2nd Year Program: American History & Literature
2nd Year English (grades 7 & 8) builds skills of literary analysis through continued development of paragraphs (evaluative, interpretive, descriptive, and opinion), timed essays (revised and graded on SAT rubrics), and a strong focus on various five-paragraph essay forms. Students must complete at least 36 revisions and 6 peer edits each Quarter.
Typical 2nd Year students will complete 31 pieces, each comprising 5-10 drafts, for a total of 155-310 pieces of writing, just in English class, during the school year.
Reading in the 2nd year comprises short stories, novels, and two Alexis de Tocqueville essays. Novels include: The Witch of Blackbird Pond; The Slave Dancer; The Red Badge of Courage; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; The Giver; and Fahrenheit 451. Students also explore the writing of Transcendentalist poets and interpret various American historical documents and speeches such as The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the United States, and The Gettysburg Address.
Required written pieces include:
1st Person Narratives
An interpretation of language in The Declaration of Independence
Four timed essays, both SAT format, and using quotations from a text or a poem
Ten different analytical paragraphs (3 opinion, 2 evaluative, 2 descriptive, 2 interpretive, introductory) citing a text (short stories, political philosophy essays, American documents, and novels)
Six five-paragraph essays with formal outlines on:
The Slave Dancer (introductory paragraph and essay outline)
The Witch of Blackbird Pond (essay citing only one novel)
The Declaration of Independence & The Constitution of the United States (essay citing two non-fiction documents)
The Red Badge of Courage and a selection of short stories (essay citing a novel and two short stories)
Transcendentalist poets (essay citing poetry and class notes)
The Gettysburg Address (essay citing only one 250 word speech)
Three final exam essays incorporating novels (Fahrenheit 451; The Giver) and short stories.
Pink poetry (Free verse; figurative language) if unfinished from 1st Year
Green poetry: figurative language, rhythm, rhyme, meter >>> six metered poems, including: Haiku, Tanka, Tercets, Quatrains, Cinquain, Limericks
A personal SKILLS LIST, which contains 45-60 stylistic and grammatical writing skills by the end of the 2nd Year
See our Middle School Curriculum Map to understand how our programs work together.
