Grade 8 English Language Arts: how to help at home
What your child learns in Grade 8 english language arts in the Manitoba Curriculum, and simple things to try at home.
The Big Ideas this year
- 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:
- 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:
- D1 Share Ideas and Information:
- 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.
Easy ways to practise english language arts at home
- Read what they are interested in: graphic novels, sports pages, series. Then talk about it.
- Ask for the main idea and one piece of evidence from the text.
- Have them write real messages: a thank-you note, a short review, a note to a relative.
- Read their writing aloud to them; they often spot their own mistakes by ear.
What each unit covers
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.
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.
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.
Literary Devices
Naming devices like simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, irony, foreshadowing and symbolism in short excerpts, and identifying a narrator's point of view.
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.
Argument & Media
Telling fact from opinion, spotting persuasive appeals (ethos, pathos, logos) and weak reasoning, and judging how reliable a source or media message is.
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.
Grammar & Style
Active and passive voice, run-ons, parallel structure, commas, apostrophes, semicolons, colons and common usage choices.
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.
What the report card levels look like at home
- Level 1
- Just getting started with this idea. Short, regular practice with lots of support helps most.
- Level 2
- Understands parts of it and is building confidence. Keep practising the tricky parts.
- Level 3
- Has it! Mixed review now and then keeps it strong.
- Level 4
- Applies it confidently, even in new or harder situations. Try challenge mode and real-life problems.
Your child’s teacher decides the level on the report card. Read the Manitoba report card guide.
Common questions
How can I help my Grade 8 child with english language arts?
Read what they are interested in: graphic novels, sports pages, series. Then talk about it. Ask for the main idea and one piece of evidence from the text. Keep sessions short, about 10 to 15 minutes, and stop on a success.
What does my child learn in Grade 8 english language arts in Manitoba?
The Manitoba Curriculum Grade 8 english language arts units include reading detective, close reading, whose story is it?, literary devices, forms, patterns & visuals, argument & media.
Free printable Grade 8 english language arts practice sheet
Questions from every unit, with an answer key.