7th
Grade English Syllabus
English 7 Syllabus
2007 – 2008
Mr. Fink
“Books are good enough in their own way,
but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life.”
-Robert Louis Stevenson
Books may be a ‘bloodless substitute for life,’ but books are as essential to an English curriculum as numbers are to Mathematics. My hope is that the books we read this year breathe life into our boys, and in turn, the boys learn to bring literature to life.
There are four elements to the study of English in the 7th grade:
Grammar
Text: English Workshop Third Course
Focus: 1. Parts of Speech
2. Sentence Diagramming:
subjects, verbs, direct objects, predicate adjectives, predicate nominatives
3. Mechanics - Punctuation and Capitalization:
end marks, commas, semicolons, abbreviations, basic quotations
Literature
Tom Sawyer – Mark Twain (summer reading)
Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
The Call of the Wild – Jack London
The Sword in the Stone – T.H. White
The Hound of the Baskervilles – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar- William Shakespeare
A Book of Poetry I (selections)
Various Short Stories
Essays
We will stress the following written skills:
1. Proper form related to analytical essays
Consult "5 Paragraph Format Sheet"
-- introduction (thesis statement)
-- body paragraphs (single idea focus)
-- conclusion (summary, finishing thesis)
-- use of textual quotes
2. Improved vocabulary
3. Quote analysis
4. Complex sentence structure; logical use of connective words
5. Eliminating the passive voice and verb “to be”
6. Creative, experimental writing
Vocabulary
Lists will be generated from literature texts |