Middle School Academics

STEM electives in middle school are important building blocks in the preparation of all students for demands of college, careers, and the rapidly changing 21st century workforce.  STEM courses teach students to apply mathematics, science, and technical knowledge to innovate and solve problems.  MCPS is committed to providing a well-rounded education for middle school students that includes an engaging, hands-on experience with computational learning.  Middle school STEM electives teach students computational and technological literacy through coding, computer science, engineering, robotics, and other technology and design-related experiences.  This program promotes creative problem solving and an exploration of multiple STEM related fields of study and careers.

Grade 6 English (ENG1009)
Grade 6 Adv English (ENG1010)

The goal of the Secondary English Language Arts program is to create literate, thoughtful communicators, capable of controlling language effectively as they negotiate an increasingly complex and information-rich world. As students leave elementary school, they encounter new academic expectations such as analyzing varied and complex texts, developing arguments, synthesizing information from multiple sources, examining different perspectives, and engaging in self-reflection. Students work to acquire specific skills and strategies in reading literature, reading informational text, writing, speaking and listening, and language.

MS Academic Literacy (ENG1029)

This course involves implementation of iLit, a reading intervention program designed to meet the needs of struggling readers through differentiated instruction, computer adaptive instruction, background-knowledge-building videos, high-interest literature, and explicit instruction in reading, writing, and vocabulary skills.

Digital Literacy 1 (ENG1030)

The Digital Literacy 1 curriculum focuses on developing critical and creative thinking through reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing in a 21st-century approach. Working through a problem-based process, students learn to define real-world problems of interest, research the causes of those problems using real-time global texts, and then create solutions to address the problems. Students will advance their understanding of comprehension, analysis, and evaluation of text as well as vocabulary acquisition through reading complex informational and argumentative texts in a technology-rich medium. Students will collaborate regularly through research and solution phases of their investigations. Students' curiosity and motivation will engage them in their investigations while learning and refining the processes that will enrich all other courses and prepare them for college and career projects.

Courses

ESOL/Bilingual Programs

The English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) program provides high-quality English language development instruction aligned to grade-level content standards in English Language Arts. These courses focus on helping students develop the academic language proficiency needed to be able to learn content knowledge, skills, and processes and effectively use language to communicate proficiently in mainstream courses.

These courses are designed for the rapid mastery of the English language, focusing on reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. ESOL courses usually begin with extensive listening and speaking practice, building on auditory and oral skills, and support the development of reading and writing. These courses provide an explanation of grammat- ical structures of the English language, enabling students to progress from a basic under- standing of English words and verb tenses to a more comprehensive grasp of various formal and informal styles to prepare them for grade-level mainstream English courses. ESOL classes may also include an orientation to the customs and culture of the diverse population in the United States. All ESOL courses are aligned to the grade-level standards and curriculum in Grades 6-8.

ESOL students will be scheduled into English classes designed to meet their level of academic language proficiency in appropriate ways including sheltered, co-taught, single and double periods. The English Language Proficiency (ELP) levels are directly correlated with the ELP levels 1.0-4.4 on the WIDA ACCESS test.

Programs

Multidisciplinary Educational Training and Support Program (METS)

Family and Comsumer Sciences (EDU1002, EDU1003)

Family and Consumer Sciences (FACS) programs focus on processes and skills that enhance individual, family, and societal well-being. Programs reflect the National Standards for FACS Education and integrate math, science, English, and social studies. A project-based curriculum encourages students to investigate and solve authentic problems. Students learn to use communication and critical-thinking skills as well as current technologies to make informed decisions.

UNIT 1: INDIVIDUAL, FAMILY, AND SOCIETAL NEEDS
UNIT 2: DECISION-MAKING PROCESS
UNIT 3: NUTRITION AND WELLNESS
UNIT 4: PERSONAL FINANCE
UNIT 5: LIVING ENVIRONMENTS
UNIT 6: COLLEGE AND CAREER PLANNING

FINE ARTS

The fine arts are important to every child’s development and play a vital role in providing students with a well-rounded, world class education. Dance, Music, Theatre, and Visual Art promote academic excellence, creative problem-solving, and social emotional learning, which are essential components of college and career readiness. In order to meet the evolving needs of a 21st century learner, the fine arts focus on developing artistic literacy by engaging in the artistic processes (creating, performing/presenting, responding, and connecting) through authentic materials and techniques. The fine arts introduce students to new world views and cultures, help students to value the perspectives of others, and enable students to creatively express a personal viewpoint. Through artistic experiences, students become independent and divergent thinkers, selfmotivated workers, and innovators. All students have access to fine arts programs in middle school. In Grades 6–8, students may specialize in one or more of the fine art forms.

