LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE ARTS

"Why, what's the matter,
That you have such a February face,
So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?"
William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

During our days of “storm and cloudiness”, there is “much ado” about everything in our classroom. We are working on diagramming, a visual and spatial view of grammar in all its glory. In the diagram below, each modifying word or phrase is lined-up beneath the word it modifies. Your student has to know whether the word is a noun, verb, adjective, preposition, infinitive, etc., for each type of word has a specific placement on the "tree." The students never fail to respond enthusiastically to this valuable tool to expand their understanding of words, their functions, and hence the meaning of complex sentence structure.

In literature February focuses on both the novel and drama. Sixth grade enters drama with a series of plays with famous Sherlock Holmes! Seventh grade is reading a wide array of Civil War literature: famous speeches, short stories, non-fiction essays, drama, and a simple but brilliant novel, Soldiers Heart by Gary Paulsen. Eighth grade will develop a love-hate relationship with Lord of the Flies by William Golding. I have not had one student who is immune to this novel’s magnetic pull for memorable characters and disgust for their iconic descent into savagery.