English Language Arts is the study of communication. At Bridges/MS 915, we seek to inspire lifelong and skilled readers, writers, listeners and speakers by both allowing students to select their own texts and writing topics and providing them the challenge of exploring unfamiliar genres and subjects. We believe that students must write for real purposes and for real audiences, and we thus seek to design projects to show how writing can be a powerful tool that enables them to impact their world.
In 6th grade, students’ ELA curriculum is centered around the question: What shapes who I am? The ELA course will help 6th grade students develop their abilities to think critically, to reason independently, and to ask great questions of the texts we read and of the world around them. 6th graders will produce their own creative, written work as well as visual work. We will be reading fictional anchor texts throughout the year as well as supplemental non-fiction texts to ground our understandings in historical, socioeconomic and geographical contexts.
Core texts have included Ninth Ward by Jewel Parker Rhodes and The Stars Beneath Our Feet by David Barclay Moore.
In 7th grade, the ELA curriculum is grounded in our year-long essential question: What is your role in the world? Each unit of study is designed around a shared core text (or group of texts) as well as selections of short fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and visual art in order to provide multiple lenses through which to analyze the complexity of one’s identity. As we make our way through three core texts, we consider how one’s position within a society can impact power, responsibilities, choices, and community. We examine the lives of individuals and characters with different backgrounds and experiences in order to analyze the multiple factors that contribute to why people choose to be who they are in the world.
Core texts have included The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, and Sold by Patricia McCormick. As we work our way through these texts, we have specific reading and writing foci that include tracking the development of central ideas within texts; dissecting the different levels, elements, and “rules” of a setting; examining how form and structure contribute to meaning; developing research and interviewing skills; and creating a range of written work including argumentative essays and informative books.
The final year in middle school, 8th grade, is a moment to think about the future. What type of community do students want to be a part of? How will they participate in the creation of that type of community? What will it take to change a community? These bigger questions are the seeds that we plant in 8th grade in hopes that students will develop their own plans for their lives, and that those plans will include thinking about others. We ask students to respond to books with genuine curiosity and intelligence, to push themselves to understand the power of storytelling, how stories have the ability to break down barriers between us, and to become storytellers themselves. Students are also encouraged to formulate their own interpretations of what they read, see and hear and to ask tough, sometimes uncomfortable, questions about our society and their role within it.
Core texts have included March by John Lewis, Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai, American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang, Night by Elie Wiesel, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi.