Seventh Grade

List of 11 items.

• Reading & Literature

  • Read and explore novels, short stories, poems, and plays whose protagonists represent a variety of backgrounds and challenges
  • Identify literary elements: metaphor, symbolism, foreshadowing, theme, and historical and cultural references
  • Independent and in-class reading and literature criticism
  • Analyze and identify literary themes: friendship, identity, tolerance, diversity, and beliefs
  • Connect literature to history, author, personal experience, and the modern world through discussion, journal entries, and group work

• Writing & Language Arts

  • Write multi-paragraph essays (narrative, memoir, analysis, and research paper)
  • Debate skills at an end of the school year debate
  • Practice Courageous Conversations (community circles)
  • Focus on the writing process: prewriting, writing, editing, and rewriting
  • Develop research skills: internet and library
  • Maintain a notebook and practice note-taking and organizational skills
  • Strengthen vocabulary and grammar skills
  • Make oral and visual presentations
  • Analyze and write poetry, short stories, and fiction

• Social Studies

  • Explore Medieval Europe, the Arabian Peninsula, West Africa, Japan, China, and The Americas
  • Politics, Economics, Geography, and Society of different civilizations
  • Note-taking skills: history notebook, document analysis, paragraph, and essay writing
  • Cause, effect, and impact of historical events Comparison of present-day case studies and literature to historical studies

• Mathematics

  • Proportional relationships
  • Scale drawings
  • Percent change
  • Circles, angles, triangles, surface area, and volume
  • Operations with negative numbers
  • Expressions, equations, and inequalities
  • Data analysis, probability, and graphing techniques
  • Problem-solving strategies
  • Interpret and solve problems in real-world situations
  • Share multiple perspectives and communicate mathematical thinking

• Science

  • Work as a scientist: observe, research, develop controlled experiments, communicate
  • Evolution
  • The microbiome, viruses, the immune system
  • Life processes: strategies and solutions from cells to plants to human beings
  • Genetics and heredity
  • Sex and drug education: accurate information leads to informed decisions
  • Develop research skills, apply the scientific method, create models, and write scientific arguments
  • Buddy science projects with Lower School students

• Spanish

  • Project-based learning focused on authentic, meaningful situations. Verbal communication is highly emphasized
  • Use Realidades textbook, workbook, and interactive website
  • Active learning through Total Physical Response games, art, music, and dance 
  • Celebration of Latino culture through the study of music, stories, dance, traditional holidays, and geography
  • In-depth individual PowerPoint presentations on Mexico 
  • Interrogatives, the imperative, the preterit tense, formulas tener que + infinitivo and ir + a + infinitivo

• STEAM/Technology

  • Digital Citizenship: online persona, social media life
  • Google Slides presentation
  • Design Challenge: popsicle bridge design
  • No Wikipedia online scavenger hunt
  • Trebuchet design & build
  • 3D Cell Models
  • Coding with Scratch 2.0 & Code.org 

• Visual Arts

  • Drawing: contour lines, shading, grid enlarging, layout, lettering
  • Guided self-portraits: Chuck Close
  • Day of the Dead papier-mache masks
  • Printmaking: linoleum blocks
  • Oaxacan animal sculptures
  • Arts of Asia: India, China, and Japan
  • Public art opportunities

• Music

  • Advanced drum ensemble workshop
  • Year one drum ensemble
  • 5-part 6/8 pattern
  • Dividing the beat into three and four parts
  • Mayi, Ibo, Samba
  • Featured performance at African American Cultural Celebration
  • Exploration of the cultural role music plays in a community
  • Performance band for instrumentalists

• Physical Education

  • Analyzing an opponent’s strengths and weaknesses and using this analysis in a game situation
  • Demonstrating appropriate sportsmanship in game situations
  • Working cooperatively with all peers regardless of skill level

• Community Engaged Learning

  • Service to Alzheimer’s patients, toddlers at day care, and others off-site