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Focus Statement: Students will write expository and persuasive five-sentence, five-paragraph essays in relation to short stories, works of nonfiction, drama, poetry, and folk tales, with a grammatical focus on pronoun and verb usage, as well as an understanding of the complements, appositive/prepositional phrases, and basic comma usage.


 * Month || High Achievement Outcome || “I Can” statement || Assessments || Resources ||
 * || LA8.1 Students will examine a variety of short stories in order to evaluate their literary style, form, and meaning, with a grammatical emphasis on the use of appositive and prepositional phrases || Examine short stories for the significance of their historical setting || 8.1.1 ||  ||
 * ^  ||^   || Assess the importance of a story’s point of view by considering how it would be different if told from another point of view || 8.1.2 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Break down long, possibly confusing sentences by diagramming the basic structures with emphasis on appositive and prepositional phrases || 8.1.3 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Analyze the sequence of events in short stories, particularly being aware of flashbacks and foreshadowing || 8.1.4 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Describe the importance of believability in science fiction || 8.1.5 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Define the significance of third person narratives compared to first person || 8.1.6 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Evaluate the conflicts in a series of short stories for their significance in plot development || 8.1.7 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Identify characters’ motives, particularly through responding to their actions and their body language and contrast direct with indirect characterization || 8.1.8 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Determine the themes in a variety of stories through noticing details || 8.1.9 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Summarize the sections of a story in order to clarify and remember its events || 8.1.10 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Scrutinize short stories for clues leading to their surprise endings || 8.1.11 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || List the various aspects that designate major characters from minor characters in stories of suspense || 8.1.12 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Identify the evidence in a mystery story and its use of deduction || 8.1.13 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Select those words from a story that help a reader infer the tone || 8.1.14 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Chart the significant elements of a story’s setting (Colorado Model Content Standard time, place, weather, attitudes/beliefs) || 8.1.15 ||   ||
 * ^  || || Infer the themes of a number of stories || 8.1.16 ||   ||
 * ^  || || Compose a series of short expository and persuasive five paragraph essays related to short stories and their various styles, forms, meanings, and techniques || 8.1.17 ||   ||
 * ^  || **LA8.2 Students will recognize the various elements involved in non-fiction material, with a grammatical emphasis on the use of complements (Colorado Model Content Standard direct and indirect objects, predicate nominatives and predicate adjectives).** || Read and reread a memoir in order to identify those elements that separate it from other nonfiction works || 8.2.1 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Examine the context clues in a magazine article that help to identify unfamiliar words’ definitions as well as what makes a magazine article different from other nonfiction forms || 8.2.2 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Predict the possible outcomes of man’s conflicts with nature in nonfiction works || 8.2.3 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Outline the facts, examples, and details of an informative essay that demonstrate the author’s attitude (Colorado Model Content Standard tone) || 8.2.4 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Establish a cause/effect timeline that explains a nonfiction’s historical context || 8.2.5 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Explain how a nonfiction work’s resolution was, at a particular point, inevitable || 8.2.6 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Research, compose, and role play a significant historical figure || 8.2.7 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Identify the important ideas in a biographical profile || 8.2.8 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Clarify the meanings of certain details in a travel essay || 8.2.9 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Summarize nonfiction works as you examine them for apt epithets || 8.2.10 ||   ||
 * ^  || || Establish how setting can be just as significant in nonfiction works as it is in fiction || 8.2.11 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Characterize a vignette’s details and insights as separate from other nonfiction works || 8.2.12 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Typify a reflective essay’s personal emphasis by charting its details || 8.2.13 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Demonstrate an understanding of an author’s purpose in a selection from an autobiography || 8.2.14 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Identify an author’s main points in a biography selection || 8.2.15 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Develop a list of purposes for reading an essay (Colorado Model Content Standard narrative, descriptive, expository, persuasive) || 8.2.16 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Analyze the persuasive techniques used in a persuasive essay || 8.2.17 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Diagram a series of sentences taken from significant essays with an emphasis on those containing the complements (Colorado Model Content Standard direct objects, indirect objects, predicate adjectives, predicate nominatives) || 8.2.18 ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Compose a series of short expository and persuasive five paragraph essays related to nonfiction works and their various styles, forms, meanings, and techniques || 8.2.19 ||   ||
 * ^  || **LA8.3 Students will recognize the various elements involved in drama, with a grammatical emphasis on conventional comma usage.** || After reading and discussing a modern drama, create a chart that focuses on the various aspects of dramatic staging (Colorado Model Content Standard scenery, lighting, sound, costumes, and actors’ movements) || FA ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Compose a well-researched analysis of the historical context of a modern drama ||   ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Using an analysis of the elements of characterization, produce an explanation of the major themes in a modern drama ||   ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Summarize a series of scenes and soliloquies from various Shakespearean dramas, emphasizing the action within the scenes and the ideas within the soliloquies ||   ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Using the scenes and soliloquies from Shakespeare, explain why commas are placed within those sentences ||   ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Compose a series of short expository and persuasive five paragraph essays related to drama and its various styles, forms, and techniques ||   ||   ||
 * ^  || **LA8.4 Students will examine a variety of poems in order to evaluate their poetic style, form, and meaning, with a grammatical emphasis on pronoun usage.** || Identify the speaker of a poem and paraphrase the poem for a clearer understanding ||   ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Analyze a poem’s meaning by focusing on its use of sensory language (Colorado Model Content Standard imagery) and repetition (Colorado Model Content Standard refrain) ||   ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Characterize a poem through the purpose of its individual stanzas (Colorado Model Content Standard number of stanzas, number of lines per stanza, rhyming words, etc) ||   ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Examine poems for their presentation of heroic characters and explain the meaning and importance of these characters ||   ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Chart the poetic diction used in a variety of poems, particularly how you respond personally to that diction ||   ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Interpret free verse poetry specifically by focusing on any possible bias in its tone ||   ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Search poetry for possible symbols and their relationship to the themes of the poems ||   ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Compare the relative effects of narrative poetry and fictional narratives ||   ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Identify the elements of lyric poetry and contrast lyrics with narratives ||   ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || List the differing elements of haiku, free verse, and concrete poetry ||   ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Paraphrase sections of poems that are confusing or unclear ||   ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Compose a chart that discusses a poem’s use of sound devices (Colorado Model Content Standard rhyme, repetition, alliteration) and their effects upon the reader ||   ||   ||
 * ^  ||   || Respond to the comparisons being used in poetic figurative language (Colorado Model Content Standard simile, metaphor, personification) ||   ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Using various lines, stanzas, and poems, explain how the nominative and objective pronouns are being used ||   ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Compose a series of short expository and persuasive five paragraph essays related to poetry and its various styles, forms, and techniques ||   ||   ||
 * ^  || **LA8.5 Students will examine a variety of folk tales in order to evaluate their literary style, form, and meaning.** || Produce an examination of the elements of oral tradition as demonstrated in a folk tale ||   ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Create an analysis of a myth based on its cultural context ||   ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Identify the storyteller’s purpose in a folk tale ||   ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || After an examination of the character of a tall tale’s protagonist, predict how he will perform some impossible feat ||   ||   ||
 * ^  ||^   || Using various examples from the folk tales in this unit, explain how the verbs are properly conjugated and how the proper tenses and forms are being used ||   ||   ||

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