Grade 8 English Language Arts
13 units matched to the Nunavut Curriculum. Kids see this subject as “Language Arts”.
Learning focus
- Uqausiliriniq: communication and language, creative and artistic expression, and reflective and critical thinking.
- Comprehension: listen, view and read to understand a range of texts.
- Production: speak, write and represent ideas clearly for different audiences and purposes.
Units
Unit 1
Research & Inquiry
Children practise asking open questions, using what they already know, judging whether sources are reliable or biased, and noting evidence from more than one source.
Approved guide: NWT English Language Arts (2011), Comprehension · prior knowledge, open-ended questions, working with others, evidence from multiple sources and judging reliability
Unit 2
Reading Detective
Making and checking predictions, choosing a strategy when reading gets tricky, drawing local and global inferences from clues, and summarizing the main ideas of complex texts.
Approved guide: NWT English Language Arts (2011), Comprehension · choosing reading strategies to understand a text
Unit 3
Close Reading
Reading original short passages and answering questions about theme, tone, word choice, inference and the author's purpose, using evidence from the text.
Approved guide: NWT English Language Arts (2011), Comprehension · predicting, inferring and summarizing from grade-level texts
Unit 4
Whose Story Is It?
Recognizing third-person limited and omniscient narrators, spotting clues that a narrator is unreliable, and thinking about how a story would change from another character's point of view.
Approved guide: NWT English Language Arts (2011), Comprehension · a text creator's point of view and the narrator's voice
Unit 5
Literary Devices
Naming devices like simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, irony, foreshadowing and symbolism in short excerpts, and identifying a narrator's point of view.
Approved guide: NWT English Language Arts (2011), Comprehension · literary devices and connecting ideas across texts
Unit 6
Forms, Patterns & Visuals
Comparing text forms such as editorials, news articles, poems and graphic novels, spotting text patterns like problem-solution and compare-contrast, and judging how features, images and design add to meaning.
Approved guide: NWT English Language Arts (2011), Production · text forms, features and cues that carry a message
Unit 7
Fair & Inclusive Language
Children learn how word choice can include or leave people out, notice stereotypes and one-sided views in texts, and explain their reaction using evidence.
Approved guide: NWT English Language Arts (2011), Production · language that shapes inclusive environments, asking multifaceted questions, and responding to stereotypes and unfair representations
Unit 8
Word Study
Using prefixes, suffixes and Greek and Latin roots to work out unfamiliar words, reading context clues, and noticing how word choice changes feeling.
Approved guide: NWT English Language Arts (2011), Production · word structure and vocabulary
Unit 9
Precise Words & Spelling
Children use word families, prefixes, suffixes and spelling rules, choose precise words for a subject, and use word-processing tools to format a document.
Approved guide: NWT English Language Arts (2011), Production · discipline-specific vocabulary, formatting a digital document and spelling strategies, derivatives and bases
Unit 10
Grammar & Style
Active and passive voice, run-ons, parallel structure, commas, apostrophes, semicolons, colons and common usage choices.
Approved guide: NWT English Language Arts (2011), Production · sentence variety, capitalization and punctuation
Unit 11
Plan, Form & Voice
Children choose a text form for a purpose and audience, group ideas with patterns such as cause and effect, and match tone and voice to what they are writing.
Approved guide: NWT English Language Arts (2011), Production · choosing a form for purpose and audience, planning tools, organizational patterns, voice and tone, and multimodal forms
Unit 12
Write It Better
Choosing the right form and tone for an audience, using reliable sources and giving credit, building voice, acknowledging other perspectives, and revising, editing and proofreading drafts.
Approved guide: NWT English Language Arts (2011), Production · revising writing for clear word choice and sentence structure
Unit 13
Goals & Feedback
Children practise setting specific learning goals, using feedback, tracking evidence of growth and thinking about reading fluency.
Approved guide: NWT English Language Arts (2011), Comprehension · fluency, comparing strategies, class criteria, feedback, learning goals and tracking progress
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