Comprehensive Health Education in Grade 6 (HPE1000)

Comprehensive Health Education promotes positive health- related attitudes and behaviors that support self-reliance and self-regulation, while developing health literacy skills and lifelong wellness. The health literacy skills emphasized throughout the program include analyzing influences, accessing information, interpersonal communication, decision making, goal-setting, self-management, and advocacy.
Beginning in the 2018-2019 school year, the Family Life and Human Sexuality unit will include age-appropriate instruction on the meaning of “consent” and respect for personal boundaries in every grade in which the curriculum is taught. Health Education aligns with Be Well 365 by emphasizing lifelong positive health-related attitudes and behaviors that promote self-reliance and self-regulation for all students.

Key Concepts

• Mental and emotional health - personal well-being; analyzing influences; accessing information; interpersonal communication; decision making; goal setting; managing emotions; stress-management; advocacy.
• Alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs - benefits of a drug-free lifestyle.
• Personal and consumer health - personal hygiene; health care products.
• Safety and injury prevention - media, technology, and harassment; cyber bullying and bullying; personal safety; first aid and emergency response.

MULTIMEDIA LITERACY

The LCL! course series is of high interest; allows for ease of differentiation; and addresses the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learner. The LCL! strand focus is on increasing literacy in both written and visual texts, authentic use of vocabulary, improving collaboration skills, building confidence and motivation, and providing opportunities for higher-level thinking.

Lights, Camera, Literacy! (LCL!) (ENG1024 and ENG1025)

This course increases literacy in both written and visual text, improves collaboration skills, builds confidence and motivation, and provides opportunities for high-level thinking via specific strategies. Students transfer their skills as viewers of film to skills on the written page, as well as learn how to read visual text and create effective visual communications.

The course focuses on all three areas of the MCPS Moving Image Education—integrating, deconstructing, and creating the moving image. Students transfer reading skills.

Lights, Camera, Film Literacy! (LCFL!) (ENG1023)

This course offers a study of film and film history as the core for teaching more advanced literacy skills. Students learn the physics and history of motion pictures, as well as how to apply filmmaking techniques to their own visual communications.

Students read one novel as well as shorter written text selections and screenplays. The eight units include How Movies Got their Start; Silent Narrative Films; Early Talkies; Early Color; Genre Classics: The Golden Age of Hollywood; Classic Adaptations: The Golden Age of Hollywood and Beyond; Documentaries; Animation; and The Business of Film and Film Festivals. (Completion of Lights Camera, Literacy! is not required.)

Lights, Camera, Media Literacy! (LCML!) (ENG1027)

This course offers a study of media, its history, and basic related physics concepts as the core for teaching even more advanced literacy skills. Lights, Camera, Media Literacy! presents a timeline of media with focus on the history and physics of communication from the earliest times via storytelling by troubadours and griots to today’s mass media world. The units include Storytelling; The Printing Press; Newspapers & Print Advertising; Photography & Film; Radio; Television; Computers and the Internet; and Media & Our World. Students develop related multimedia projects within each of these units. (Completion of Lights Camera, Literacy! or Lights, Camera, Film Literacy! is not required.)

The Grade 6 MCPS Outdoor Environmental Education Program, known as “Outdoor Ed,” provides students with a three-day residential experience focused on the driving question, “How do our actions and choices impact the health of the watershed?”  Using relevant, engaging, and interdisciplinary lessons, students explore the local ecosystem and their role in it. The natural world is both classroom and laboratory for teaching and learning at Outdoor Ed - literacy and mathematics are authentically integrated. The core lessons of this Meaningful Watershed Educational Experience include:

• field experiences where scientific practices are used to investigate the environment, and where components of the MCPS Grade 6 curriculum  are learned in a real-world setting. Environmental science lessons focus on the local watershed that include water-quality analysis of the local stream, use of a simulation to study population dynamics, and investigation of the impact of humans on the environment.
• engaging lessons created to foster inquiry, collaboration, critical thinking, and problem solving.
• structured and unstructured opportunities for building positive interpersonal relationships as students learn and practice relationship-building skills with their peers and teachers. Making a new friend is reported by over 90% of students at the conclusion of Outdoor Ed!
• motivation and opportunity for students to be active stewards of the environment as they investigate ways their choices impact the environment and choose a daily action to improve it. The environmental learning and actions form the environmental Student Service Learning experience, which is an integral part of the Grade 6 science curriculum.

At Outdoor Ed, students live in dormitory-style housing at one of three sites, work collaboratively to take care of the dorms, and serve each other at meals. Teachers from each middle school accompany their students and teach several of the lessons at Outdoor Ed along with the Outdoor Ed coordinators.  A fee is charged for the residential setting of the program, set by the Board of Education; alternative payment options and waivers are available. Speaking volumes about Outdoor Ed, MCPS high schools seniors cite this unique experience among their three most remembered and cherished learning events in their twelve years of education. 

PHYSICAL EDUCATION

The middle school physical education program focuses on health-related fitness, movement skills and concepts, and personal and social responsibility. Each physical education unit challenges students to better understand the benefits   of physical activity toward fitness, fundamentals of efficient movement in physical activity and sport, and the essentials of responsibility in a movement setting. The learning tasks in physical education emphasize and teach problem-solving and decision-making skills. Students participate in games and activities that promote fitness, develop tactical awareness, and build social qualities.  Physical Education aligns with Be Well 365 emphasizing lifelong positive health-related attitudes and behaviors that promote self-reliance and self-regulation.

