From the Desk of Terry Mobley
Language Arts Department Chair
The teachers who comprise the language arts department
at Deer Park Middle Magnet School represent a wide variety of teaching
experiences. There are teachers who have taught high school, who help
us to better understand what how to best prepare our students for the
next steps in their educational careers. There are teachers who have a
background in journalism and writing, who help us guide our students to
be better writers. The language arts teachers at Deer Park work closely
with each other, planning in grade level teams to provide the best possible
education for our children. They meet weekly to examine student work,
to evaluate what is working and to identify strategies that might be implemented
to improve instruction.
The very capable language arts teachers at Deer Park Middle
Magnet School adhere to the curriculum guides developed by the Baltimore
County Office of Reading/Language Arts. The English Language Arts Curriculum
at each grade level is designed to help students meet the educational
objectives identified in the Baltimore County Public Schools’ Essential
Curriculum. The Essential Curriculum is correlated with the Maryland State
Content Standards, the High School Core Learning Goals, the Voluntary
State Curriculum, the Maryland School Assessment, and the High School
Assessment.
The Language Arts Curriculum Guides for grades six and
eight are being revised during the summer of 2006 and will be implemented
fully in the 2006/2007 school year. The grade seven curriculum guide was
revised in 2004. All three guides are built around the Maryland Content
Standards for reading, writing, language, speaking and listening. All
three are designed to meet the needs of students and prepare them to read,
write, think, speak, listen and act.
Imbedded in each curriculum guide are strategies for;
• Developing critical and creative thinking
• Using technology as a teaching and learning tool
• Implementing education which is multicultural
• Differentiating instructional content, processes, products and
the learning environment to meet the learning needs of all students
At all three grade levels, language arts teachers provide
an integrated program that includes reading, writing and language instruction
(grammar, usage and mechanics), vocabulary instruction, outside reading
and oral/aural presentation skills and opportunities. These components
help to create a well-rounded English instructional program that is challenging
and preparatory for high school and for life.
Each year students are expected to read a minimum of four
major works of literature. The bulk of the reading is done outside of
class, allowing class time to be used for relevant instruction. Below
are tables with the names of the longer works of fiction that are currently
assigned throughout the school year. Since our language arts teachers
meet weekly to plan together, all of the teachers on a particular grade
level usually assign the same novel at the same time. Occasionally, however,
a teacher may choose an alternate selection in order to best meet the
needs and/or interests of his/her students. The following is a list of
novels that will most probably be assigned to the students in each grade
level.
Regular (Non-GT) Students
Grade 6 Grade 7 Grade 8
Belle Prater’s Boy The Diary of Anne Frank (the 1950’s play
version) Fever 1793*
Hatchet Maniac McGee Nothing But the Truth
Sadako and the 1000 Paper Cranes Out of the Dust Roll of Thunder, Hear
My Cry
Esperanza Rising* Seedfolks The Wave
Yolanda’s Genius Self-selected biography Self-selected novel
Gifted and Talented Students
Grade 6 Grade 7 Grade 8
Father’s Arcane Daughter Waiting for the Rain The Killer Angels
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer The Call of the Wild Farewell to Manzanar
The Giver Watership Down A Tale of Two Cities
Shakespeare Stealer Animal Farm The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
4 to 10 Black-Eyed Susan Award nominees The Taming of the Shrew A Midsummer
Night’s Dream
In addition to the longer works, students will read and analyze short
stories, personal narratives, poems and short plays. Each of our language
arts classrooms is equipped with brand new sets of Glencoe Literature,
an anthology that was carefully selected for its rich variety of literature
and its straight forward approach to the analysis of that literature.
Throughout the year students will explore their own writing
processes in an ongoing effort to identify and apply effective elements
of style and writers’ craft to their own writing. They will examine
reading as a process and learn to construct, examine and extend meaning
as they read. Finally, they will read and analyze literature in order
to create literature of their own. At Deer Park Middle Magnet School,
our language arts teachers work to create an atmosphere in which purposeful
reading, writing, speaking and listening take place every day. Out ultimate
goal is to encourage and enable students to become lifelong readers and
writers.
We teach young people how to learn so that they become
independent learners.
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