Gr.+7+&+8+Language+Arts

**Welcome!**

 * Explore the files and links below. We have been working to find authentic opportunities to embed literacy skills and strategies into our teaching and learning. These ideas are a compilation of our experiences in the Grade 7 and 8 Literacy Networks last year and now this year. We hope our ideas will inspire more new ideas, creative thinking and sharing.**

Knowing Your Learners
Consider using VAK and Multiple Intelligences inventories with your students to gather more information about the students in your classroom. Sample inventories can be found in the 2010 DI Scrapbook on pages 12 through 16 using the following link to the edugains DI site: []

Lower level benchmark assessments may also help you better know some students. The attachment here provides some comprehension questions to go with lower level texts discussed in our last session.



[[file:Alt Benchmark Blue Jeans.pdf]]
=**Mind Mapping:**= Mind mapping can be a powerful tool for consolidating ideas and summarizing information in a visual way. Here are a few slides to support and highlight the instructions and scaffolding you might give to students as they get ready to create a mind map.

=**The 4 Roles of the Literate Learner and Our Language Expectations for Reading**=

Use the following chart which aligns our reading expectations with the 4 roles of the literate learner model to help you identify the role students will primarily be working in as they work on the various language expectations.
 * Meaning Maker ||  Code Breaker  ||
 * 1.1 Variety of Texts  1.2 Purpose   1.3 Comprehension Strategies   1.4 Demonstrating Understanding   1.5 Making Inferences/Interpreting Texts   1.6 Extending Understanding   3.3 Reading Fluently   4.1 Metacognition   4.2 Interconnected Skills  ||  1.1 Variety of Texts   2.3 Text Features   2.4 Elements of Style   3.1 Reading Familiar Words   3.2 Reading Unfamiliar Words   3.3 Reading Fluently   4.1 Metacognition  ||
 * Text User ||  Text Analyser  ||
 * 1.1 Variety of Texts  1.2 Purpose   1.7 Analysing Texts   2.1 Text Forms   2.2 Text Patterns   2.3 Text Features   2.4 Elements of Style   3.3 Reading Fluently   4.1 Metacognition  ||  1.1 Variety of Texts   1.8 Responding to and Evaluating Texts   1.9 Point of View   4.1 Metacognition  ||

=**In the News:**=

Make Connections to and Follow up on the "One Little Piggy" blog in the Environmental Choices Unit
[] - a great opportunity to look at varying points of view, consider our Catholic perspective and see how science and technology impacts society and the environment - consider using the "Both Sides Now" strategy in "Think Literacy: Cross-Curricular Approaches, Grades 7-12" pg. 74-77 to help students examine both sides of the issue of transgenic animals - make connections to Gr. 8 science, Overall Expectation 1 for cells: assess the impact of cell biology on individuals, society and the environment - connect to p. 75 of our "Investigating Science & Technology 8" text - "Improving World Food Production" - have students examine the vocabulary and content in this article as they do an "annotated reading" of the Enviropig news story. See the attached "annotated reading/think aloud" example.

Supports for DP Expected Practice in Literacy: Guided Reading/Practice
The documents in this file folder are offered as supports for implementing the Gradual Release of Responsibility Model in your literacy program and other subject areas as appropriate. They have been specifically created for use in the intermediate classroom.

"Stepping Up" Resource Support
Please open the documents below to find more ideas for each of the inquiry units and book clubs in the "Stepping Up" resource. These ideas are teacher created and offered to further enhance the students' experiences of inquiry based learning throughout the unit. =**Book Clubs**:=



=**Inquiry Units:**= Check out the Ministry of Education mongraph, "Getting Started with Student Inquiry." It's another useful source for providing an overall framework and point of reference for the process of student inquiry. Its' four phases: focus, explore, analyze, and share learning may inspire more new ideas that align with the resources below. []



Inquiry Units - Learning Goals
we have compiled the learning goals written by teachers in our network sessions as samples to consider for each fo the inquiry units.

Other Intermediate Resources that Support our Inquiry Units:
We have compiled a list of other resources available in our schools that can help your class further explore the inquiry question in each of the grade 7 & 8 inquiry units. Let us know if you find others, we will add them to our lists!