English Language Arts

Following the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts, seventh graders develop skills in reading, writing, speaking and listening, and language through experience with print and digital resources.  Students read a wide range of text, varying in levels of sophistication and purpose.  Through print and non‐print text, they increase comprehension strategies, vocabulary, as well as high order thinking skills.  They read a balance of short and long fiction (with a focus on historical fiction), drama, poetry, and informational text such as memoirs, articles, and essays and apply skills such as citing textual evidence, analyzing points of view and presentation, and examining how parts of the text affect the whole.  Experience with a variety of text types and text complexity helps students develop knowledge‐based essential for recognizing and understanding allusions.  Students learn about the writing–‐reading connection by drawing upon and writing about evidence from literary and informational texts.  Writing skills, such as the ability to plan, revise, edit, and publish, develop as students practice skills of specific writing types, such as arguments, informative/explanatory texts, and narratives.  Guided by rubrics, students write for a variety of purposes and audiences, and each student’s writing and product samples are compiled in a portfolio.

Seventh graders also conduct short research projects, drawing on and citing various sources appropriately.  They hone skills of flexible communication and collaboration as they learn to work together, express and listen carefully to ideas, integrate information and use media and visual displays to help communicate ideas.  Students learn language conventions and vocabulary to help them understand and analyze words and phrases, relationships among words, and nuances that affect the text they read, write, and hear.  Students are encouraged to engage in daily independent reading to practice their skills and pursue their interests.

Mathematics

The Common Core State Standards for Mathematics consist of two types of standards–Standards for Mathematical Practice that span K–‐12 and Standards for Mathematical Content specific to each course.  The Standards for Mathematical Practice rest on important “processes and proficiencies” with longstanding importance in mathematics education. They describe the characteristics and habits of mind that all students who are mathematically proficient should be able to exhibit.  The eight Standards for Mathematical Practice are:

1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others. 
4. Model with mathematics. 
5. Use appropriate tools strategically.
6. Attend to precision.
7. Look for and make use of structure.
8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

Common Core Math 7

• Ratios and Proportional Relationships: Analyze proportional relationships and use them to solve real‐world and mathematical problems.
• The Number System: Apply and extend previous understandings of operations with fractions to add, subtract, multiply, and divide rational numbers.
• Expressions and Equations: Use properties of operations to generate equivalent expressions; solve real-life and mathematical problems using numerical and algebraic expressions and equations.
• Geometry: Draw, construct and describe geometrical figures and describe the relationships between them; solve real-life and mathematical problems involving angle measuring, area, surface area, and volume.
• Statistics and Probability: Use random sampling to draw inferences about a population; draw informal comparative inferences about two populations; investigate chance processes and develop, use, and evaluate probability models.

Common Core Math 7 PLUS

Common Core Math 7 PLUS is a compacted course comprised of a portion of standards from Common Core Math 7 and a portion of standards from Common Core Math 8. 

• The Number System: Apply and extend previous understandings of operations with fractions to add, subtract, multiply, and divide rational numbers; know that there are numbers that are not rational, and approximate them by rational numbers.
• Expressions and Equations: Use properties of operations to generate equivalent expressions; solve real-life and mathematical problems using numerical and algebraic expressions and equations; work with radicals and integer exponents; understand the connections between proportional relationships, lines, and linear equations; analyze and solve linear equations.
• Geometry: Draw, construct and describe geometrical figures and describe the relationships between them; solve real-life and mathematical problems involving angle measure, area, surface area, and volume; understand congruence and similarity using physical models, transparencies, or geometry software; solve real–‐world and mathematical problems involving volume of cylinders, cones and spheres. 
• Statistics and Probability: Use random sampling to draw inferences about a population; draw informal comparative inferences about two populations; investigate chance processes and develop, use, and evaluate probability models.

Science

Traditional laboratory experiences provide opportunities to demonstrate how science is constant, historical, probabilistic, and replicable.  Although there are no fixed steps that all scientists follow, scientific investigations usually involve collections of relevant evidence, the use of logical reasoning, the application of imagination to devise hypotheses, and explanations to make sense of collected evidence. Student engagement in scientific investigation provides background for understanding the nature of scientific inquiry.  In addition, the science process skills necessary for inquiry are acquired through active experience.  The process skills support development of reasoning and problem‐solving ability and are the core of scientific methodologies.  By the end of this course, the students will be able to:

• Understand how the cycling of matter (water and gases) in and out of the atmosphere relates to Earth’s atmosphere, weather and climate and the effects of the atmosphere on humans.
• Understand the processes, structures and functions of living organisms that enable them to survive, reproduce and carry out the basic functions of life.
• Understand the relationship of the mechanisms of cellular reproduction, patterns of inheritance and external factors to potential variation among offspring. 
• Understand motion, the effects of forces on motion and the graphical representations of motion. 
• Understand forms of energy, energy transfer and transformation, and conservation in mechanical systems. 

Social Studies

Students in seventh grade will continue to expand upon the knowledge, skills and understanding acquired in the sixth grade examination of early civilizations.  Seventh graders study the world from the Age of Exploration to contemporary times in order to understand the implications of increased global interactions.  The focus will remain on the discipline of geography by using the themes of location, place, movement, human–‐environmental interaction and region to understand modern societies and regions.  This course will guide students through patterns of change and continuity with a focus on conflict and cooperation, economic development, population shifts, political thought and organization, cultural values and beliefs and the impact of the environment over time.  Through an investigation of the various factors that shaped the development of societies and regions in the modern world and global interactions, students will examine both similarities and differences.  A conscious effort will be made to include an integrated study of various societies and regions from every continent (Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americans and Australia).