7thgrademain   

7th grade

English Literature  

Literature is organized by genre to encourage comprehensive study of the types of literature. The following list shows the units and sections within each unit.

The Short Story: Plot, Character, Setting, and Theme

Drama: Three Plays

Nonfiction: Biographies and Personal Accounts, Essays for Enjoyment, Essays in the Content Areas

Poetry: Narrative Poetry, Lyric Poetry, Imagery and Figurative Language, The Changing Seasons, People in their Variety

Myth and Folk Tales Around the World: Animal Fables, Tricksters, Rascals, Fools, and Transformations and Origins

The Novel: A complete novel

Features at the end of the selection are designed to foster comprehension and encourage constructive response, either personal or literary. The study questions are built upon four levels of comprehension: the personal response, the literal, the interpretive, and the applied. These features encourage the growth of skills needed by students to become independent readers.

Each unit ends with two complete writing lessons. Each lesson focuses on a form of writing and guides students through the writing process.

 Math

 Math 76 reinforces the basic mathematical concepts and skills that students practiced in Math 54 and Math 65. Concepts, procedures, and vocabulary that students will need in order to be successful in upper-level algebra and geometry courses are introduced and continually practiced. Students learn to simplify expressions containing parentheses as the first step to solving multi-step equations. They are introduced to exponents; square roots; geometric formulas; and adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing signed numbers. Math 76 students work extensively with ratios, percentages, fractions, mixed numbers, and decimals.

Science

The Nature of Science
What is Science?, Measurement and the Sciences, Tools and the Sciences
Do you read the newspaper or watch the news on television? Perhaps you prefer the radio or even science  magazines. Whatever your preference, you know that it's hard to escape hearing about advances in science. Computers, CD players, microwave ovens, and even hand-held video games all became possible through discovers in science.Science, for better or worse, is all around us. It is through science that we have developed new sources of energy-- and have found ways to make traditional sources more efficient and less polluting. Science has given us television, telephones, and other forms of communication. A list of scientific advances that have improved out lives could fill this textbook.
What exactly is science? How do scientists fo about making discoveries? If you think that science is a job for white-coated laboratory workers who never look up from their microscope or get involved in the world around them. In this textbook you will find out about the nature of science and the ways in which scientists investigate the world. You will have theopportunity to explore and discover something that few people understand: Science is fun.

Heredity: the Code of Life:
A unicorn is a mythical animal with the body and head of a horse, the hind legs of a stag, the tail of a lion, and a single horn in the middle of it's forehead, The unicorn was not the only mythical beast with a combination of body parts of different animals. The chimera of Greek mythology had the head of a lion, the body of a goat, the tail of a serpent, In anchient Egypt, the Sphinx was constructed as a winged lion with a woman's head. Do you think any of these creatures could exist in the real world?
Unfortunately, the unicorn, chimera, and Sphinx exist only in people's imaginations. In the real world, living things always resemble their parents. Horses never give birth to unicorns. I this book you will meet the man who discovered how living things pass their characteristics on to their offspring. You will explore the complex molecule-- called DNA--- that maks heredity possible and also see how  the principles of heredity that apply to plants and animals apply to humans as well. Finally, you will learn how scientisis are beginning to use genetic engineering to produceorganisms that will benifit humans in many ways--organisms almost as exotic, in their own way, as the creatures of myth.

Dynamic Earth
It is midnight on the island of Hawaii.  The stars shine brightly in a coal-black sky; they look close enough to touch.  But in one part of the sky above a distant mountain ridge, something strange is happening.  Red and purple clouds swirl rapidly and restlessly, rumbling with thunder.  Just below them, there is an eerie reddish glow.  Orange and yellow flames flicker along the ridge, forming a shimmering curtain of fire.  Through your binoculars, you can see that this is no ordinary fire.  Fountains of molten rock the colors of flame leap from cracks in the Earth and fall back to the ground in showers of black cinders.  Scarlet streams of molten rock ooze from the cracks and flow away, creating twisted formations of black rock as they cool. Even as the island is being built up in one place, it is being broken down in another.  Waves pound against the island's shore, grinding the rocks of the coast into sand and carrying the sand away.  Farther inland, rocks are broken down into soil by wind, rain, and plants.  Like the rest of the dynamic Earth, the island is constantly changing.

