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 research the life of an African American poet using print and online resources. Afterwards, students present their findings by writing a research paper and creating a PowerPoint presentation.

This video clip is meant to serve as a writing or discussion prompt during a unit on forces and motion. This can be used at varied grade levels, with the expectation that student responses would be more complex in higher grade levels.

In this chemistry field lab, students will determine the density, pH and water content of 4 types of soil; 1) prairie soil, 2) transition soil, (where the prairie meets the trees) 3) woods soil, and 4) riverbed soil at various locations in and around the Fergus Falls area. Students will compare class data and write a lab report describing their results. A detailed lab report format will be provided. Students will also analyze their findings and report on the various differences and similarities found in their soil samples.

In this introductory lesson, students engage in a hands-on, collaborative investigation of the definition of reading by participating in small group brainstorming sessions and an analysis of a variety of texts and the strategies they need to read them. Students also create individual Reader’s Profiles with an online tool modeled on social networking sites. Sharing these profiles and reflecting on their own learning, students ultimately develop a working definition of reading which they refine during the year.

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

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.

This lesson asks students to write a profile of a classmate, with a particular focus on a talent, interest, or passion of that classmate. As an introduction to the feature article, students compare the characteristics of a hard news story to those of a feature story. They then practice writing about the same event in the two different styles.

This lesson will provide eighth grade students with an inquiry-based research project based on C.S. Lewis' classic, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Students will determine the author's purpose in writing this story. This will be accomplished by researching material using the Alabama Virtual Library and Gale Resources.

Students will read scientific text about top predators in Arctic marine ecosystems and how they may be affected by global climate change. Students will work individually or collaboratively to write a report based on the scientific text they have read and participate in a large-group discussion session based on their analysis.

In this lab activity, students will investigate the law of conservation of mass by weighing chewing gum before and after it is chewed.

In this lesson, students pull together all of their graphic organizers and planning notes and draft their essay.

Students will learn to order their thoughts into sequential writing. The students will map a trail around the school and then follow some of Jefferson's instructions for wrtiing detialed reports. Each student then writes a description of an animal after reading Meriwether Lewis's report of the black woodpecker, another "new" creature.

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 will dissect a Times column about the leadership styles of former Vice President (and Nobel Laureate) Al Gore and President George W. Bush and then write their own opinion editorial on presidential leadership.

In this lesson, students learn about proverbs: how they work, how they differ from cliches, how to interpret them, and how they can be culturally and personally significant. Students begin by talking about proverbs, interview family and friends to find proverbs that were not discussed in class, and figuring out the meaning of proverbs by creating a new definition of proverbs based on what they've learned.

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. 

Students will use scaffolding to research and organize information for writing a research paper. A research paper scaffold provides students with clear support for writing expository papers that include a question (problem), literature review, analysis, methodology for original research, results, conclusion, and references. Students examine informational text, use an inquiry-based approach, and practice genre-specific strategies for expository writing.