Throughout the year, students wil be exposed to poetry, short stories, novels, essays, biographies, and literary criticism. Reading skills including critical analysis and comprehension, as well as study skill, writing, thinking, speaking researching, grammar, and vocabulary skills will be stressed. Our program is standards-based one dedicated to providing the instruction and skills students need in order to master California content standards. Students will participate in specific activitiies and projects. Projects are completed in class, and will not be accepted late. The use of a computer will be necessary to complete many assignments and projects. Projects and writing assignments must be typed. Students will view various Internet sites over the course of the year.
There will be much overlap within the language arts and social science curricula. Students will learn about people and events that ushered in the dawn of major Western and non-Western civilizations. They will explore the societies of the Near East and Africa, the ancient Hebrew civilization, Greece, aRome, India and China. They should acquire a sense of the everyday life of the people; their problems and accomplishments; their relationships to the developing social, economic, and political structure; their tools, technology, art, architecture, and literature; and theideas developed that helped transform their world. There will be four major projects associated with social science. The first few weeks of school we will complete a Geography Terms booklet, next we will complete a very intensive research project based on themes of the novel The Cay. Then, around January we will start our Egypt Pop-Up book, and finally in April, our Ancient Greece Newspaper.
