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Language Arts

The Common Core asks students to read stories and literature, as well as more complex texts that provide facts and background knowledge. Students are being challenged and asked questions that push them to refer back to what they've read. This stresses critical-thinking, problem-solving, and analytical skills that are required for success in college, career, and life. The skills and knowledge captures in the English language arts/literacy standards are designed to prepare students for life outside the classroom. They include critical-thinking skills and the ability to closely and attentively read texts in a way that will help them understand and enjoy complex works of literature.

For students, writing is a key means of asserting and defending claims, showing what they know about a subject, and conveying what they have experienced, imagined, thought, and felt. To be college and career-ready writers, students must take task, purpose, and audience into careful consideration, choosing words, information, structures, and formats deliberately. They have to become adept at gathering information, evaluating sources, and citing material accurately, reporting findings from their research and analysis of sources in a clear and cogent manner.

Students at Zamboni are reading and writing on a daily basis across the curriculum. Students are engaging with each other about novels, short stories, and poems. In addition, students are asked to read a book of their choosing on a daily basis. Our goal at Zamboni Middle School is to instill a passion for reading and writing in our students and prepare them with the skills to be college and career ready.