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 unit, students will be reading and writing myths following the structure of short stories and eventually publishing their own work.

Students use Shakespeare's Secret, a featured title on the Teachers' Choices Booklist (International Reading Association, 2006), as a springboard to exploration of the controversy regarding the authorship Shakespeare's works. The novel makes liberal use of the historical details surrounding William Shakespeare's life, and exposes students to the possibility raised by some theorists that Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, was the true author of the works that have long been attributed to the Bard. Students explore the historical references in the novel and generate questions for further research. As they research these questions on suggested websites, they organize their findings with the help of the ReadWriteThink Notetaker. Then they work in small groups to create and present short dramatic skits that creatively connect the novel with the historical facts.

Students will create an alternate ending to The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. This assignment will have three separate parts. 

In this lesson, students will select a piece of their own writing that contains dialogue then go through the piece highlighting the speech of each character in a different color. Then they will go through the piece again looking for and correcting "character clashes" that occur when two speakers are highlighted in the same paragraph.

Students will become engaged learners through this unit that prepares students for studying ancient Greece with digital storytelling skills. First students develop a list of questions to research Greek gods, heroes, and creatures. Then with a partner, they choose the topic of their research and divide the questions between themselves. After conducting research, the partners write scripts for their digital story using the online tool PowToon.

The North Carolina Museum of Natural Science created this resource as part of an online workshop series, but you are welcome to use or modify it for your classroom. It includes a video and written directions for creating nature journals and tips for incorporating them into your classroom. For information on taking any the Nature Neighborhood online workshops for CEUs or EE credit, visit: https://naturalsciences.org/learn/educators/online-workshops.

Students work together in small groups to read, discuss, and analyze fairy tales. After compiling a list of common elements, students collaborate on their own original fairy tales—based on events from their own lives or the lives of someone they know. Each student decides what kind of experience to write about, composes and revises a fairy tale, and then presents their story to the rest of the class.

This lesson opens with the students reacting to teacher feedback. Depending on how much work the students accomplish during class time, they may hand in their final children’s books at the end of the class. Alternatively, you can give them additional time at home to finish.

In this lesson, students begin writing the first drafts of their children’s books. Before they begin writing, you teach the first of three mini lessons on the narrative writer’s tools. Today students learn about show-not-tell and sensory details.

Lessons 6–8 are writing workshops, and the students are expected to work quietly and independently. Before students begin writing today, you teach the second of three mini lessons on the narrative writer’s tools. Today they learn about strong verbs, sensory details, and precise details.

This lesson is the second day of the writer’s workshop. It includes a mini lesson on writing dialogue. Be sure to stress the importance of keeping dialogue short and focused only on pivotal moments.

This is the final writer’s workshop for students. Because the pace at which students write varies so greatly, you may consider doing the mini lesson on illustrations before the writing time. This way, students who are ready to move on to planning their illustrations may do so. Alternatively, if most of your class needs more time to complete the second draft, consider adding another work day.

In this lesson, students write book reviews for their independent reading books. Students also work on their children’s book illustrations. Finally, as their End of Unit 3 Assessment, students turn in a packet of work that includes their second draft of their Storyboard, plus related materials: their first draft, the rubric, a self-assessment, and their I Heart Revisions worksheet.

In this poetry session, students learn that shapes don’t have to be silent, and poetry doesn’t have to be linear, as they write shapes in verse, and verse in shapes. This lesson bridges the gap between poetry and math!

In this lesson, students will continue to work on their narratives, focusing on writing dialogue.

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.

After organizing their thoughts using a graphic organizer, students write a narrative essay which relates an autobiographical incident. Students present their essays in a slideshow which allows their classmates to practice predicting an outcome as they guess the ending of the narrative. Some of the essays will be included in a class newsletter created by the students.

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.