8th Grade Writing

Students this year will not only be given the opportunity to write in a variety of styles and genres, but they will also review and practice the types of writing they will be asked to do on the state test, the GEPA.

Students will follow a basic writing process as follows:

During a writing unit I will also concentrate on writing and revising skills as well as editing tasks.  I will use student models when possible, so they may see successful results.

As in past years, I will use an editing/grammar program called Daily Oral Language (DOL). Students will receive weekly worksheets to practice editing skills.  Basic grammar rules will be reviewed and students will be given quizzes.

This year I will be incorporating a new element into my language arts program.  Last year Ellen Hock, another language arts teacher on the White Team, and I attended a workshop and were very impressed with the idea.

The program is based on ideas of William B. Spivey, Ph.D.  It is a step-by-step system to strengthen student writing by developing sentence building and expansion.

For more information about this program you can visit Dr. Spivey's Web site at http://www.seent.com

For the first marking period students will be working on:

Follow the links to find instructions and materials for these first projects.

As new projects come along, I will update these pages.