Description
A 36-Week Long Schedule for LA 7 Mastering the Writing Process
Designed for Students Ready to Explore & Get to Know Literature Genres
Target Age Group: Grade 7
Type of Resource: Non-Consumable
This Language Arts Guide
This guide is 36-week schedule that coordinates the variety of resources included in this program. It schedules, writing instruction, writing ideas, literature, literature evaluation, spelling, vocabulary, grammar, and other language skills. This guide also has an answer key for the resources “Caught ‘Ya: Grammar with a Giggle” and LA 7 “Student Grammar Worksheets.” Teaching helps and other references are included in the front matter of this guide. Shown below is a thorough look at how this guide covers and schedules the different concepts in this guide.
Grammar & Language Skills Component to LA 7 “Mastering the Writing Process”
LA 7 “Mastering the Writing Process” uses the fun book “Caught ‘Ya: Grammar with a Giggle” to help students practice grammar skills. About three times a week, students will copy a passage that has errors in it, seeking to eliminate the errors and write it correctly. WinterPromise makes this book even easier to use by supplying supplementary LA 7 “Student Grammar Worksheets.” The passage is written out on the worksheet with the errors, and space is given to rewrite it without errors.
In addition, these LA 7 “Student Grammar Worksheets, add additional grammar exercises for the student to answer about the passage. The errors in the passage include grammatical errors with parts of speech, word function, mechanics, capitalization, punctuation, or redundancy, or they can be spelling errors, usage errors such as wrong word choices or homonym mix-ups, and so on.
Another part of the daily scheduled LA 7 “Student Grammar Worksheet” work is a bolded vocabulary word. This word is one that junior high students need to learn as part of standard vocabulary development, and students are expected to look up a definition and list its part of speech.
As the student rewrites the passage without errors, fun can be added by making it a challenge to see if a parent or sibling can catch him making a mistake. (Thus the “Caught ‘Ya: Grammar with a Giggle” name!) The passages themselves are part of a longer, lighthearted story that students will enjoy following. An answer key for passage errors in the “Caught ‘Ya: Grammar with a Giggle” student book, and worksheet answers are in the LA 7 guidebook.
Spelling & Vocabulary Component to LA 7 “Mastering the Writing Process”
Students use two different methods throughout the year. For one method, they will use a word list to test for misspellings on 120 words. These words will be the basis for many of their spelling lists each week. They will participate in reinforcement activities to help them master the words. The other method uses forty “Killer Words” listed in the “Caught ‘Ya: Grammar with a Giggle” student book. Details on the spelling are included in the LA 7 ” “Mastering the Writing Process” guide. Students will also work on their vocabulary using the words from “Caught ‘Ya: Grammar with a Giggle” and LA 7 “Student Grammar Worksheets.” The key component for vocabulary is the student book “Wordly Wise 3000 – Book 7.”
Literature & Literature Evaluation Component to LA 7 “Mastering the Writing Process”
This guide schedules three different literature options to coordinate with our themed packages. It is important to note that this is a stand-alone language arts program and can be done separate from our themed packages. Literature options are listed below.
- Quest for the Ancient World
- Quest for the Middle Ages
- Early American History
- Later American History
- American History in One Year
Important Note: All the options for American History use the same set of independent readers. The readers are just scheduled differently. This means that students can read the books in a year or in two years. Many families find that this flexibility makes it easier to use for a variety of students and can be easily reused for a younger student later on.
This guide schedules daily reading assignments and opportunities to discuss the books with a parent using the Literature Evaluation questions in the guide. with your student on a topic of feedback listed for them to discuss/share with you face-to-face opportunity to talk over some of the important issues brought up in the literature they are reading, or evaluate literary devices or skills. It also provides a way for parents to check in on students’ reading.
The Literature Evaluation is designed so that the student can “narrate” an answer. The nature of these questions is such that the parent does not have to have read the book to know whether the student knows the material; nor does the parent have to have read the book to make meaningful contributions to the discussion.
Writing Component to LA 7 “Mastering the Writing Process”
The resources in the LA 7 “Mastering the Writing Process” guide and the student book “Exploring Great Genre Writing” give instructions and lessons to increase a junior high student’s ability to write several types of genre. These include process writing, informational essays, personal narratives, fictional narratives, and persuasive writing. They will then be able to demonstrate what they’re learned by writing five different written reports.
Students begin by learning to understand the Writing Process. By understanding the basic steps of the writing process — selecting a topic, pre-writing and outlining, research and note-taking, creating a first draft, revising, editing, and publishing a final draft — they will develop key writing skills for mostly non-fictional paper writing. The LA 7 “Mastering the Writing Process” program is designed to get students routinely following this process for the writing they produce during junior high, high school, and eventually, college and beyond.
Once students understand the basics of the Writing Process, they will start practicing those skills by producing actual papers. Each of the five papers they will complete is a different genre of paper. Also the writing topics will coordinate with either: Ancient History, Middles Ages, or American History. Using these topics they will produce the following papers:
Process Writing – Not to be confused with the “Writing Process,” process writing is how an author explains how something is done, or the “process” of how something is accomplished.
Key Skills:
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How to Outline Process Writing
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Using Transition Words
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Developing a Great “Hook” to Start Your Paper
Informational Writing – What most people imagine when they think of writing a report, informational writing relays information to the reader. It only gives information, relaying facts on people, places, things, or events.
Key Skills:
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How to Outline Informational Writing Depending on Your Topic
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Developing a Bibliography
Personal Narratives – These narratives express the author’s own experiences with a focus on sharing feelings and events from the author’s point of view.
Key Skills:
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How to Outline a Personal Narrative
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How a Personal Narrative Outline Contrasts with Other Genre Outlines
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Learning to Show, Not Tell
Fictional Narratives – A fictional narrative allows a writer to tell a made-up story, or a fictional account of an event. Fictional narratives come in many types: historical, fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and modern fiction.
Key Skills:
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Outlining Fictional Narratives
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Developing Setting, Characters, Conflict, Events and Resolution
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Three Great Ways to Begin Fictional Narratives
Persuasive Writing – This type of writing expresses and opinion and tries to persuade others to believe in a particular point of view, or take action on a particular issue.
Key Skills:
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Outlining Persuasive Writing
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Choosing an Effective “Hook” for Persuasive Writing
As students finish their first draft, and then their final draft, they will use the included Personal Writing Checklists to check their work. This list includes specific skills in areas of planning and organization, ideas, grammar and mechanics, presentation, and writing goals. It allows students to think through how well they have met key goals on each paper, and where they tend to struggle as they move through the program.
