Curricular Highlights: Eighth Grade

Literacy

Lake Bluff Elementary School District 65 utilizes a balanced literacy approach. A balanced approach uses a variety of reading, writing and word work instruction, and practice opportunities for students in order to expose them to the rich world of literacy. An essential component of balanced literacy is called “workshop”. Our understanding and implementation of workshop, in District 65, is grounded in the research and practices of Lucy Calkins and her colleagues from the Teachers College, Reading and Writing Project who have developed the Units of Study in both Reading and Writing to guide us.

Reading and Writing Workshops are conducted daily to allow for students to receive personalized learning by engaging with and producing high volumes of both fiction and nonfiction texts of their choosing. Because all lessons begin with explicit, direct teaching points, workshop prioritizes time for students to be immersed in independent reading and writing work, while teachers provide focused, differentiated instruction in smaller groups. As a result, workshop challenges students to develop the habits and dispositions of lifelong readers and writers. Additionally, mentor texts and student writing will be used to teach grammar in context. Many of our grammar lessons will be embedded in Writing Workshop, striking a balance between encouraging creative freedom and promoting correct conventions.

Mathematics

Mathematics instruction in District 65 provides the opportunity for all students to have a rigorous, engaging, and accessible curriculum which focuses on developing students’ deep understanding of mathematics concepts. In order to achieve this, students engage in a high level of discourse and are exposed to multiple strategies in order to solve complex problems. The backbone of this instruction comes from College Preparatory Math (CPM). CPM has developed a program whose goal is to engage all students in learning mathematics through problem solving, reasoning, and communication.

“CPM teaching strategies focus on how students best learn and retain mathematics. Teaching strategies rely on the recommendations of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and are based solidly on the methodological research in teaching mathematics. The research-based principles that guide the course are:

• Students should engage in problem-based lessons structured around a core idea.
• Guided by a knowledgeable teacher, students should interact in groups to foster mathematical discourse.
• Practice with concepts and procedures should be spaced over time; that is, mastery comes over time.”

Science

Lake Bluff School District has aligned our curriculum to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), adopted by the State of Illinois in the winter of 2015. In an effort to align to NGSS, we utilize the IQWST (Investigating & Questioning our World Through Science & Technology) as our core science program. IQWST is a rigorous, investigation-centered science curriculum designed to challenge and engage middle school students in grades 6 through 8.

In 8th grade, we lean on our core middle school science resource from IQWST, which stands for Investigating and Questioning our World through Science and Technology! The curriculum is based on the very latest research on how people learn, and how students learn science in particular, as it addresses the Next Generation Science Standards. Students will be engaging in many hands-on activities in class, in which they are handling science materials and are experiencing phenomena first-hand. In every lesson, they will be reading about, writing about, talking about, and doing science. Discussion is central to this type of learning. Students will work inpidually, in pairs, in teams, and as a whole class to “make sense” of how things happen in the world around them or why things happen the way they do.

Social Studies

In eighth grade Social Studies students move from Colonial America, through the inception of the US Constitution to understand what has led us to the present day’s political, cultural, and economic state of affairs.  Students examine current events and draw connections to past events in the United States and around the world.   The focus is on developing mastery in critical thinking, problem solving, analysis, and comprehension through examining primary and secondary sources and a vast array of materials connected to our nation’s history.  The most exciting part of the year is typically the class trip to Washington, DC where students see, firsthand, the monuments and landmarks in our nation’s capital city.

To prepare students for their continuing education students apply their classroom and content experiences to discuss, create, and analyze the historical ideas and inpiduals that shaped our nation’s history.  They examine, not only the well known and prominent figures throughout our time as a young nation, but also the lesser known yet highly influential men and women of all races and ethnicities and backgrounds that make up who we are as a country.  Students are transported to the time and place of history through the eyes and experiences of those who changed and progressed our country to what is known today, while at the same time developing their content literacy through an understanding of the topics in our units of study.  This will aids students in engaging with the skills necessary to succeed in a social studies classroom immediately entering into their high school experiences.

The curriculum is broken down into Units of Study:

Unit 1 - Colonial America and Revolution

Unit 2 - The Constitution

Unit 3 - Early America

Unit 4 - The Civil War and Reconstruction

Unit 5 - The Gilded and Progressive Eras

Unit 6 - WWI to FDR

Unit 7 - WW II and 1950s America

Unit 8 - Civil Rights

Unit 9 - Cold War and Post Cold War America

Final Unit - Citizenship Project