The Governor Mifflin Middle School English Language Arts program is designed to prepare students with the language skills they need to be successful in school and future careers.  Throughout their seventh and eighth grade years, students will encounter many of the following in our standards-aligned curriculum: 

Writing:
Beginning in seventh grade, students will learn how to write multi-paragraph pieces with clear focus, organization, style, and conventions, and developed content. Students' development of critical thinking skills are expressed through informational, persuasive, and narrative writing modes with awareness of task and audience. Students will also create and write poetry, short stories, and plays.

Reading Skills:
Students will learn how to comprehend, analyze, and make inferences from fiction and non-fiction selections. Summarization skills, making connections between fiction and non-fiction, discovering the author's purpose, and drawing conclusions will also be covered throughout the two years.

Vocabulary Development:
Students will continuously develop their vocabulary by being introduced to new words, synonyms, antonyms, multiple-meaning words, prefixes, suffixes and root words to enhance their decoding skills.

Literature:
Using the literature book and core novels, students will be exposed to many of the following genres in both seventh and eighth grade: biography, autobiography, short story, poetry, drama, mystery, science fiction, and mythology.

Literary Analysis:
Students will learn to recognize and utilize various literary terms and devices such as: plot, setting, character, point of view, theme, setting and many others.

Speaking and Listening:
Teachers promote respectful speaking and listening skills in small and large group discussions on a regular basis in the middle school. Students also periodically perticipate in formal and informal class presentations.

Rebecca Boyer, Grades 7-8,rboyer@gmsd.k12.pa.us
Erik Bresnahan, Grade 7, ebresnah@gmsd.k12.pa.us
Melissa Lease, Grade 8, mlease@gmsd.k12.pa.us
Jennifer Myers, Grade 8, jmyers@gmsd.k12.pa.us
Kate Stuckert, Grade 8, kstucker@gmsd.k12.pa.us
Dominique Ulrich, Grade 7, dulrich@gmsd.k12.pa.us