Year 8 English

St. Joseph's College
Gregory Terrace

The Year 8 Course is thematically based. Over the year students will work through up to four themes, in units lasting approximately 10 weeks or one term. This will involve studying many aspects of English in greater detail than they have done in the past. The units will involve the study of novels, drama and poetry as well as containing exercises to improve listening skills, oral work and technical aspects such as nouns, verbs, spelling, paragraphing and cohesion. There will be an emphasis on extended writing and written composition.

The end result should be that students should become a better reader, writer, speaker and appreciate and understand a wide variety of skills related to the subject of English.

Assessment is ongoing throughout the year. All units have an assessment profile and require completion of a number of written and oral tasks. There may also be some common testing at the end of each semester.

An effective use of the library is essential to the success of any English programme. Students will participate in a library based wide reading programme as well as participating in a number of research activities in conjunction with the teacher librarians.

Each student will have one English teacher for the year and will require two exercise books. A dictionary is also required. If the purchase of a new dictionary is necessary, a suggestion might be to purchase one that will be of use for the rest of the student's schooling.