Language Arts 700

Language Arts 700 continues to build on the sequential development and integration of communication skills in four major areas—reading, writing, speaking, and listening. It most specifically focuses on deepening and furthering students’ understanding in the following ways:

• Reading–develops students’ reading skills, including the identification of main ideas, supporting details, and sequence; teaches students how to reach logical conclusions as well as use appropriate reading rates; shows students how to identify parts of speech in sentences, with emphasis on adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, pronouns, and verb types; helps students develop basic literary comprehension skills through the reading of biographical and autobiographical pieces, poetry, and character analyses.
• Writing–develops students’ understanding of sentence structure, providing hands-on experience with coordination, conjunctions, subject-verb agreement, participles, and phrases; familiarizes students with roots, affixes, and basic word relationships, including homonyms, synonyms, and antonyms; develops students’ vocabulary and spelling skills; gives students the opportunity to develop their abilities in writing paragraphs, character analyses, character sketches, short biographies, and summaries; develops students’ critical thinking skills through speculative writing on morality.
• Speaking–teaches skills that enable students to become effective speakers and communicators, weaving the skills together throughout the course.
• Listening–teaches effective listening comprehension skills, weaving these together throughout the lessons; builds upon students’ study skills.

Curriculum Contents

Reading Comprehension Skills

• Analyzing Characters
• Determining Author’s Purpose—Reading for Entertainment and Reading for Information
• Identifying Main Ideas and Supporting Details
• Reaching Logical Conclusions
• Reading Nonfiction

Composition

• Character Analysis
• Character Sketch
• Essay Structure—Five Paragraph Essay
• Paragraph Elements—Topic
• Paragraph Organization—Sequence, Unity, and Format
• Paragraph Structure—Transitional, Inductive, and Deductive
• Speculative Writing
• Summarizing
• Writing a Biography
• Writing and Listening
• Writing on Morality and Feelings
• Writing a Report

Grammar and Usage

• Adjectives
• Kinds of Sentences—Declarative, Interrogative, Imperative, and Exclamatory
• Levels of Language Use—Standard, Nonstandard, Formal, and Informal
• Nouns—Common Nouns, Proper Nouns, and Direct Objects
• Pronouns—Nominative, Objective, Possessive, Reflexive, Demonstrative, and Archaic
• Punctuation—Apostrophes, Quotation Marks, Hyphens, and Parentheses
• Sentence Structure
  • Coordination
  • Errors in Construction—Fragments, Comma Splices, and Run-ons
  • Patterns
  • Prepositions and Prepositional Phrases
  • Subjects and Predicates
• Verbs—Tense, Irregular, and Auxiliary

Literature Studies

• Nonfiction
  • Definition
  • Elements—Setting, Characterization, and Purpose
  • Genre/Type—Autobiography and Biography
  • Literary Device—Flashback and Foreshadowing

Speaking and Listening

• Listening Strategies
• Speaking Strategies
• Types of Listening—Passive, Purposeful, Critical, Appreciative, and Conversational
• Voice—Pitch, Accent, Pause, and Intonation

Spelling

• Contractions
• Homonyms
• Words with “ei,” “ie,” “y,” and “ou”
• Confused and Mispronounced Words
• Hyphenated Words
• Roots and Affixes
• Word Endings

Vocabulary Building

• Etymology
• Word Relationships—Synonyms, Antonyms, and Homonyms
• Word Structure—Roots and Affixes
• Word Study—Feeling Words and Signal Words

Special Topics

• English Variations—Dialects
• Reference Materials—Encyclopedia and Internet
• Research Skills
• Study Skills—Note-Taking and Summarizing

Literature List

The literary works students will encounter in Language Arts 700 include, but are not limited to:

Nonfiction

• Bueno Productions. William Tyndale: A Bible for the People
• Dye, Harold. “The Apple Tree Switch”
• Keller, Helen. The Story of My Life (excerpt)
• ten Boom, Corrie. The Hiding Place

Required Resource

One assignment in this course requires the use of a resource that must be acquired separately. This outside resource is listed below.

Suggested Resources

In addition to the default course program, Language Arts 700 includes extra alternate projects and tests for use in enhancing instruction or addressing individual needs. These resources are not included in this course and must be acquired separately.