Middle School English Language Arts 7A

About This Course

This is the first segment of a two semester course. By examining powerful literary and nonfiction texts by a wide array of authors, students in this course build upon their foundational knowledge of reading, writing, and speaking using engaging mentor texts and scaffolded opportunities. Students also fine tune their writing by planning and producing effective narratives, argumentative essays, and expository essays using guided practice and exemplar texts. These opportunities to plan, draft, revise, and edit their written work ensures that students will find their "voice" in writing. Students dive into the world of rhetoric by exploring important historical texts, demonstrating proficiency in identifying effective rhetorical appeals and ineffective fallacious reasoning that weakens communication. The authentic assessment opportunities provided in this course meet the needs of students while providing engaging and interesting learning opportunities. Prerequisites:  6th Grade English

Course Objectives: Upon completion of this course, students will be able to...

• Demonstrate understanding and use of appropriate and effective vocabulary
• Identify literary elements
• Demonstrate understanding of how authors develop theme within writing
• Employ effective reading strategies within informational texts
• Write an effective introduction
• Engage in responsible research
• Organize information in writing
• Effectively support claims in writing
• Apply revision techniques
• Identify fallacies in argumentative writing
• Compare differing viewpoints
• Explain allusions in literary passages
• Demonstrate effective use of punctuation and grammar, including hyphens, semicolons, colons, and sentence structure

Course Outline:

Module 1: Back to Basics

Module 2: Immersed in Information

Module 3: Analyze This

Resources Included: Online lesson instruction and activities, opportunities to engage with a certified, online instructor and classmates, when appropriate, and online assessments to measure student performance of course objectives and readiness for subsequent academic pursuits.

Additional Costs: Students will select one short story or novel to read from the choices below:

• "Lob's Girl" by Joan Aiken
• Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan
• "Scout's Honor" by Avi
• The Long Road to Gettysburg by Jim Murphy
• The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene du Bois
• The Watsons Go to Birmingham by Christopher Paul Curtis
• "Tuesday of the Other June" by Norma Fox Mazer

All short stories can be easily found online. Novels may be checked out from a local library or purchased from a bookstore or online retailer.

Scoring System: Michigan Virtual does not assign letter grades, grant credit for courses, nor issue diplomas. A final score out of total points earned will be submitted to your school mentor for conversion to their own letter grading system.

Time Commitment: Semester sessions are 18-weeks long: Students must be able to spend 1 or more hours per day in the course to be successful. Summer sessions are 10 weeks long: Students must be able to spend a minimum of 2 or more hours per day, or about 90 hours during the summer, for the student to be successful in any course. Trimester sessions are 12-weeks long: Students must be able to spend 1.5 or more hours per day in the course to be successful.

Technology Requirements: Students will require a computer device with headphones, a microphone, webcam, up-to-date Chrome Web Browser, and access to YouTube.

Ensure that your school or district network and device administrator whitelists online resources relevant to the course in which you are choosing to enroll. Ref., Michigan Virtual Course Whitelist

Please review the Michigan Virtual Technology Requirements: https://michiganvirtual.org/about/support/knowledge-base/technical-requirements/

Lightweight devices such as Apple iPads, Google Chromebooks, and tablets have limited support for Java or Flash which still appear in a small percentage of our catalog. While FLVS does not offer technical support for these devices, FLVS is working to remove Flash from their remaining course content. Students will need extra work-around steps or alternate browsers to engage with some portions of those courses. FLVS recommends students have a Windows or Mac based computer available to complete coursework in the event that your selected mobile device does not meet the needs of the course. Fully supported Operating Systems for FLVS courses include Windows (10 or higher) and MacOS (11 or higher). Supported Browsers include the most recent versions of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Apple Safari on devices that support Java and HTML5. Browsers need to be up to date, and some FLVS courses may require installation or enabling of the following Plug-ins: JavaScript enabled, Cookies enabled, Java installed. https://www.flvs.net/student-parent-resources/more/system-requirements

Instructor Support System: For technical issues within your course, contact the Customer Care Center by email at CustomerCare@michiganvirtual.org or by phone at (888) 889-2840.

Instructor Contact Expectations: Students can use email or the private message system within the Student Learning Portal to access highly qualified teachers when they need instructor assistance. Students will also receive feedback on their work inside the learning management system. The Instructor Info area of their course may describe additional communication options.

Academic Support Available: In addition to access to a highly qualified, Michigan certified teacher, students have access to academic videos and outside resources verified by Michigan Virtual. For technical issues within the course, students can contact the Michigan Virtual Customer Care by email at customercare@michiganvirtual.org or by phone at (888) 889-2840.

Required Assessment: Online assessments consist of formative and summative assessments represented by computer-graded multiple choice, instructor-graded writing assignments including hands-on projects, model building, discussion-based assessment, and other forms of authentic assessments.

Technical Skills Needed: Basic technology skills necessary to locate and share information and files as well as interact with others in a Learning Management System (LMS), include the ability to:

• Download, edit, save, convert, and upload files
• Download and install software
• Use a messaging service similar to email
• Communicate with others in online discussion or message boards, following basic rules of netiquette
• Open attachments shared in messages
• Create, save, and submit files in commonly used word processing program formats and as a PDF
• Edit file share settings in cloud-based applications, such as Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides
• Save a file as a .pdf
• Copy and paste and format text using your mouse, keyboard, or an html editor’s toolbar menu
• Insert images or links into a file or html editor
• Search for information within a document using Ctrl+F or Command+F keyboard shortcuts
• Work in multiple browser windows and tabs simultaneously
• Activate a microphone or webcam on your device, and record and upload or link audio and/or video files
• Use presentation and graphics programs
• Follow an online pacing guide or calendar of due dates
• Use spell-check, citation editors, and tools commonly provided in word processing tool menus
• Create and maintain usernames and passwords

Additional Information: None