Students learn to distinguish between 'weak' and 'strong' evidence using a detective-themed approach. They will analyze high-interest short stories to select the evidence that best supports a given claim, focusing on relevance and specificity.
A lesson focused on the suffixes -ation, -cation, and -ition and how they transform verbs into nouns. Students analyze word pairs like 'inform' and 'information'.
A lesson focused on the suffix -ion involving spelling changes such as dropping the final 'e' or changing 'd' to 's'. Students analyze pairs like 'operate' and 'operation'.
A lesson focused on the suffixes -ion and -ian with no spelling change to the base word. Students analyze nouns like 'invention', 'magician', and 'musician'.
A lesson focused on the suffix -ion and how it changes verbs into nouns with no spelling change to the base word. Students analyze word pairs like 'collect' and 'collection'.
A targeted grammar lesson focusing on subject-verb agreement through the high-interest lens of professional soccer. Designed for advanced students who need to master complex compound subjects and prepositional phrase interference.
Students become Word Alchemists, learning to transform common, 'base' vocabulary into high-powered academic language through context and connotation.
Day 4: Students participate in a 'Grand Jury' collaborative discussion to synthesize their evidence from the week and reach a final verdict on the unit's key texts.
Day 3: Students dive into 'Ozymandias' by Percy Bysshe Shelley, using textual evidence to infer the poem's deeper meanings about power and time.
Day 2: Students examine a non-fiction article about the Mary Celeste to distinguish between explicit facts and inferences while citing several pieces of evidence.
Day 1: Students analyze Roald Dahl's 'The Landlady' to practice making inferences and citing evidence to support their claims about the story's eerie outcome.
A lesson focused on the suffixes -en, -ize, and -ify. Students investigate how these suffixes transform base words into verbs representing actions or states.
A lesson focused on the suffixes -ful, -ous, and -ious. Students analyze how these suffixes form adjectives from nouns, representing full of or having qualities of.
A lesson focused on character analysis and the differing perspectives of the protagonists in the novel 'All American Boys'.
A lesson focused on identifying and interpreting common symbols in literature and real life through a series of visual and contextual challenges.
A final project-focused week where students compile their entries and use a comprehensive mix of all figurative language to complete their diary masterpiece.
Introduces persuasive and argumentative writing within a diary context, using alliteration, allusion, and irony to strengthen student voices.
Explores expository writing to explain school or home life while integrating onomatopoeia, hyperbole, and idioms for comedic effect.