Course Syllabus for 8th Grade Language Arts

WRITING:
Ideas and Content
Voice
Word Choice
Sentence Fluency
Conventions
Organization

WRITING PROCESS:
Planning/Prewriting/Brainstorming
Drafting
Revising
Editing
Publishing

WRITING SKILLS:
Cutting out Unnecessary Words
Verb Tense
Transitions
Specifics and Descriptions
Imagery
Introductory Paragraphs (hooking the reader)
Concluding Paragraphs
Indenting
Editing Skills
Revising

NARRATIVE WRITING:
Personal Journaling
Creative

EXPOSITORY WRITING

PERSUASIVE WRITING:
Compare/Contrast
Analyze/Evaluate
Cause/Effect

NOVELS:
A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
A Solitary Blue by Cynthia Voigt
Seven Daughters and Seven Sons by Barbara Cohen and Bahija Lovejoy
Nothing but the Truth by Avi
Monster by Walter Dean Myers
The Pearl by John Steinbeck
The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo

DRAMA:
A Midsummer Night's Dream

NONFICTION:
Selections related to novels
Periodicals, books, and electronic media for formal research

POETRY:
"The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe
"Casey at the Bat" by Ernest Lawrence Thayer

SHORT STORIES (selections from Elements of Literature):
"The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe
"The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving
"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" by Mark Twain
"The Ransom of Red Chief" by O. Henry
"The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry
"To Build a Fire" by Jack London

LITERARY TERMS:
Protagonist
Antagonist
Climax
Conflict
Dialogue
Dialect
Exposition
Freytag's Pyramid
Fiction/Nonfiction
First person point of view
Foreshadowing
Hyperbole
Irony
Metaphor
Onomatopoeia
Personification
Plot
Point of view
Setting
Simile
Theme
Third person point of view

VOCABULARY:
Selected words from readings

MLA RESEARCH SKILLS:
Parenthetical Documentation
Works Cited Page
Outlines
Pagination
Header
Default Font
Default Margins
Double Space
Title Page
First Page of Report