Language Arts

Grade 8: Reading	Planning: Term # Tracking: Ach. Level
Overall Expectations	1	2	3	4
1. read and demonstrate an understanding of a variety of literary, graphic, and informational texts, using a range of strategies to construct meaning;
2. recognize a variety of text forms, text features, and stylistic elements and demonstrate understanding of how they help communicate meaning;
3. use knowledge of words and cueing systems to read fluently;
4. reflect on and identify their strengths as readers, areas for improvement, and the strategies they found most helpful before, during, and after reading.
Specific Expectations
1. Reading for Meaning
Variety of Texts: 1.1 read a wide variety of increasingly complex or difficult texts from diverse cultures, including literary texts (e.g., short stories, novels, poetry, essays, science fiction, memoirs, scripts, satire), graphic texts (e.g., graphs and graphic organizers, charts and tables, surveys, maps, spreadsheets), and informational texts (e.g., essays, Canadian and global print and online sources, electronic texts, textbooks, dictionaries, thesauri, websites, transcripts)
Purpose: 1.2 identify a variety of purposes for reading and choose increasingly complex or difficult reading materials appropriate for those purposes (e.g., several online or print articles by the same author to identify consistency or change in the author 's point of view; websites for information on a topic from different sources; stories from different cultures, including Aboriginal cultures, to compare treatments of similar themes)
Comprehension Strategies: 1.3 identify a variety of reading comprehension strategies and use them appropriately before, during, and after reading to understand increasingly complex or difficult texts (e.g., activate prior knowledge on a topic through dialogue or by developing mind maps; use visualization and comparisons with images in other texts or media to clarify impressions of characters, scenes, or concepts; ask questions to monitor and clarify understand ing; identify important ideas; synthesize ideas to broaden understanding)
Demonstrating Understanding: 1.4 demonstrate understanding of increasingly complex and difficult texts by summarizing important ideas and explaining how the details support the main idea (e.g., theme or argument and supporting evidence in reviews, essays, plays, poems; key information and related data in public documents, online and print reference articles, manuals, surveys, graphs, tables and charts, websites, transcripts)
Making Inferences/Interpreting Texts: 1.5 develop and explain interpretations of increasingly complex or difficult texts using stated and implied ideas from the texts to support their interpretations Teacher prompt: "How do the stated and unstated messages in the dialogue between these characters complicate the plot of this story? What details in the dialogue support your interpretation?”
Extending Understanding: 1.6 extend understanding of texts, including increasingly complex or difficult texts, by connecting the ideas in them to their own knowledge, experience, and insights, to other texts, and to the world around them. Teacher prompts: "Do you have knowledge or experiences that affect the way you interpret the author's message?" "How does the author's approach differ from the approach in other articles you have read on this topic?"
Analysing Texts: 1.7 analyse a variety of texts, including complex or difficult texts, and explain how the various elements in them contribute to meaning and influence the reader's reaction (e.g., narrative: rising action holds attention and creates suspense; report on an investigation: the opening paragraph tells the reader about the purpose, goals, and audience for the report). Teacher prompts: "Why does the author spend so much time describing the preparation for the race?" "How does the information in the opening paragraph help you understand the rest of the report?"
Responding to and Evaluating Texts: 1.8 evaluate the effectiveness of a text based on evidence taken from that text. Teacher prompts: "Were the instructions for doing the experiment clear and easy to follow? Why or why not?" "Were the author's arguments well supported by credible evidence? Did the arguments make sense? Why, or why not?" "Identify three uses of imagery in the poem and explain how they help the poet communicate the theme effectively."
Point of View: 1.9 identify the point of view presented in texts, including increasingly complex or difficult texts; give evidence of any biases they may contain; and suggest other possible perspectives (e.g., determine whether an environmental argument should include an economic perspective or an economic argument should include an environmental perspective). Teacher prompt: "How will the addition of another perspective affect the impact or appeal of the text?"
2. Understanding Form and Style
Text Forms: 2.1 analyse a variety of text forms and explain how their particular characteristics help communicate meaning, with a focus on literary texts such as a memoir (e.g., the author's personality and/or special experience of the subject are an important part of the narrative, even if the author is not the subject of the narrative), graphic texts such as a map (e.g., the different colours for land and water help readers understand what geographical features they are looking at), and informational texts such as a magazine article (e.g., sidebars allow minor themes to be developed in detail without interrupting the main narrative)
Text Patterns: 2.2 analyse increasingly complex texts to identify different types of organizational patterns used in them and explain how the patterns help communicate meaning (e.g., a "before-and-after"comparison in an advertisement; time order and cause and effect in an online magazine or newspaper article)
Text Features: 2.3 identify a variety of text features and explain how they help communicate meaning (e.g., tree diagrams, tables, endnotes, and "Works Cited"or "References" lists help readers locate information and understand its context). Teacher prompt: "What do the types of sources in the 'References' list tell you about the author's research?"
Elements of Style: 2.4 identify a range of elements of style - including symbolism, irony, analogy, metaphor, and other rhetorical devices - and explain how they help communicate meaning and enhance the effectiveness of texts (e.g., the use of dramatic irony, in which the audience understands the implications of words or actions better than the characters do themselves, can create humour or a sense of foreboding)
3. Reading with Fluency
Reading Familiar Words: 3.1 automatically read and understand most words in a wide range of reading contexts (e.g., words from grade-level texts; terminology used in discussions and posted in the classroom; words from shared-, guided-, and independent- reading texts, electronic texts, and resource material used in the curriculum subject areas)
Reading Unfamiliar Words: 3.2 predict the meaning of and rapidly solve unfamiliar words using different types of cues, including: • semantic (meaning) cues (e.g., base words, prefixes, suffixes, phrases, sentences, and visuals that activate existing knowledge of oral and written language); • syntactic (language structure) cues (e.g., word order and the relationship between words, language patterns, punctuation); • graphophonic (phonological and graphic) cues (e.g., familiar words within larger words, syllables within larger words, similarities between words with known spelling patterns and unknown words) Teacher prompt: "Read to the end of the paragraph and see if the context will help you solve the word. Is the word essential to your understanding? If so, reread and see if you can solve the word by..."
Reading Fluently: 3.3 read appropriate texts with expression and confidence, adjusting reading strategies and reading rate to match the form and purpose (e.g., orally read to entertain a younger class, using suitable emphasis, intonation, and phrasing)
4. Reflecting on Reading Skills and Strategies
Metacognition: 4.1 identify the strategies they found most helpful before, during, and after reading and explain, in conversation with the teacher and/or peers or in a reader's notebook/reflective journal, how they can use these and other strategies to improve as readers. Teacher prompts: "What strategies do you use most consistently to help you understand a new text?" "What types of questions do you ask yourself to help you monitor your reading?" "What 'fix-up' strategies do you use when you don't understand?" "What strategies do you use confidently and effectively?"
Interconnected Skills: 4.2 explain, in conversation with the teacher and/or peers or in a reader's notebook/reflective journal, how their skills in listening, speaking, writing, viewing, and representing help them make sense of what they read. Teacher prompts: "Did watching the television program about space exploration help you when you were reading the newspaper reports of the space probe?" "How does creating online texts help you read electronic texts?" "What lessons have you learned as a writer/listener that will make you a better reader?"

Expectations: Copyright The Queen's Printer for Ontario, 2006.  Format: Copyright B.Phillips, 1998.