English Language Arts

The Maple English Language Arts Department is committed to encouraging a love of reading in our students that will help them on the road to becoming life-long readers along with developing critical readers, writers and thinkers who will excel in high school, college and their chosen careers. Our program is multi-faceted, aligned to both the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts as well as best practice and most current research in the field.

Students read both fiction and informational text as part of our workshop approach to reading, combining student - selected text with whole class works. Lessons targeting literary strategies, grammar and vocabulary are an important part of a well-rounded English Language Arts block.
Writing instruction is seamlessly integrated into the ELA classes through a workshop approach as well. This means that students choose their own topics under the specific genre teachers are focusing on at that time. Middle school writing instruction also targets argumentative, informative/explanatory and narrative as delineated in the Common Core State Standards.

The Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts are divided into the subcategories of: