
Vocabulary Acquisition and Use
How we teach reading skills
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Recreational reading materials
Class novels, plays, and short stories—discussions, class
activities, written responses, explicit lessons on specific skills
 Self-selected novels—projects and reports
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Poetry
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Formal and informal discussions of poetry throughout the
year as well as poetry unit, including detailed definitions
and examples of types of poetry
Informational and functional materials
Research materials (articles, websites, non-fiction books and
reference materials)
 Integrated readings along with novel/story/drama units
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Reading
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A variety of activities are used throughout the year
to help students develop their independent reading
skills.
Many strategies are explicitly taught, practiced, and
assessed.
One of the best things for students to develop
reading skills is to read self-selected materials of
interest to them, so we provide students with
opportunities to visit the library and to read in class.
Encourage your student to read at home, too.
Novels for Language Arts 2014-2015
***Parents, the Language Arts department provides
chosen novels for students to read in class. We
encourage you to purchase books or check out
books from your local library for your child to read
at home.
This is not required, but encouraged.
Thematic, Standards-Driven Units
8th Grade Language Arts will explore themes
through high interest novels and texts chosen by
the teacher/department. The activities/lessons
that go with these novels are based on the needs
of the students and are driven by new Common
Core and College Readiness Standards for 8th
graders in Alabama.
2014-2015 Novels & Reading Units
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The Messenger, novel by Lois Lowry
The Outsiders, novel by S.E. Hinton
The Diary of Anne Frank, play by Frances Goodrich &
Albert Hackett
The Five People You Meet in Heaven, novel by Mitch
Albom
Chew on This, non-fiction book by Eric Schlosser &
Charles Wilson
The Odyssey, an epic poem by Homer
More Literature
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Poetry:
Odes
 Ballads
 Epic Poetry
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Short Stories and
excerpts, including:
“Flowers for Algernon”
 “The Tell-Tale Heart”
 “The Treasure of Lemon
Brown”
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Fairy Tales
Nonfiction
Historical documents and
speeches
 Essays
 Letters to the editor
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Writing and Language
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Writing
 Three
modes of writing: narrative, expository, and
persuasive
 Introduced, practiced, and assessed multiple times
throughout the year, both formally (through developed
essays) and informally (brief classwork assignments)
 Focus on writing for the ARMT: short, well-organized
responses to literature that include topic sentences and
supporting details
Writing and Language
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Language/Grammar
 Review
and new information
 Mostly inquiry-based
 Common lessons and assessments throughout the English
department
 Pacing guide separates the four objectives into 29
discrete elements and divides them over the course of
the year
Writing and Language
9. Apply mechanics in writing, including using quotation marks, underlining, and italics to punctuate
titles and using semicolons, conjunctive adverbs, and commas to join two independent clauses or to
correct run-on sentences.
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Demonstrating correct sentence structure by avoiding comma splices in writing
Using commas to set off nonessential clauses and appositives in writing
10. Use prepositional phrases and compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences to vary
sentence structure.
Example: determining variety in sentence structure by diagramming or identifying patterns in selected sentences
 Using gerunds, infinitives, and participles in writing
 Recognizing active and passive voice in writing
 Applying subject-verb agreement rules with collective nouns, nouns compound in form but singular in meaning,
compound subjects joined by correlative and coordinating conjunctions, and subjects plural in form but
singular in meaning
11. Write sentence patterns common to English construction.
Examples: subject→verb (S→V)
subject→action verb→direct object (S→AV→DO)
subject→action verb→indirect object→direct object
(S→AV→IO→DO)
subject→linking verb→predicate nominative (S→LV→PN)
subject→linking verb→predicate adjective (S→LV→PA)
12. Identify the correct use of degrees of comparison, adjectives and adverb forms, and subject-verb
agreement with collective nouns when verb forms depend on the rest of the sentence and with
compound subjects, including those joined by or with the second element as singular or plural.
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Recognizing parallelism in phrases and clauses
Research
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Students are introduced to the formal research paper
based on a possible career choice they would like to
pursue.
Students practice using all the steps in the research
process, including...
taking notes,
 paraphrasing and documenting sources,
 creating an outline,
 writing a rough draft,
 editing,
 writing a final draft, and
 producing a works cited page.
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Class Website + INOW
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Again, please tell your child to regularly check their
grades in INOW. If they have a zero, they
probably just forgot to turn it in.
Our class website with updates is:
www.PankeyEnglish.weebly.com – we use this site in
class, but it is for your benefit as well!
Email Updates weekly