This resource accompanies our Rethink 8th Grade ELA course. It includes ideas for use, ways to support exceptional children, ways to extend learning, digital resources and tools, tips for supporting English Language Learners and students with visual and hearing impairments. There are also ideas for offline learning. 

This parent guide supports parents in helping their child at home with the 8th grade ELA content.

Students will complete a close reading of Ted Kooser’s poem, Abandoned Farmhouse.  Students will use their knowledge about the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl to determine the setting and characters in the poem. After analyzing the author’s style, use of figurative language, and structure of the poem, students will write an ORIGINAL POEM in the spirit of Abandoned Farmhouse by using the same syntax.  Using the original poem and a template as a guide, students will compose a poem that reveals who they are through the voice of important objects in their homes.

Students will be taught the "drill skill and kill" method to be used on grammar concepts within an argumentative paper.

As a way to support teachers with English Language Arts (ELA) instruction during the pandemic, the NCDPI ELA team created choice boards featuring standards-aligned ELA activities.The intended purpose of these choice boards is to provide a way for students to continue standards-based learning while schools are closed. Each activity can be adapted and modified to be completed with or without the use of digital tools. Many activities can also be repeated with different texts. These standards-based activities are meant to be a low-stress approach to reinforcing and enriching the skills learned during the 2019-2020 school year. The choice boards are to be used flexibly by teachers, parents, and students in order to meet the unique needs of each learner.Exploration activities are provided for a more self-directed or guided approach to independent learning for students. These activities and sites should be used as a way to explore concepts, topics, skills, and social and emotional competencies that interest the learner. 

Johnny, the narrator, and McDunn, the lighthouse keeper (Johnny's boss), are working in a lighthouse on a November evening. McDunn shares his experience of witnessing strange sea mysteries, including the sighting of a monster that appears at this time each year. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

In this lesson, students use a newspaper employment advertisement and work together to rewrite the ad using complete sentences. Student then rewrite the advertisement.

In “Invocation” from John Brown’s Body, Stephen Vincent Benet calls on the muse of America to inspire him. He invokes the varied American landscape and the many kinds of people who have contributed to American culture and life. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

In this short story, a boy named Billy Weaver needs to find lodging in Bath, England. He goes to a boardinghouse. The landlady is an odd woman who compels Billy Weaver to stay with her at the boardinghouse. As the story progresses, clues are given as to the whereabouts of previous guests on the fourth floor.

In this lesson, students will use the individual experience of Mary McLeod Bethune to analyze choice, its affects on social equality, and impact on their own life experiences.

In this lesson students examine how imagery is used to represent ideas, themes, periods of history, and make cultural connections to poem, "Still I Rise." Students will reflect through written expression how resiliency is in their lives, school, and community.

In this lesson, students use adjectives to write descriptions of food items to create a restaurant menu.

What should a good narrative contain? For this lesson, a mystery, a type of narrative realistic fiction, will be composed. Since strong adjectives and adverbs will support a mystery, they will be incorporated into the writing.

In this lesson, students revise a document replacing the overused verb "said" with more elevated word choices.

This resource includes two nonfiction texts, a link to a video, and 17 text-dependent questions (including one optional constructed-response prompt for students). Also includes explanatory information for teachers regarding alignment to the CCSS.

This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 6th Grade Math.

This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 8th Grade ELA. 

The speaker reflects on the risks and responsibilities of making choices and deciding which road to take. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this poem through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

A lesson on the differing types of sentence structures including simple, compound, complex, dependent and independent clauses.