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The Grammar portion of this course will cover the eight parts of speech; more complex sentences, clauses, and paragraphs; prepositional phrases; subject /verb agreement; verb tenses; nouns and gerunds; pronouns and their cases; active vs. passive voice; adjectives and adjective clauses; and dictionary usage with denotation and connotation of words.  Sentence diagramming will be included as it gives a visual/spatial “map” to many hands-on learners. Grammar exercises are taught in class out of the Rod and Staff English 6 book. This level gives a deeper understanding of grammatical structure and will adequately prepare students to transition to the auto-didactic grammar work of English II.

The Writing portion will focus on developing the persuasive essay. We start simply and add new elements for each paper, building until the final essay (3 essays per semester). The writing exercises will consist of generating ideas to support a thesis, organizing these ideas by developing an outline, and translating an outline into a solid written argument. We read four short stories and two novels over the course of the year and base our essays on the reading. These include four short stories and two novels. Peppered throughout will be literary responses to a variety of stories and excerpts from great writers. I pull a lot from the public domain for two reasons: cost efficiency and the elevated language of older writing. 

The course will also cover:

• Capitalization and Punctuation rules
• Emphasis on self-correction in spelling
• Curiosity about, exposure to, and acquisition of unfamiliar vocabulary
• Poetry appreciation with introduction to different structure types and authors but emphasis on use of language
• Literature discussion and analysis (mostly as we prepare for the writing process)
• Daily exercises to provide ample practice in applying what has been learned.