Middle School Humanities Syllabus 2023-2024

Village Gate Children’s Academy

Ms. Stenger

Course Descriptions
Language Studies—Grammar, Vocabulary, English and Latin

In Language Studies you will appreciate the phenomenon of language. You will explore
how it developed, how it has evolved and continues to evolve, and how it is organized.
You will learn Latin as a way to learn how to learn a second language and it will prepare
you to learn other languages, especially Romance languages like Spanish and French.
You will also learn more about English by comparing it to Latin. You will build your
English vocabulary through Latin cognates and derivatives and master English grammar.

Literary Studies—Reading, Writing, and Literary Analysis

Literary Studies comes in three forms:

In Reading Workshop we read. You will choose your own books, talk about them, and
occasionally write letters to me about them. You will discover new genres and get to know
the kind of reader you are.

In Writing Workshop we write. You will write a variety of forms including narrative stories,
poems, opinion pieces, how-tos, etc. You will develop your writing skill through sharing
and receiving feedback, editing, revising, and publishing your works.

You will also learn to do Literary Analysis occasionally throughout the year when we
analyze poems or short stories and during one long session when we read a novel
together. You will practice reading closely, annotating, looking for themes and literary
devices and learning how to write a literary analysis essay.

History and Social Studies—research, reading, lectures, writing, speaking

In history and social studies we will explore what it means to be human. We will break the
year into ve units:
• Exploring Identity in the United States
• Pre-1492: Indigenous and European life, culture, and social structure
• Post 1492: Colonialism, the US Revolution, The Constitution
• Testing the Constitution: slavery and the Civil War; Reconstruction and Jim Crow; Civil
Rights movement
• Current Events and how they are tied to history
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 Course Work and Grading
You will have two different kinds of assignments:

Learning and Practice Assignments

• This work is not graded but marked complete or incomplete.
• It will be accepted late up until the end of the semester.
• You will get feedback in the form of comments and rubric scores.
• The purpose of this work is to learn, practice, and prepare for the performance
assessments.
• Examples include vocabulary and other notes, research, annotations, re ections, rough
drafts of essays, practice quizzes and tests, games, group work, and discussions.

Performance Assignments
• This work will assess your mastery of a skill or material you’ve learned and practiced.
• It will be graded.
• You can always revise these assignments as long as all the learning and practice
assignments are completed before the performance assignment.
• Examples include nal drafts of paragraphs or essays, quizzes, tests, projects, speeches
and presentations.

Grading Scale

Letter Grade Rubric Score Percentage What it Means

A 5 90-100 Mastered It

B 4 80-89 Working On It

C 3 70-79 Learning It

D 2 60-69 Having Dif culty With It

F 1 50-59 Not submitted or completed

Other Report Card Assessments

Timeliness and organization

Grace and Courtesy
Contribution to Community

Grading Scale: Excellent/Good/Fair/Poor

NB: The narrative portion of the report card and the fall and spring conferences will cover
all coursework as well as your behavior and social and emotional growth.
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