In this English Language Arts (ELA) class, students will socialize while learning about an ELA topic. The schedule is described below. Each week will cover a different topic in a mini-lesson. The class operates on a loop. After 21 weeks, your learner will have learned and practiced material covered in a full semester of middle school English Language Arts. The exception to this is summer, in which we will cover two topics a week over 11 weeks (June 9- August 17). Certificates of completion are available upon request. 

Please note, this course really fits a year of standards into a semester, hence the name. We are able to do this because we do not dive deep into material. Research shows that learners learn best through hands on activities and application of skills (our game), so it best that lecture time is kept brief. I do offer feedback and additional practice that learners can do at home with their grownups, if requested and/or needed. 

Daily English Language Arts Skills Practiced in this class include but are not limited to:
-Oral expression and comprehension
- The interconnected nature of listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking
- Developing and sustaining foundational language skills
-Inquiry
-Critical thinking and analysis
-Literacy
-Building connections to themselves and their prior knowledge
-Creating relationships among ideas

Class will begin with a ten to fifteen minute mini-lesson on the weekly topic. This mini-lesson will be lecture style, with some discussion. Some mini-lessons may take longer. Students are expected to participate and answer questions vocally and via the chat box, but do not have to. The concept of Among Us will be introduced, along with instructions and expectations, then the game will begin! Don't be sus!!

During the game, students will answer questions at their own pace, on their own screen. As they answer questions correctly, they will gain points. They can then spend these points on information that will help them find out who the imposters are. They can share this information or keep it to themselves. Imposters can use their points to fool other players into thinking someone else is the imposter. Learners also can hold conversations during this time, but if there's a lot of talking and not a lot of investigating, then I will designate five minutes of quiet time for answering questions.  

As the game progresses, I will keep track of the information provided by players. I will also call breaks where students will get the chance to discuss who they think is suspicious and why then vote for the imposter(s).  This will also serve as a chance for imposters to fool crewmates. 
 
After the game, we will have a chance to talk about how we won or lost, how the imposters fooled people, and discuss the most missed questions. I will post resources and handouts over the most missed questions so learners can study them on their own, outside of class.

Progress reports will be provided (upon request) approximately every 4-6 weeks with personalized feedback including areas your learner is accelerating in, as well as areas needing improvement, and recommended practice outside of the classroom.  If I do see that your learner needs assistance with a certain skill, I will reach out to you, regardless of if you have requested progress reports or not. 

***We do not play Among Us, we play a Gimkit game in the style of Among Us where learners need to answer questions to gain points then use those points to find out and vote off the imposters before the ship is sabotaged. Students will need to either split their screen to view the game or will need another device to play on, such as a phone or tablet. 

***We will play another game if there are less than 2 learners. The required Gimkit game minimum is 3 players, including myself. 


Condensed Summer Semester 2024
Week of June 9: Grammar (fix the mistakes) 
Week of June 16: Inferring & Story Elements
Week of June 23: Compare and contrast & Perspective
Week of June 30: Poetic Devices & Theme and author's purpose
Week of July 7: Reading Comprehension Strategies & Making predictions
Week of July 14: Paraphrasing and summarizing & Characterization
Week of July 21: Revising & Editing
Week of July 28: How to plan and write an essay & How to Research for an essay
Week of August 4: Nonfiction Text Elements & Using evidence and identifying biases
Week of August 11: Text Structure and Genre Characteristics



Spring Semester 2024
Week of August 18: Grammar (sentence types and combining sentences)
Week of August 25: Grammar (fix the mistakes)  
Week of September 1: Inferring  
Week of September 8: Poetic Devices
Week of September 15: Story Elements
Week of September 22: Compare & Contrast 
Week of September 29: Reading Comprehension Strategies
Week of October 6: Perspective
Week of October 13: Paraphrasing and summarizing
Week of October 21: Theme and author's purpose
Week of October 27: Revising
Week of November 3: Editing
Week of November 10: Characterization
Week of November 17: How to plan and write an essay
Week of November 24: Analyzing print and graphic features
Week of December 1: How to Research for an essay
Week of December 8: Using evidence and identifying biases
Week of December 15: Genre characteristics
Week of December 22: Making predictions 
Week of December 29: Text Structure