From the Desk of Erin Hornberger
Language Arts Department Chair

In Language Arts classes, students will learn how to be better readers, speakers, and listeners in order to be better writers.  This is ensured by teachers who 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. The Language Arts department is implementing the set curriculum for all students in the effort to challenge students to be critical readers, abstract thinkers, concise speakers, and effective writers.  6th-8th grade Language Arts classes will use texts and materials that are relevant to learners growing up in our ever-changing and modernizing world.  Our Language Arts curriculum 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. 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.

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

The teachers who make up the Language Arts department are excited about the new literature and programs they will use to help your child succeed.  Your child’s teacher believes that each student is empowered to grow and learn more to expand their minds and extend their pens.  The teachers within 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. And there are teachers who have taught elementary school, who help us to better understand the middle school student and their cognitive processes.  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.

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 be assigned to the students in each grade level.
Essential Curriculum classes:

Gifted and Talented classes:

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.