English Language Arts 7

Unit 1: Story and Text

Big Idea: texts are built to do a job, told with craft, and used to make a case. Telling text forms, functions, and genres apart; using text features to navigate a text; reading literary elements and devices with a sharper eye; and recognizing how an argument is built and supported.

• Forms of text
• Functions of text
• Genres of text

• Using text features

• Narrative structures
• Characterization
• Setting

• Sensory detail
• Figurative language

• Building and spotting an argument

Unit 2: Strategies and Processes

Big Idea: strong readers, speakers, thinkers, and writers each rely on their own toolkit of strategies. Using reading strategies to build meaning from a text, oral language strategies to speak and listen well in discussion, metacognitive strategies to monitor your own thinking, and the writing process to grow a piece of writing.

• Using contextual clues
• Using phonics and word structure
• Visualizing
• Questioning (reading)
• Predicting
• Previewing text
• Summarizing
• Making inferences

• Focusing on the speaker
• Asking questions to clarify
• Listening for specifics
• Expressing opinions
• Speaking with expression
• Staying on topic
• Taking turns

• Reflecting
• Questioning your own thinking
• Goal setting
• Self-evaluating

• Revising
• Editing
• Considering audience

Unit 3: Language Features, Structure, and Conventions

Big Idea: the smaller building blocks of language — how we say things aloud, how we organize sentences into paragraphs, the different varieties and registers English comes in, the rules of grammar, and how a piece is presented — give both speech and writing their clarity and impact. Using the features that shape spoken language, organizing paragraphs, recognizing language varieties and registers, building fluent sentences, applying the conventions of written English, and choosing presentation techniques.

• Tone
• Volume
• Inflection
• Pace
• Gestures

• Paragraphing

• Regional dialects and varieties of English
• Standard Canadian English versus American English
• Formal versus informal registers
• Situational varieties

• Mixing simple, compound, and complex sentences
• Correct pronoun use
• Subject-verb agreement
• Using transitional words
• Spotting run-on sentences and fragments

• Punctuation
• Capitalization
• Canadian spelling

• Presentation techniques