In 7th Grade English Language Arts, students explore the question of what it means to be American through texts that address diverse aspects of the American experience: Uprising, Flesh and Blood So Cheap, A Raisin in the Sun, The House on Mango Street, American Born Chinese, The 57 Bus, and relevant texts: short stories, poems articles, and digital media. Through these texts, students will think deeply about the complex past, present, and future of America, and how to define their ever-changing identity as a nation. Across the 6 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.