Intermediate English A

Intermediate Language Skills A

Intermediate Language Skills A is the first in a sequence of courses for middle school students (grades 6—8). The program helps develop students’ written and oral communication skills, and is designed to give students the essential building blocks for expressing their own ideas in standard English.

Composition

After an opening focus on paragraph writing, students write a variety of compositions in genres they will encounter throughout their academic careers, including: compare-and-contrast, persuasive, how-to, and research essays. In writing each essay, students go through a process of planning, organizing, and revising. They learn to examine their own writing with a critical eye, paying attention to ideas, organization, structure, style, and correctness. Throughout the course, students write in response to prompts similar to those they will encounter on standardized tests.

Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics

Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics offers practice in sentence analysis, sentence structure, and proper punctuation. Students learn to diagram sentences in order to understand how words, phrases, and clauses function in relation to each other. Frequent exercises and regular practice help students absorb the rules so they can confidently apply them in their own writing.

Vocabulary

The Intermediate English A Vocabulary program builds knowledge of Greek and Latin words that form the roots of many English words, especially the polysyllabic terms that sometimes cause students to stumble. Students will define and use words with Greek and Latin roots, and use word origins and derivations to determine the meaning of new words, as they increase their own vocabularies and develop valuable test-taking skills.

Intermediate Literature A

Students will read short stories, poetry, drama, novels, essays, and informative articles. The course sharpens reading comprehension skills, engages readers in literary analysis, and offers a variety of literature to suit diverse tastes.

Through classic stories, plays, and poems, many of which highlight exemplary virtues, students develop reading and literary analysis skills while considering important human issues and challenging ideas. Students come to appreciate the writer’s craft as they consider the feelings, thoughts, and ideas of characters, and make connections between literature and life. Students also learn to read for information in nonfiction texts.


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Standard Curriculum Items

• Myths of Ancient Greece and Rome (an anthology from K¹²)
• The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
• Animal Adventures (nonfiction collection)
• Believing Our Eyes and Ears (nonfiction collection)
• Classics for Young Readers, Vol. 6
• Classics for Young Readers Vol 6: an Audio Companion
• Twelfth Night (Shakespeare for Young Readers adaptation)
• Keyboarding CD
• Word Processing book
• BK English Language Handbook, Grade 6 from Barrett Kendall Publishing

Novels

This program allows students to read any three novels of their choice from a selection of award-winning works by renowned authors, from a variety of genres: fantasy, science fiction, historical fiction, realistic fiction, and mystery. (Novels are not part of the standard materials, but are readily available at the library or for purchase in bookstores or online.)

These novels are listed in order of increasing difficulty as measured by the Lexile scale, a system that measures reading difficulty by sentence length and vocabulary (see www.lexile.com). Lexile ratings roughly correspond to grade levels as indicated below.

Approximate Grade Level Lexile Range
6: 850—1050
7: 950—1075

Lexile levels are only one means of assessing whether a work is appropriate for your student. When selecting a novel, keep in mind that the lexile rating does not measure subject matter or themes in the work.

Title and Author Lexile

• From the Mixed Up Files … by E.L. Konigbsurg - 700
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle - 740
• The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury - 740
• The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton - 750
• The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare - 760
• Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech - 770
• War Comes to Willie Freeman by Christopher and Lincoln Collier - 770
• Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes - 840
• The Cay by Theodore Taylor - 860
• The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkein - 860
• Dragonwings by Laurence Yep - 870
• Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson - 880
• Old Yeller by Fred Gipson - 910
• The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper - 920
• Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor - 920
• Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis - 950
• White Fang by Jack London - 970
• Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell - 1000
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne - 1030
• Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle - 1090
• Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt - 1100
• Catherine Called Birdy by Karen Cushman - 1170
• War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells - 1170
• Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss - 1260
• The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford - 1320

Total lessons: 180

Lesson time: 60 minutes

You might choose to split the lessons into smaller segments and provide breaks for your student as needed. The K¹² online lesson tracking system allows you to pick up wherever you left off in any given lesson.