This resource accompanies our Rethink 7th 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 7th grade ELA content.

In this lesson, students will evaluate speeches according to volume, stress, pacing, and pronunciation, and examine the importance of these values in delivering an oral presentation.

In this middle school lesson from Teaching Tolerance, students will explore the calendar to determine why different religions celebrate different holidays and establish what factors school and government leaders should consider when deciding whether public schools should be closed for religious holidays. Students will work in groups to create solutions for school calendars that respect all students and beliefs.

In this lesson, students will learn to distinguish between emotional and logical arguments in advertising.

In this activity, students will divide into two teams to conduct a mock trial based on The Ransom of Redchief by O. Henry.

This culminating performance task is to be completed once students have finished reading The Giver by Lois Lowry. All students must complete the white square labeled number 5. Students will then pick one blue square and one yellow sqare to complete. 

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. 

Students move around the room to show their level of agreement or disagreement with a statement on a particular issue. Includes prompts and resources for discussion and debate.

In this lesson, students participate in a Socratic seminar discussing a person's right to refuse to say the Pledge of Allegiance.

In this lesson, students read an argument text which links neuroscience and digital media. This lesson continues the implementation of the Tracing an Argument note-catcher, which students will use twice in order to evaluate both sides of a yes/no debate piece on the question “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”

In this lesson, students will complete a Tracing an Argument note catcher for both a text and a video.

In this lesson, students will read an argument text which links neuroscience and digital media. Students will focus on a yes/no debate on the question, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

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.

This article examines what happens when a sugar planter tries to save his sugar crops by importing a few mongooses. In this CCSS lesson, students will explore this story through text dependent questions, academic vocabulary, and writing assignments.

In this PBS Learning Media resource on Oratory Tips and Tricks, students will find a four minute video, various pdf handouts, and tips for effective public speaking.

In this activity students perform a role play of immigrant mothers and daughters arguing over who should get to keep the daughter's wages. This activity is used to teach with the film Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl, but can be completed without the film.

In this lesson plan from PBS Learning Media, students will learn to summarize historical speeches in the author’s own words, as well as paraphrase the speech using their own words.

This course was created by the Rethink Education Content Development Team. This course is aligned to the NC Standards for 7th Grade English Language Arts.