Heat Energy -
The colorful picture above is not a cartoon or a computer graphic.  It is a thermogram of a young girl and her pet dog.  A thermogram (from thermo-meaning heat and -gram meaning something recorded) is an image formed by the invisible heat given off by an object.  In the thermogram, the hottest areas are bright and the coolest areas are dark.  Doctors can use thermograms to determine whether parts of the body are functioning properly.  Thermograms illustrate only one way in which heat is important in our lives.  Heat is also important because of its many uses.  Thousands of years ago, early humans discovered fire and began using it to heat their cave dwellings and to cook their food.  Today, central heating and cooling systems make our homes, schools, and office building comfortable places in which to live and work. Heat engines-from steam engines to modern gasoline engines-help make our work easier.  But heat can also damage the environment if we are not careful.  What exactly is heat?  You will find the answer to that question in this textbook.  You will also learn about the many applications of heat in your daily life

 
Social Studies

Social Studies Grades 7 and 8 are studies of American History based upon the series of  books by Joy Hakim, A History of US.  The series includes the following books:  The First Americans; Making Thirteen Colonies; From Colonies to Country; The New Nation;   War, Terrible War;  Reconstruction and Reform; An Age of Extremes; and All the People.  This author teaches history through stories, true stories.  Hopefully understanding the past will help students make sense of the present.     


The First Americans
Thousands of years--way before Christopher Columbus set sail--wandering tribes of hunters made their way from Asia across the Bering land bridge to North America. They didn't know it, but they had discovered a New World. The First Americans is a fascinating re-creation of pre-Columbian Native American life, and it's an adventure of a lifetime! Hunt seals with the Inuit; harvest corn on a cliff-top mesa; hunt the mighty buffalo; and set sail with Leif Erickson, Columbus, and all the early great explorers--Cabot, Balboa, Ponce de Leon, Cortes, Henry the Navigator, and more--in this brilliantly told story of America before it was America.

Making Thirteen Colonies
People are coming to America--all kinds of people. If you're European, you come in search of freedom or riches. If you're African, you come in chains. And what about the Indians, what is happening to them? Soon with the influx of so many people, thirteen unique colonies are born, each with its own story. Meet Pocahontas and John Smith in Jamestown. Join William Penn and the Quakers in Pennsylvania. Sit with the judges at the Salem witch trials. Hike over the mountains with Daniel Boone. And let Ben Franklin give you some salty advice in his Poor Richard's Almanac in this remarkable journey through the dynamic creation of what one day becomes the United States.

From Colonies to Country
How did compliant colonials with strong ties to Europe get the notion to become an independent nation? Perhaps the seeds of liberty were planted in the 1735 historic courtroom battle for the freedom of the press. Or maybe the French and Indian War did it, when colonists were called "Americans" for the first time by the English, and the great English army proved itself not so formidable after all. But for sure when King George III started levying some heavy-handed taxes on the colonies, the break from the motherland was imminent. With such enthralling characters as George Washington, Sam Adams, Patrick Henry, Eliza Pinckney, and Alexander Hamilton throughout, From Colonies to Country is an amazing story of a nation-making transformation.
The New Nation
Beginning with George Washington's inauguration and continuing into the nineteenth century, The New NationA History of US.
tells the story of the remarkable challenges that the freshly formed United States faced. Thomas Jefferson's purchase of the Louisiana Territories (bought from France at a mere four cents an acre!), Lewis and Clark's daring expedition through this wilderness, the War of 1812 a.k.a. "Revolutionary War, Part II," Tecumseh's effort to form an Indian confederacy, the growth of Southern plantations, the beginning of the abolitionist movement, and the disgraceful Trail of Tears are just a few of the setbacks, sidetracks, and formidable tasks put in the new nation's path. Master storyteller Joy Hakim weaves these dramatic events and more into a seamless tale that's so exciting, how could it be true? But it is