Grade 8 English Language Arts
11 units matched to the Nova Scotia Curriculum. Kids see this subject as “Language Arts”.
Learning focus
- Cultural expressions. Learners will reflect on how the cultures of communities, inclusive of the Mi’kmaq, Acadians, African Nova Scotians, and the Gaels, are expressed through a range of communication forms.
- Responses. Learners will plan oral, written, and visual personal and critical responses, in relation to audience and purpose.
- Creating. Learners will create oral, written, and visual communication forms for a range of audiences and purposes.
- Speaking and writing strategies. Learners will implement speaking and writing strategies for effective communication in relation to audience and purpose.
- Comprehending. Learners will comprehend a range of communication forms using listening strategies, reading strategies, and viewing strategies.
- Accuracy and bias. Learners will analyse the accuracy, reliability, validity and bias in a range of written, audio, visual, and digital communication forms.
Units
Unit 1
Voices & Cultural Expressions
Practises how cultures influence each other, how language and culture are connected, how point of view and audience shape a text, and how to interpret cultural expressions respectfully, with Mi’kmaw, Acadian and Gaelic examples. Ties to the Nova Scotia Grade 8 English language arts outcome on cultural expressions.
Learning outcome: Cultural expressions · Analyse how language, point of view and audience shape cultural expressions and interpret them respectfully
Unit 2
Word Study
Using prefixes, suffixes and Greek and Latin roots to work out unfamiliar words, reading context clues, and noticing how word choice changes feeling.
Learning outcome: Speaking and writing strategies · word choice and word study
Unit 3
Reading Detective
Making and checking predictions, choosing a strategy when reading gets tricky, drawing local and global inferences from clues, and summarizing the main ideas of complex texts.
Learning outcome: Comprehending · reading strategies
Unit 4
Forms, Patterns & Visuals
Comparing text forms such as editorials, news articles, poems and graphic novels, spotting text patterns like problem-solution and compare-contrast, and judging how features, images and design add to meaning.
Learning outcome: Comprehending · text forms and features
Unit 5
Close Reading
Reading original short passages and answering questions about theme, tone, word choice, inference and the author's purpose, using evidence from the text.
Learning outcome: Comprehending · reading closely for meaning
Unit 6
Whose Story Is It?
Recognizing third-person limited and omniscient narrators, spotting clues that a narrator is unreliable, and thinking about how a story would change from another character's point of view.
Learning outcome: Responses · narrator and point of view
Unit 7
Literary Devices
Naming devices like simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, irony, foreshadowing and symbolism in short excerpts, and identifying a narrator's point of view.
Learning outcome: Responses · literary devices and their effect
Unit 8
Argument & Media
Telling fact from opinion, spotting persuasive appeals (ethos, pathos, logos) and weak reasoning, and judging how reliable a source or media message is.
Learning outcome: Accuracy and bias · argument, media messages and bias
Unit 9
Digital Citizens
Staying safe and respectful online, protecting privacy, spotting misinformation and disinformation, understanding how feeds are curated, and thinking about audience and purpose in digital and media texts.
Learning outcome: Accuracy and bias · digital texts and media
Unit 10
Write It Better
Choosing the right form and tone for an audience, using reliable sources and giving credit, building voice, acknowledging other perspectives, and revising, editing and proofreading drafts.
Learning outcome: Creating · planning, drafting and revising writing
Unit 11
Grammar & Style
Active and passive voice, run-ons, parallel structure, commas, apostrophes, semicolons, colons and common usage choices.
Learning outcome: Creating · grammar and style in writing
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