In 7th Grade English Language Arts, students will explore thematic questions related to identity, class, socialization, environment, and community in order to answer the essential question: How are humans driven by the need to belong? Students will see examples of teenagers who are discovering what makes them unique and how their individual identities contribute to a larger collective as they engage with diverse literary works including poems, plays, graphic novels, short stories and film: Uprising, Flesh and Blood So Cheap, A Raisin in the Sun, The House on Mango Street, American Born Chinese, and relevant short texts. Over the course of the year, students will think deeply about the theme of belonging and the complexity of an individual's identity. Students will analyze social, societal, and historical impacts that influence an individual's identity and experience with belonging. Across the 5 units, students deepen their writing skills through argumentative, informational, and narrative tasks, and continue to build their academic vocabularies, speaking and listening skills, and social-emotional competencies.

Throughout the course, students address all ELA Common Core Standards as they engage with increasingly complex texts, participate in class discussions, and write daily. Each unit helps build students’ knowledge and understanding of the world around them through thematically organized core and supplemental texts, embedded writing instruction and extended writing assignments in response to Essential Questions, and daily opportunities to engage in multiple tiers of academic discourse.