Grade 7 Language Arts/Reading

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Course Overview

This rigorous Grade 7 Language Arts/Reading course focuses on the techniques for evaluating literature and grasping meaning from informational texts to improve reading enjoyment and comprehension and to increase writing skills. Acellus Instructor, Ms. Christy Lamb, reinforces the conventions of standard English in grammar and usage as students model writing techniques in both literary and nonfiction applications.

 

Scope and Sequence

Unit 1 – Reading Strategies and Skills This unit discusses reading strategies and skills, including setting a purpose, previewing, monitoring comprehension, questioning, connecting, summarizing, paraphrasing, identifying genre, inferring, and determining importance.

Unit 2 – Plot and Characterization This unit discusses plot, including exposition, conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution, and subplot, as well as the effect of setting on characters and plot, and protagonist versus antagonist. Also discussed are characterization by traits and making inferences about characters.

Unit 3 – Literary Techniques This unit covers literary techniques, including what they are, as well as mood, tone, flashback, foreshadowing, point-of-view, allusion, and theme.

Unit 4 – Poetry and Figurative Language This unit discusses the elements of poetry, figurative versus literal, rhyme, the forms and structure of poetry, alliteration, hyperbole, imagery, and metaphor.

Unit 5 – Nonfiction This unit discusses nonfiction, including text features of nonfiction, how to distinguish fact from fiction, how to find the main idea and the details, and how to analyze evidence. Also covered are skimming and scanning, structures of nonfiction, subjective versus objective, and types of propaganda.

Unit 6 – Vocabulary Building Strategies This unit discusses dictionary skills, synonyms, antonyms, words with multiple meanings, root words, prefixes, and suffixes. Also covered are context clues, including introduction, definitions, synonyms, contrast, and examples. Further included are connotation and denotation.

Unit 7 – Grammar – Working with Parts of Speech This unit reviews the basic parts of speech, and then discusses agreement of collective nouns; action, linking, and helping verbs; infinitives; pronouns and antecedents; indefinite pronouns and verb agreement; and comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbs.

Unit 8 – Grammar – Sentence Construction and Agreement This unit discusses subjects and predicates, compound subjects and predicates, main and subordinate clauses, subject and verb agreement, subjects separated from verbs, simple and compound sentences, complex sentences, and parallelism.

Unit 9 – Conventions This unit discusses conventions, including what they are, as well as apostrophes and ownership, tricky homophones, proper titles, semi-colons, how to punctuate dialogue, using the comma in direct address, and using commas in introductory clauses and phrases.

Unit 10 – Argumentative Writing This unit discusses the writing process, elements of an argumentative essay, and choosing issues versus problems to write about. It further covers how to pre-write the essay, including choosing a topic, adding supporting details and reasons, researching your topic, and addressing reader concerns and counterarguments. Drafting the essay is presented, including writing a thesis, creating topic sentences and paragraphs, adding research to the body, and writing an introduction and a conclusion. Revising, including adding transition words and enhancing word choice, as well as editing, including using editing marks and finding editing errors, are also discussed, as well as how to create a final draft and how to make an effective presentation.