This is a comprehensive course covering reading comprehension, critical reading and analysis, composition, vocabulary, grammar, usage, and mechanics, including sentence analysis and diagramming. Structured lessons on spelling enable students to recognize base words and roots in related words. Lessons are designed to develop reading comprehension, build vocabulary, and help students become more independent readers. This course emphasizes classic literature.

Students learn to identify and analyze literary elements such as character, plot, theme, and setting. The emphasis is on classic literature, including episodes from Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels, the legends of King Arthur; and folktales from many lands. Students read works of nonfiction on scientific and historical topics, as well as novels they choose from a long list of such classics as The Cricket in Times Square and My Side of the Mountain. Throughout the curriculum and in specified assessments, students will practice the skills and question types they will find on many standardized tests.

Course Outline

Literature

Comprehension Strategies

• Ask questions and support answers by connecting prior knowledge with information found in, and inferred from, the text.
• Make connections to personal experiences.
• Recall major points in the text and make and modify predictions.
• Summarize readings.

Comprehension Skills

• Recognize the author's purpose for writing or including examples.
• Identify the speaker or narrator in a selection.
• Identify and explain cause and effect in literary selections.
• Compare and contrast across textual selections, media, and genres.
• Draw conclusions using evidence from the text.
• Make and explain inferences, using evidence from the text.
• Identify problems faced by characters in stories and their solutions.
• Distinguish between fact and opinion.
• Identify the main idea and supporting details of a paragraph or selection.
• Recognize story elements: character, setting, plot (conflict and resolution), and theme.

Informational Materials

• Use titles, tables of contents, chapter headings, glossaries, and indexes to locate information in text.
• Follow multistep written instructions (e.g., how to use computer commands).
• Locate information in charts, diagrams, maps, captions, illustrations, and photos.
• Create informational materials using appropriate headings.

Literary Response

• Recognize different genres: biography, drama, legends, historical fiction, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
• Analyze characters using examples from the text.
• Describe how a character changes over the course of a story.
• Compare and contrast tales from different cultures.
• Compare and contrast text and representations of text across different media.

Poetry

• Identify poetic elements.
• Distinguish between literal and figurative language.
• Identify and use metaphors and similes.
• Identify and analyze how a poet uses language to appeal to the senses, create imagery, and set tone.
• Recognize literary techniques such as personification, hyperbole, alliteration, and onomatopoeia.

Listening and Speaking Strategies

• Retell, paraphrase, and explain what a speaker has said.
• Read prose and poetry aloud with fluency, rhythm, and expression.
• Connect and relate prior experiences, insights, and ideas to those of a speaker.
• Use techniques for effective oral presentations (e.g., stand straight and tall; keep your hands at your sides; speak with expression in a loud, clear voice; use complete sentences and proper grammar).
• Maintain purposeful discussion (agree and disagree constructively, state ideas clearly and fully using complete sentences and proper grammar, synthesize and build on others' ideas, explain and defend ideas).
• Give precise directions and instructions.

Analysis of Oral and Media Communications

• Compare ideas and points of view expressed in various media.
• Compare and contrast representations of text across multiple media.
• Distinguish between the speaker’s opinion and verifiable facts.
• Incorporate multimedia elements effectively into personal projects and presentations.

Language Skills

Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics

Sentences

• Identify and form four kinds of sentences: declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory.
• Use the appropriate end punctuation mark for each kind of sentence.
• Identify the subject and predicate of a sentence.
• Identify compound subjects and predicates.
• Identify direct objects.
• Analyze and diagram simple sentences.

Punctuation and Capitalization

• Use periods after initials and some abbreviations.
• Use postal abbreviations for states, without a period.
• Use commas in direct address.
• Use commas with yes or no.
• Use commas separating words in a series.
• Use commas in direct quotations.
• Use apostrophe to show possession.
• Use apostrophes in contractions.
• Use quotation marks for direct quotations.
• Capitalize first word in a sentence, proper nouns, and names of months, days of the week, and holidays.
• Capitalize the first word in a direct quotation.
• Capitalize abbreviations of proper nouns, initials, and important words in titles.

Nouns

• Identify proper and common nouns.
• Identify singular and plural nouns, regular and irregular.
• Form singular and plural possessive nouns.
• Identify nouns used as subjects and direct objects.

Pronouns

• Identify and understand usage of personal pronouns.
• Identify and use singular and plural pronouns.
• Use pronouns as subjects and direct objects.
• Distinguish correct usage of I and me, and we and us.
• Identify and use possessive pronouns.

Adjectives

• Identify adjectives and their functions (describe a noun, tell what kind, tell how many).
• Identify and use possessive adjectives.
• Use the correct form of an adjective to compare two nouns, or to compare three or more nouns.
• Use comparative forms of good and bad (better and best, worse and worst).
• Identify and use demonstrative adjectives (this, that, these, those).
• Identify a, an, and the as articles.

Verbs

• Identify verbs in a sentence.
• Identify and use action verbs, being verbs, and linking verbs.
• Identify helping and main verbs in sentences.
• Identify and use regular and irregular verbs.
• Identify and form principal parts of verbs (present, present participle, past, past participle).
• Use correct forms of:
  • begin, beginning, began, begun
  • break, breaking, broke, broken
  • choose, choosing, chose, chosen
  • do, doing, did, done
• Identify and use simple tenses: present, past, future.
• Identify and form the present progressive tense.
• Identify and form the past progressive tense.
• Understand that a subject and verb must agree in number (singular or plural).
• Correctly use:
  • is, am, are, was, were
  • do and does
  • there is and there are

Adverbs

Identify adverbs and understand their functions (modifies a verb, adjective, or another adverb).

