Eighth Grade Curriculum

Religion

The eighth grade religion course of study concentrates on the history of the Catholic Church.  Unit one’s main topics for study and exploration include the following:  images and models of the Church, Mary’s preeminence as Mother of the Church, the four marks of the Church which describe her identity and her mission, growth in knowledge and appreciation of Catholic practices and beliefs, and the importance of sharing the Good News.

Unit two centers on salvation history and the developments in the Church over twenty centuries.  Included in these topics is information about the great saints of each era.  There is also a strong emphasis placed on the ever abiding presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church.  A new component in the curriculum this year is a five hour service requirement per quarter.

Text: Loyola Press, Christ Our Life,  2002.
         Catholic Book Publishing Co., The New American Bible, Saint Joseph Edition, 1992

Social Studies

The focus of social studies in eighth grade is on North Carolina, from the Constitution to present day.  Stated goals for this curriculum year are to examine the roles of people, events and issues in North Carolina and their contribution to the course of American history.  The course of study will evolve from several strands:  Our Catholic Ideals, Citizenship and Government, History, Geography, and Economics.

Text: Glencoe/McGraw-Hill,  America Is, 1995
        McDougal Littell, Inc.,  North Carolina:  A Proud State in Our Nation, 2003
        Clairmont Press, North Carolina: The History of an American State, 1992

Language Arts

The curriculum for eighth grade language arts has three primary focuses: literature, grammar, and vocabulary.  Students will explore these areas as they gain a deeper understanding of the different types of writing (narrative, descriptive, argumentative, and expository), writing for different audiences and purposes, literary genres, literary elements (such as irony, theme, and symbolism), vocabulary usage, and grammar mechanics and usage.  Some of the specific literary works students will read include The Call of the Wild, The Pearl, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Diary of Anne Frank.  As they study about the major literary genres, students also will read fiction and non-fiction short story selections and poetry.  Students who successfully complete the class will build their reading, writing, and communication skills and will strengthen their critical and creative thinking skills.  Building on the knowledge of prior language arts classes, this course lays the foundation for the English classes students will take in high school. 

Texts: Loyola Press, Exercises in English: Grammar for Life, 2003
           Sadlier-Oxford, Sadlier-Oxford Vocabulary Workshop, Level C, 2003
           EMC Corporation, Literature and the Language Arts: Responding to Literature, 2003


Supplemental Books:
         The Call of the Wild by Jack London
         The Diary of Anne Frank by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett
         Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
         The Pearl by John Steinbeck

Science

Students begin by looking at motion and forces.  They learn about work and machines.  Then they investigate the different types of energy and their interactions.  Students also learn and experiment with electricity and magnetism.  Then they study the properties of sound and light and how their body uses them to gain information.  Students then turn to the atom and chemical reactions.  If there is time they finish with an introduction to genetics, including Mendel’s work, inheritance, and disorders. 

Text: Prentice Hall, Science Explorer Series, 2005

Pre-Algebra

The pre-algebra course of studies concentrates on several algebraic concepts:  simplifying and evaluating algebraic expressions, solving algebraic equations, graphing linear equations, solving and graphing inequalities, and finding and graphing slopes of lines.

A major focus of study centers on computational skills with positive and negative integers.  There is also a special emphasis on exponents and scientific notation.  Solving percent problems and exploring relationships between fractions, decimals, and percents constitutes another portion of the curriculum.  Other topics include ratio, proportion, and scale drawings.  Graphing ordered pairs and transformations on the coordinate plane are fun topics for the students as well as learning how to create stem and leaf plots, scatter plots, box and whisker plots, and histograms.  The geometry unit explores 3-D figures and space figures, finding volumes and surface areas.  Other geometric topics include the Pythagorean Theorem, similar and congruent figures, and circumference and area of circles.  A statistics and probability unit centers on measures of central tendency and permutations and combinations.

Text:  Glencoe Mathematics, Pre-Algebra, 2004.

Algebra I

The Algebra I course offered is an honors course that fulfills the high school credit for graduation.  Unit one includes a review and extension of pre-algebra concepts which include variable expressions, order of operations, algebra properties, graphs and functions, basic operations with rational numbers, and the foundation for adding and subtracting real numbers.  Unit one concludes with students obtaining the necessary skills for solving proportions and other applicable formulas.  Linear functions are the focus of the second unit.  Included in this are graphs of relations and functions explored in the coordinate plane, analyzing linear equations (slope and writing the various equations of a line), solving linear inequalities, and solving systems of linear equations and inequalities. 

The next unit concentrates on polynomials and nonlinear functions.  Adding, subtracting, and multiplying polynomials, factoring polynomials, and graphing and solving quadratic equations are studied first.  Exponential functions are then explored through practical examples of growth and decay.  While the TI-83 plus graphing calculator is used throughout the course, it is especially useful in this unit as the students analyze and compare both linear and non-linear functions. Rational expressions and equations are the remainder of this unit.  The course concludes with data analysis, an introduction to matrices, measures of variation, and interpreting data presented in various forms.  Algebra I students take the End of Course Exam for North Carolina.

Text:  Glencoe Mathematics, Algebra I, 2004