Grade 7 English Language Arts
12 units matched to the Manitoba Curriculum. Kids see this subject as “Language Arts”.
Learning focus
- A1 Oral Language Communication: Learners will apply listening and speaking skills to receive, exchange and develop ideas for various purposes and audiences.
- A2 Language as the Foundation for Reading and Writing: Learners will develop and apply the understanding of the system of language (knowledge and skills) and language comprehension for reading and writing.
- B1 Acquire New Information: Learners will activate, acquire and build background knowledge through inquiry of diverse topics and engagement with multimodal forms of text (e.g., visual, oral, print, digital, experts, Elders).
- B2 Construct Meaning: Learners will understand and apply a variety of comprehension strategies to construct the meaning of text and consolidate new information.
- B3 Think Critically about Multimodal Text and Respond: Learners will recognize, analyze, and respond critically to inequities, bias, and viewpoints in texts and ideas.
- C1 Generate Ideas, Create Plan and Draft/Prototype: Learners will generate ideas, conduct research, evaluate sources, and design a plan to compose multimodal texts (visual, multimedia, oral, written) for a range of purposes and audiences.
- C2 Enhance the Clarity and Artistry of Multimodal Texts: Learners will apply knowledge and understanding of the variables of writing to enhance the clarity, precision and effectiveness of their creations and reflect critically on created text.
- C3 Edit and Publish: Learners will apply knowledge of editing to communicate the text clearly and coherently to an audience, using a variety of media, tools and strategies to publish text.
- D1 Share Ideas and Information: Learners will use a range of multimodal forms of communication (e.g., visual, multimedia, oral and written texts) to share, clarify, and extend ideas/ information for different purposes and audiences.
- D2 Assess and Set Goals: Learners will use metacognition (the ability to think about one’s own thinking) to assess their language skills as listeners, speakers, readers, writers, viewers and representers, supporting their grow as independent learners. Learners will set goals and monitor progress.
Units
Unit 1
Close Reading
Reading original stories, arguments and informational passages, then identifying theme and main idea, making inferences, spotting claims and counterarguments, and explaining why an author made certain choices.
Learning outcome: ELA.7.B2.5, ELA.7.B2.6 · using strategies to understand a text, and summarizing main ideas and drawing conclusions
Unit 2
Whose Story?
Telling first, second and third person apart, finding the clues, and imagining how a different narrator would change the story.
Learning outcome: ELA.7.B3.3 · the creator's point of view, such as first, second or third person
Unit 3
Literary Devices
Recognizing the tools writers use: figurative language, foreshadowing, flashback, symbolism and the three kinds of irony (verbal, situational and dramatic), plus the parts of a plot.
Learning outcome: ELA.7.B2.2, ELA.7.A2.5 · using text cues to interpret meaning, and figures of speech
Unit 4
Tone & Mood
Telling the writer's attitude (tone) apart from the reader's feeling (mood), and seeing how word choice and connotation shape both.
Learning outcome: ELA.7.B2.2, ELA.7.D1.1 · tone and mood in a text and in a speaker's delivery
Unit 5
Poetry Lab
Reading short original poems to find rhyme schemes, count stanzas, identify the speaker, recognize forms like haiku, limerick and free verse, and interpret figurative language and theme.
Learning outcome: ELA.7.B2.1, ELA.7.B2.2 · features of poems and how they build meaning
Unit 6
Persuasive Power
Identifying appeals to credibility, emotion and logic; spotting weak reasoning like bandwagon, false cause and slippery slope; and judging which evidence and rebuttals are strongest.
Learning outcome: ELA.7.B3.2, ELA.7.B3.3 · fact, opinion and bias, and the creator's point of view
Unit 7
Source Check
Researching responsibly: judging whether a source is trustworthy and current, noticing bias, separating fact from opinion, and giving credit through quotation, paraphrase and citation.
Learning outcome: ELA.7.B1.2, ELA.7.B3.2 · judging sources and telling fact from opinion
Unit 8
Clauses & Sentences
Finding independent and dependent clauses, naming the four sentence types, and fixing fragments, run-ons and comma splices, the building blocks of varied, clear sentences.
Learning outcome: ELA.7.C2.2 · compound and complex sentences
Unit 9
Modifiers & Parallelism
Revising sentences so describing phrases sit next to what they describe (no misplaced or dangling modifiers) and list items match in form (parallel structure).
Learning outcome: ELA.7.C2.2, ELA.7.C2.5 · clear, balanced sentences
Unit 10
Semicolons, Colons & Dashes
Using semicolons to join related sentences and separate complex lists, colons to introduce lists and explanations, and dashes to add emphasis or interruptions.
Learning outcome: ELA.7.C3.4 · using a variety of punctuation
Unit 11
Roots & Word Parts
Children work out the meaning and spelling of new words from their roots, prefixes and suffixes, and meet figures of speech.
Learning outcome: ELA.7.A2.4, ELA.7.A2.5, ELA.7.C3.2 · Greek and Latin roots and affixes, expanded vocabulary, figures of speech and spelling by word parts
Unit 12
Word Mix-Ups
Choosing correctly between commonly confused words: its/it's, their/there/they're, then/than, lose/loose, who's/whose, affect/effect, accept/except and more.
Learning outcome: ELA.7.C3.2 · spelling and commonly confused words
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