Ms. Willow Sharkey - Middle School - Language Arts
Hi there! I’m Ms. Sharkey, 8th grade English Language Arts teacher and Middle School Lead.
A little about me: I bring to my teaching practice at Merryhill Midtown a lifelong love of art and literature. I hold an undergraduate degree in Humanities and a MA in Art History with an emphasis in Modern/Contemporary Art from CSU Chico. I completed my teaching credential at Mills College in Oakland. I deeply love reading and teaching “young adult” literature and I am excited to see our students fall in love with the novels, essays, and short stories we will read together this year. We will do a great deal of reading, writing, and literacy skill-building in our English Language Arts course, and students should be prepared to challenge and enjoy themselves!
Course Overview:
The eighth grade English Language Arts course provides a balance of developing reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. A core focus in these years is one of developing the use of language for academic purposes. Students will be supported in this development through challenges to plan, draft, revise, edit, and publish varied and specific types of writing. These writing types include argumentative essays, informative/explanatory texts, narratives, and multi-media presentations. Students are required to draw upon and write about evidence from literary and informational texts.
In addition to developing writing skills, this course strongly emphasizes the importance of developing and using academic language in the context of discussion. Each unit will include a portion devoted to activities where students will be expected to develop and show the ability to engage professionally and appropriately in academic discussions focused on literary and nonfiction text analysis.
The reading aspect of this course teaches essential comprehension skills and literary analysis strategies. Students read closely and cite evidence from grade-level fiction and nonfiction to support an analysis of what the materials say. Students apply skills they learned in earlier grades to make sense of longer, more challenging books and articles.
It is the aim of this course to ensure that students develop a range of broadly useful oral communication and interpersonal skills. They must learn to work together, express and listen carefully to ideas, integrate information from oral, visual, literary, and media sources, evaluate what they hear, and synthesize it through their own literacy practices in order to communicate understanding and growth.
Updated Friday 12-20-2024 05:23pm
Classroom Notes
The Fight for Freedom:
The Unit: In 8th grade Language Arts, we have been studying various texts through the lens of the essential question: “What will people risk to be free?” Our unit is two-pronged in focus and timeline. The first half of our unit examines texts largely set during or written during the Civil War and Reconstruction periods. In the second half of our unit, we closely read texts and research figures integral to the civil rights movement in the United States. Throughout the unit, we look at various genres of text – from autobiography, to poetry, to political speeches.
Creating Context:
To open the unit, we read excerpts from Frederick Douglass’s seminal autobiography: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. First, we undertook a guided close reading of the text, pausing for discussion and written responses. To follow our reading, students either wrote brief literary analysis pieces, or created graphic novel adaptations of a scene from our reading selection, to convey an impactful moment from his story and its greater meaning.
Literary Analysis:
Next, we conducted a close reading of American writer Ray Bradbury’s classic short story “The Drummer Boy of Shiloh.” We analyzed Bradbury’s use of symbolism and discussed the particular word choices that help to convey a dichotomous mood of fear and courage.
Research Strategies:
To help build our knowledge of the period of the civil rights movement, and to learn specifically about the historical circumstances, important figures of the movement, protest strategies, and different branches of thought in activist circles, students were each assigned a research topic and were tasked to present their findings in a short documentary film. Topics include: Brown vs. Board of Education and Loving vs. Virginia, Ida B. Wells, the Greensboro sit-ins, the 1968 Black Power salute at the Olympics, the Black Power Movement, Fannie Lou Hamer, and the Montgomery bus boycotts.
Next Steps:
To wrap up the unit, we will be analyzing the impact of writings from the movement such as Dr. King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” and Malcolm X’s “The Ballot or the Bullet.” We will be producing our own writing, drawing upon what we’ve learned to express what we feel is worth sacrificing for the values of freedom and justice.
Ms. Willow Sharkey - Middle School - Language Arts
Hi there! I’m Ms. Sharkey, 8th grade English Language Arts teacher and Middle School Lead.
A little about me: I bring to my teaching practice at Merryhill Midtown a lifelong love of art and literature. I hold an undergraduate degree in Humanities and a MA in Art History with an emphasis in Modern/Contemporary Art from CSU Chico. I completed my teaching credential at Mills College in Oakland. I deeply love reading and teaching “young adult” literature and I am excited to see our students fall in love with the novels, essays, and short stories we will read together this year. We will do a great deal of reading, writing, and literacy skill-building in our English Language Arts course, and students should be prepared to challenge and enjoy themselves!
Course Overview:
The eighth grade English Language Arts course provides a balance of developing reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. A core focus in these years is one of developing the use of language for academic purposes. Students will be supported in this development through challenges to plan, draft, revise, edit, and publish varied and specific types of writing. These writing types include argumentative essays, informative/explanatory texts, narratives, and multi-media presentations. Students are required to draw upon and write about evidence from literary and informational texts.
In addition to developing writing skills, this course strongly emphasizes the importance of developing and using academic language in the context of discussion. Each unit will include a portion devoted to activities where students will be expected to develop and show the ability to engage professionally and appropriately in academic discussions focused on literary and nonfiction text analysis.
The reading aspect of this course teaches essential comprehension skills and literary analysis strategies. Students read closely and cite evidence from grade-level fiction and nonfiction to support an analysis of what the materials say. Students apply skills they learned in earlier grades to make sense of longer, more challenging books and articles.
It is the aim of this course to ensure that students develop a range of broadly useful oral communication and interpersonal skills. They must learn to work together, express and listen carefully to ideas, integrate information from oral, visual, literary, and media sources, evaluate what they hear, and synthesize it through their own literacy practices in order to communicate understanding and growth.
Updated Friday 12-20-2024 05:23pm
Classroom Notes
The Fight for Freedom:
The Unit: In 8th grade Language Arts, we have been studying various texts through the lens of the essential question: “What will people risk to be free?” Our unit is two-pronged in focus and timeline. The first half of our unit examines texts largely set during or written during the Civil War and Reconstruction periods. In the second half of our unit, we closely read texts and research figures integral to the civil rights movement in the United States. Throughout the unit, we look at various genres of text – from autobiography, to poetry, to political speeches.
Creating Context:
To open the unit, we read excerpts from Frederick Douglass’s seminal autobiography: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. First, we undertook a guided close reading of the text, pausing for discussion and written responses. To follow our reading, students either wrote brief literary analysis pieces, or created graphic novel adaptations of a scene from our reading selection, to convey an impactful moment from his story and its greater meaning.
Literary Analysis:
Next, we conducted a close reading of American writer Ray Bradbury’s classic short story “The Drummer Boy of Shiloh.” We analyzed Bradbury’s use of symbolism and discussed the particular word choices that help to convey a dichotomous mood of fear and courage.
Research Strategies:
To help build our knowledge of the period of the civil rights movement, and to learn specifically about the historical circumstances, important figures of the movement, protest strategies, and different branches of thought in activist circles, students were each assigned a research topic and were tasked to present their findings in a short documentary film. Topics include: Brown vs. Board of Education and Loving vs. Virginia, Ida B. Wells, the Greensboro sit-ins, the 1968 Black Power salute at the Olympics, the Black Power Movement, Fannie Lou Hamer, and the Montgomery bus boycotts.
Next Steps:
To wrap up the unit, we will be analyzing the impact of writings from the movement such as Dr. King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” and Malcolm X’s “The Ballot or the Bullet.” We will be producing our own writing, drawing upon what we’ve learned to express what we feel is worth sacrificing for the values of freedom and justice.