8

Our Lady Of Grace

Welcome to Eighth Grade

Click links above

Religion

We learn the following during eighth grade:

· Church History from Pentecost to modern day church

· The Ten Commandments

· Peace & Social Justice

· Morality

· Theology

· Saints and special people in the Church

Links to explore:

ILA

ILA consists of Reading, Speaking, Listening, and research skills. In addition to the following:

Grammar: verbal (participles, gerunds, infinitives) and adjective, adverb and noun clauses.

Writing: includes expository writing in writing a definition paragraph and a compare & contrast essay. Persuasive essays are included and recognition of propaganda techniques. Descriptive writing and a personal narrative. A researched term paper is due at the end of the year.

Poetry: figurative language and other elements of poetry (as well as different genres) Poetry assignments include: a canticle using the Magnificent as a sample and a ballad, a form of narrative poetry. Analysis of poetry for meaning, structure, sound, & imagery is also covered.

Vocabulary Development

ILA Resources:

Vocabulary Resources:

Writing and Grammar Resources:

Reading Resources:

Mythology and Free worksheet
Mythman.com

Scribe Note taking tools - free download

Ann Frank house; Ann Frank Center; Ann Frank and the Children of the Holocaust WebQuest

Glencoe.com

The Write Site Newsroom

Wordcental.com

Commonly Misspelled Words

The Blue Book of Grammar

Winged Myths (Flash site)

Plagiarism Sites

Read, Write and Think

Bartleby.com - books/poem online

To Copy or Not to Copy

Poetry

poets.org

Conducting Research

Instant Poetry Forms online

The Poem Hunter

Thirty Days of Poetry

The Poet's Corner

Summer Reading (For students entering 8th grade in the fall (2006)
Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz and The Third Eye by Lois Duncan.

All students going into eighth grade should read these two books and be prepared to be tested on them in September. Both books are Reading Olympics books.

Students are to complete the following questions for each book. Please type the answers and staple the papers together. You will turn them into your ILA teacher for a grade on the Monday of the first full week of school.

Questions:
1. Identify the main characters in the book. Choose one character and tell why this character is important in the story.
2. What really stood out for you in the story? Why? Be prepared to share this in class.
3. What was the best part of the book for you and tell the page? Why? You will be asked to share this passage aloud with the class.
4. After reading this book, what questions do you still have about the story, or what questions do you have for the author?
5. Make a list of 10-15 words that are new, interesting, important, different, or hard in the book and include the page number.
6. Draw a picture that is related to the reading. It can be a character, the setting, a problem, an exciting part, a prediction, etc.
7. Tell about a connection between the reading to your own life, to similar events at other times and places, to other people or problems