Teacher needs help with 6th and 8th grade language arts.?

Question

I teach elementary level. BUt I am tutoring a 6th and 8th grader in language arts ONLY. Besides narrative and expository writing prompts, what else is usually in the curriculum? Our school county's website is down and I cannot look up the curriculum map. ANy activities or websites would be greatly appreciated. A middle school did loan me a language arts book, but I want some more "creative" ideas. Even an extended project idea. I have 90 minutes with them, 4 days a week and make $200.00. I need to show some good stuff.

Answer 1

In my junior high courses, we usually picked a book of our own and did a related project (writing a poem or making a  book cover with a plot and author's biography).  I think the best activities are the ones that test critical reading.

If they're studying grammar, you could also make games to test the parts of speech (like mad-libs) or work on sentence diagrams.  I know a lot of high school students who have no idea how to diagram sentences, and they usually have difficulty understanding complex literature because of that.

As for an extended project, you could try assigning a research paper and allow the student to pick the topic.  In addition to the paper, they could also make an oral presentation (with a poster or powerpoint) to show what they learned.

Answer 2

I would google sixth/eighth grade ELA Reading and just start clicking on 'school websites'...  It is amazing at what I have found on other teachers websites... what they are doing, samples of work, projects, pictures, etc.  Borrow from your online collegues :)

Answer 3

If you are working with a literature based curriculum, make sure they understand basic literary terms.

Answer 4

Is there a novel or story you could have them read and do projects on? You could discreetly guide them in project chioice, since one of the two must be a bit more advanced than the  other.  Would the difference in age and grade level also lend itself to some collaborative learning?