• Identify and use adverbs of time, place, and manner.
• Use correct forms of adverbs to make comparisons.
• Use correct forms of good and well; no, not, and never.

Letter Writing

• Identify and correctly write the parts of a social (friendly) letter.
• Address an envelope.

Word Study Skills

• Understand how to locate words in a dictionary and use dictionary entries.
• Replace words with synonyms.
• Identify antonyms to given words.
• Use a thesaurus to find synonyms and antonyms.
• Use the following homophones correctly:
  • to, too, two
  • their, there, and they're

Vocabulary

• Use context to determine and develop definitions for unknown words.
• Compare and correct personal definitions using dictionary definitions.
• Use online and print dictionaries, synonyms, antonyms, and word origin clues to aid in comprehension and mastery of vocabulary.
• Create personal relationships with words through original sentences and proper use of words.
• Understand and apply word definitions.

Composition

Writing as a Process

• Understand and practice writing as a process (prewriting, drafting, revising, proofreading, and publishing).
• Use technology to draft, revise, and publish original writing.

Writing Guided Journal Entries

• Distinguish diaries from journals.
• Use a journal to list possibilities for topics to write about.
• Describe a place or object in a journal entry.
• Respond in the journal to a cartoon or other clipping.
• Find and record expressions and quotations in the journal.
• Identify four kinds of paragraphs: factual, descriptive, persuasive, and narrative.
• Develop paragraphs with a topic sentence and supporting details that relate to the topic.
• Plan and write a short essay based on a journal entry.

Writing a Report

• Choose and narrow a topic for a report.
• Find sources for a report.
• Gather information using library and Internet sources.
• Compile a bibliography.
• Organize facts into an outline.
• Write an effective introduction and conclusion.
• Revise the report to improve content, organization, clarity, and word choices.
• Proofread and publish the report.

Writing a Book Review

• Analyze a sample book review.
• Summarize the book to be reviewed.
• Gather information about the author.
• Evaluate the plot, characters, and setting.
• Prepare an outline for the book review.
• Write, revise, and proofread the review.

Writing to a Prompt

• Examine different kinds of writing prompts to determine what kind of writing to do.
• Use the writing process--planning, writing a first draft, revising, and proofreading—to write to a prompt.
• Practice writing in response to narrative, expository, persuasive, and descriptive prompts.
• Write to a prompt in a simulated test situation.

Writing Poetry

• Practice poetic techniques to make any writing more active, imaginative, and vivid.
• Identify and use imagery, rhythm, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and refrains.
• Write and revise poems in prescribed forms.
• Write and revise poems in free verse and in rhyme.

Writing a Persuasive Paper

• Distinguish fact from opinion.
• Support arguments with facts, experiences, and reasoning.
• Anticipate and respond to opposing arguments.
• Find and use sources to support opinions.
• Write, revise, proofread, and publish a persuasive paper.

Writing a News Articles

• Identify the who, what, why, where, when and how in a news article.
• Distinguish between fact and opinion in news stories and editorials.
• Use research and interviews to gather facts for a news article.
• Write a lead for a news article.
• Use and correctly punctuate quotations.
• Plan and organize a news article.
• Write, revise, and proofread a news article.

Writing a Play (Optional)

• Write dialogue and stage directions.
• Turn a story into a play.

Spelling

• Short vowels, prefix re–, and base word magnet
• Vowel suffixes, prefix un–, and base word create
• Suffixes –s and –es, prefix dis–, and base word act
• Ways to spell long a, prefix pre–, and base word port
• Less common ways to spell long a, prefix sub–, and base word flex
• Common spellings of long e, prefix dis–, and root struct
• Long e spelled y, ey; i before e; suffix –en, and root scrib
• Ways to spell long i, prefix mis–, and root spec
• Long o spelled oa, ow, oe; prefix in–; and root val
• Long o spelled mo, o-e; prefix bi–; and root rupt
• Ways to spell long u, prefix semi–, and root dict
• Ways to spell /oo/, prefix mid–, and root tract
• Words with r-controlled vowels, suffix –fore, and root fer
• Ways to spell /k/, prefix under–, and root vis
• Words with /kw/ spelled qu and /shul/ spelled cial, prefix de–, and root cur
• Words with the long e sound spelled i, suffix –able, and root vent
• Words with c pronounced /s/, suffix –ly, and root scrip
• Adding vowel and consonant suffixes, suffix –tion, and root cap
• Adding vowel suffixes, suffix –ist, and root cred
• Adding vowel suffixes, suffix –or, and root sens
• /f/ spelled ph and /g/ spelled gu, suffix –ness, and root aud
• /oi/ spelled oy, suffix –ous, and base word form
• /ou/ spelled ou or ow, suffix –ous, and root pend
• /us/ spelled ice and ace, suffix –ous, and root ten
• Contractions, suffix –ship, and root lect
• Compound words, suffix –ology, and root vita
• Homophones, suffix –ive, and root cent
• Homophones, suffix –ment, and root circ
• Homophones, suffix –ful, and root divi
• Homophones, suffix –ic, and root imag