7th Grade English Language Arts
Fall Semester | |||
Unit Title | Setting Literacy Foundations | Reading, Writing, and Analyzing Informational Texts | Reading, Writing, and Analyzing Literary Texts |
Time | 5 weeks | 7 weeks | 6 weeks |
Understandings | Students practice daily writing (micro-writing) and establish core reading routines, including building focus and stamina through sustained independent reading.
Students practice deep comprehension by combining text details with prior knowledge to make inferences and find key ideas.
Students learn to connect themes, characters, and ideas both to their own lives and to society.
Students develop their first writing piece, a narrative (a story), focusing on components of the writing process such as planning, revising, and publishing.
Students apply grammar rules for capitalization, correct verb usage (tenses, compound verbs), compound sentences, and semicolons. | Students analyze informational texts, focusing on identifying the controlling idea (main message) and evaluating the supporting evidence (facts, data, examples).
Students learn how authors use different organizational patterns (compare/contrast, sequential order) and graphic features (charts, timelines) to clearly present information.
Students develop research skills: gathering relevant information, assessing source credibility and bias, and synthesizing information from multiple sources.
Students write and publish a research-based, multi-paragraph informational essay.
Students apply conventions for pronouns, colons, serial commas, quotation marks, and apostrophes. | Students analyze literary texts (fiction, drama, poetry) to infer multiple themes and explain how the setting influences the characters and plot.
Students analyze plot structure, examining how characters' internal and external qualities resolve conflicts and how techniques like foreshadowing and suspense drive the action.
Students analyze the author’s craft, focusing on figurative language (metaphor, personification) and point of view (subjective, objective) to understand mood, voice, and tone.
Students write a literary analysis essay where they argue an interpretation of a text using genre characteristics and strong textual evidence.
Students practice constructing complex sentences and correctly using correlative conjunctions. |
TEKS | 7.5E, 7.5F, 7.5G, 7.5H, 7.6B, 7.6F, 7.7A, 7.9F, 7.10A, 7.10Di, 7.10E, 7.11A | 7.5C, 7.5E, 7.5F, 7.5G, 7.5H, 7.6D, 7.6E, 7.8Di, 7.8Dii, 7.8Diii, 7.9B, 7.9C, 7.10A, 7.10Bii, 7.10E, 7.11B, 7.12D, 7.12F, 7.12G, 7.12Hi, 7.12I, 7.12J | 7.5E, 7.5F, 7.5G, 7.5H, 7.6A, 7.6B, 7.6C, 7.6F, 7.6G, 7.7A, 7.7B, 7.7C, 7.7D, 7.8A, 7.9A, 7.9D, 7.9E, 7.9F, 7.10A, 7.10C, 7.10E, 7.11C |
TEKS embedded in all units | 7.1A, 7.1B, 7.1C, 7.1D, 7.2A, 7.2B, 7.2C, 7.3, 7.4 | ||
Spring Semester | ||||
Unit Title | Poetry and Drama Exploration | Reading, Writing, and Analyzing Argumentative Texts | Literacy Practices for STAAR Success | Book Clubs |
Time | 5 weeks | 5 weeks | 4 weeks | 5 weeks |
Understandings | Students analyze poetry and drama, focusing on structural elements like meter, rhyme scheme, and the strategic use of punctuation and capitalization in poetry.
Students analyze how playwrights create characters and advance the plot using dialogue and stage directions.
Students explain how literary devices, including subjective/objective point of view, and the author's language choices shape mood, voice, and tone.
Students write a fully processed Extended Constructed Response (ECR) using paired texts to compare and analyze literary themes and techniques.
Students apply grammar rules focusing on phrases (appositives) and clauses and correcting commonly confused words. | Students analyze argumentative texts to identify the author’s main position (claim), the supporting evidence used (facts, anecdotes), and the intended audience.
Students learn to evaluate an argument’s strength and credibility by identifying persuasive techniques (rhetorical devices) and recognizing faulty reasoning (logical fallacies).
Students practice formal research skills, including evaluating sources for bias, combining information (synthesizing), and properly citing sources to avoid plagiarism.
Students write and publish a fully processed argumentative essay where they establish a claim and support it with research.
Students strengthen their writing style by incorporating relative pronoun clauses, conjunctive adverbs, dashes, and ellipses. | Students conduct a comprehensive review of all reading and writing skills from the year, using multiple genres (fiction, informational, literary nonfiction).
Students reinforce deep comprehension strategies like drawing supported conclusions (inferences), finding key ideas, evaluating details, and combining information (synthesizing) from various sources.
Students practice planning, revising, and editing high stakes assessments such as Short Constructed Responses (SCR) and Extended Constructed Responses (ECR) to effectively convey and organize ideas.
Students review grammar and mechanics based on individual data, focusing on areas like sentence structure and punctuation. | Students apply analytical skills learned throughout the year and engage in collaborative reading by selecting novels and discussing them in small group Book Clubs.
Students actively engage with texts by generating questions and creating mental images to analyze how characters’ qualities influence the story’s events and conflict resolution.
Students use the correct tone and format for an audience to compose formal or friendly correspondence (letter, email) that expresses an opinion, complaint, or request related to their reading.
Students practice using parentheses in their writing to enhance clarity and style. |
TEKS | 7.5E, 7.5F, 7.5G, 7.5H, 7.6B, 7.6C, 7.6F, 7.7A, 7.8B, 7.8C, 7.9E, 7.9F, 7.10A, 7.10Bii, 7.10C, 7.10E | 7.5I, 7.6G, 7.6I, 7.8Ei, 7.8Eii, 7.8Eiii, 7.8F, 7.9A, 7.9G, 7.10A, 7.10Bi, 7.10Bii, 7.10C, 7.10E, 7.11C, 7.12A, 7.12B, 7.12C, 7.12D, 7.12E, 7.12F, 7.12G, 7.12Hi, 7.12Hii, 7.12I | 7.5E, 7.5F, 7.5G, 7.5H | 7.5A, 7.5B, 7.5D, 7.5F, 7.5H, 7.6C, 7.6F, 7.6H, 7.7A, 7.7B, 7.9F, 7.10A, 7.10Bi, 7.10Bii, 7.10C, 7.10Di, 7.10E, 7.11D
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TEKS embedded in all units | 7.1A, 7.1B, 7.1C, 7.1D, 7.2A, 7.2B, 7.2C, 7.3, 7.4 | |||