Grade 8 English Language Arts: how to help at home
What your child learns in Grade 8 english language arts in the Newfoundland and Labrador Curriculum, and simple things to try at home.
The Big Ideas this year
- Speaking and listening: explore and reflect. Students will speak and listen to explore, extend, clarify, and reflect on their thoughts, ideas, feelings, and experiences.
- Speaking and listening: communicate. Students will be able to communicate information and ideas effectively and clearly, and to respond personally and critically.
- Speaking and listening: interact with respect. Students will be able to interact with sensitivity and respect, considering the situation, audience, and purpose.
- Reading and viewing: select and read. Students will be able to select, read, and view with understanding a range of literature, information, media, and visual texts.
- Reading and viewing: interpret and combine information. Students will be able to interpret, select, and combine information using a variety of strategies, resources, and technologies.
- Reading and viewing: respond personally. Students will be able to respond personally to a range of texts.
- Reading and viewing: respond critically. Students will be able to respond critically to a range of texts, applying their understanding of language, form, and genre.
- Writing and representing: explore and reflect. Students will be able to use writing and other ways of representing to explore, clarify, and reflect on their thoughts, feelings, experiences, and learning; and to use their imagination.
- Writing and representing: create texts. Students will be able to create texts collaboratively and independently, using a variety of forms for a range of audiences and purposes.
- Writing and representing: strategies. Students will be able to use a range of strategies to develop effective writing and other ways of representing and to enhance their clarity, precision, and effectiveness.
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
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.
Literary Devices
Naming devices like simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, irony, foreshadowing and symbolism in short excerpts, and identifying a narrator's point of view.
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.
Grammar & Style
Active and passive voice, run-ons, parallel structure, commas, apostrophes, semicolons, colons and common usage choices.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Digital Citizens
Staying safe and respectful online, protecting privacy, spotting misinformation and disinformation, understanding how feeds are curated, and thinking about audience and purpose in digital and media texts.
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
- Beginning
- Just getting started with this idea. Short, regular practice with lots of support helps most.
- Approaching
- Understands parts of it and is building confidence. Keep practising the tricky parts.
- Meeting
- Has it! Mixed review now and then keeps it strong.
- Exceeding
- 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 Newfoundland and Labrador report card guide.
Common questions
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.
The Newfoundland and Labrador Curriculum Grade 8 english language arts units include close reading, literary devices, argument & media, grammar & style, word study, whose story is it?.
Free printable Grade 8 english language arts practice sheet
Questions from every unit, with an answer key.