Language Arts Grade 8

Mrs. Katrina Vainisi teaches Eighth Grade Language Arts.

The eighth grade language arts curriculum concentrates on reading, grammar, spelling, vocabulary, and writing in an eighty-minute block period each day.  We use a novel-based approach.  There is a writing assignment for each novel we read.  We explore expository, persuasive, poetry, research, and creative writing forms, using a different type for each book we read.  We also work on creative writing, along with essay writing and note taking skills.

We use Wordskills to cover the vocabulary for eighth grade, as well as studying the vocabulary in each of the novels.  The vocabulary books double as our spelling books, too.  The Write Source is a handbook we use for everything from grammar to parts of speech to the different forms of writing.  The theme we use for the year in our novels is “social justice and our responsibility”.  Each of the  novels is about some form of social injustice, such as racism, genocide, rich vs. poor, etc.  The students are introduced to these topics and encouraged to take a stand on how they feel about them.

We will start this year with the novel Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred Taylor.   This novel shows how the Jim Crow laws worked in the South in the 1930s through the eyes of a nine year old child.  We will then read To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, and continue with this theme in the 1950s. 

I look forward to a new school year with our new eighth graders, and hope we can get into some lively discussions of the events we will be reading about!  The opportunity of learning about these topics gives them a chance to have a voice about them—and thus, in others in the future.

	Service in Rwanda Mrs. Vainisi and some of her students wear the colors of the Rwandan Flag.  This fundraiser that took place on May 21, 2010 benefits Mrs. Vainisi's trip to Kigali, Rwanda to teach July 2010.  This fundraiser also benefits children in Kigali who attend a Catholic school, to pay for tuition, books, clothing, hygiene products, and other school materials.  Thank you, Ascension School for all of your generous support and your prayers!

For the Class of 2009 8th Grade unit on The Holocaust and genocide, Hungarian Holocaust survivor Agnes Schwartz visited Ascension School on April 3, 2009 and told a compelling story of family lost, a secret hiding place, and emigrating to the United States.  Ms. Schwartz also attended the grand opening of the Illinois Holocaust Museum on April 19 in Skokie, the last museum in the U.S. to be built with the help of Holocaust survivors.  Former President Clinton and author Elie Wiesel spoke on April 19.