CLOSED – Middle School Writing

Description

CLOSED – Class is Full

Writing / Grades 6-8 / Period 1 / KW / 1T

Middle School Writing (Grades 6-8)

This year, 2024-2025, our writing class for junior high school students, (recommended 50 minutes of daily homework), will use as its main curriculum, The Lost Tools of Writing and will work to supplement what has been taught here at MCA to those students who have become acquainted or very familiar with the Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) program. This year students will now turn their focus to developing and outlining a paragraph through to composing formal essays.

There will be weekly reading and writing assignments as we will be READING NOVELS as our source texts. From those novels, students will choose an issue about which to write, work through the thought processes necessary to consider both sides of their chosen issue, and ultimately write a persuasive essay to support their thesis.

Students will be orally presenting their essays about every three weeks.  We will work from the simple to the more complex, expanding vocabulary and sentence structures, with review of the IEW Stylistic elements. By the end of the year-long course, students will be equipped to write a well-structured five-paragraph, or longer, essay. This is a graded course. It is highly recommended that, to achieve the best results, students take all three trimesters of this course to fully develop the necessary skills for this type of writing.

Class Size: 8 minimum (No maximum)
Class Time: 9:00 – 9:50 a.m.
Class Level: 6-8
Instructor: Kathy Williamson
Materials Fee: none
Class Code: KW 1

Materials and NOVELS to which students must have access, either through ownership or through their local library–

• Knowledge of the Level B1 binder materials from IEW (The Institute for Excellence in Writing) program,
• The Lost Tools of Writing Student Level 1Workbook, (one text per student) — to purchase: Visit circeinstitute.org ), black ink pens, lined paper, highlighters, access to a computer with word processing software, printer.
• Middle School NOVELS used this year (many if not all should be readily available at your public library) – I only ask that you have access to these books when required in class for discussions. Your essays will be written about the characters found in these books.

1st Trimester: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham, and The Magician’s Nephew by C. S. Lewis

2nd Trimester: Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, Amos Fortune, Free Man by Elizabeth Yates, The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett, and The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli

3rd Trimester: Crispin: The Cross of Lead by Avi, and The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare

Student – $39

Student and Teacher set – $147