PE Grade 6 (HPE1003)

By the end of Grade 6, students should know and be able to do the following:

HEALTH-RELATED FITNESS

• Define and compare the health-related fitness components, including aerobic capacity/cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular strength, muscular endurance, and flexibility.
• Define the exercise principles of overload, specificity, and progression.
• Develop a personal fitness plan using the Frequency, Intensity, Time, and Type (FITT) formula.
• Define and calculate target heart rate.

MOVEMENT SKILLS AND CONCEPTS

• Perform fundamental movement skills essential to physical activity and sport.
• Demonstrate creative skill combinations, such as tumbling sequences and dances.
• Create a personal movement (practice) plan.

PERSONAL AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

• Perform tasks effectively with others in physical activity settings.
• Acquire and maintain relationships that develop a sense of community in physical activity settings.
• Establish and modify personal goals.

LITERACY

Digital Literacy 1 (ENG 1030)

The Digital Literacy 1 curriculum focuses on developing critical and creative thinking through reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing in a 21st-century approach. Working through a problem-based process, students learn to define real-world problems of interest, research the causes of those problems using real-time global texts, and then create solutions to address the problems. Students will advance their understanding of comprehension, analysis, and evaluation of text as well as vocabulary acquisition through reading complex informational and argumentative texts in a technology-rich medium. Students will collaborate regularly through research and solution phases of their investigations. Students’ curiosity and motivation will engage them in their investigations while learning and refining the processes that will enrich all other courses and prepare them for college and career projects.

Digital Literacy 2 (ENG 1031)

The Digital Literacy 2 curriculum focuses on increasing critical and creative thinking through reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing through an integrated approach. By participating in a problem-based process, students learn to define, analyze, and evaluate real-world problems of interest related to standards-based curriculum topics. Students will use research skills to investigate problems using real-time global texts and then create solutions to address the problems. Students will participate in sustained inquiry, analysis, and evaluation of text through reading complex informational, expository, and argumentative texts in a technology-rich medium. Students will hone their communication, collaboration, research, and problem-solving skills and learn to give, receive, and use feedback to improve their process and products during complex tasks. Digital Literacy creates authentic work for students to engage in by allowing for presentation of their solutions beyond the walls of the classroom.

Challenging Problem or Question

SEMESTER 1: HUMANITIES
SEMESTER 2: STEM

Digital Literacy 3 (ENG 1032)

The Digital Literacy 3 curriculum focuses on increasing critical and creative thinking through reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing through an integrated approach. Students will be introduced to a variety of social issues from various perspectives, examine the history of social movements and the impact on social and economic justice, explore their identity, and understand the ways in which communities can respond to these complex issues. Students will explore social justice terminology in order to better advocate for a socially just society. They will have multiple opportunities to participate in book clubs, where they will interact with classmates to analyze social justice texts. Students will participate in sustained inquiry, analysis, and evaluation of text through reading complex informational, expository, and argumentative texts in a technology-rich medium. Students will use research skills to investigate a contemporary social issue using real-time global texts and then create solutions to address the issue at the individual and/or systemic level.

MS Academic Literacy (ENG 1029)

READING

Read 180 (ENG1017)

READ 180 is an intensive reading intervention program designed to meet the needs of students whose reading achievement is below the proficient level. The program directly addresses individual needs through adaptive and instructional software, high-interest reading materials, and direct instruction in reading and writing skills. Students rotate among a small group, teacher-directed lessons, a computer station for reinforcement and practice, and an independent reading center where students read books at their reading level. The program is designed to rapidly accelerate student achievement with the goal of bringing students to grade level.

SOCIAL STUDIES

The social studies program in middle school builds chronological and thematic understanding of world and United States history, while also developing the social studies strands of geography, economics, political systems, and culture. Each social studies unit is organized around a historical era and a social studies strand. A mix of modern content and the lessons of history provide the background knowledge and thinking skills that prepare students for high school instruction and their responsibilities as citizens, including meaningfully evaluating financial decisions.

In Grades 6 and 7, the focus of study is on ancient world history and culture from Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America. In Grade 8, students learn about the founding and early development of our nation, from the Revolution through Reconstruction. At all grade levels, students build understanding of the modern world by applying concepts of geography, economics, political systems, and culture to present-day scenarios.

Historical Inquiry in World Studies 6 (SOC1001) 

Historical Inquiry into Global Humanities 6 (SOC1009) 

Unit 6.1: Patterns of Settlement

Students learn how from hunter-gatherers, established farming communities to the rise of towns and cities, each society throughout time has exhibited different levels of complexity in their political, social and economic systems. Each society has strived to meet the wants and needs of its citizens and their successes and failures have become the building blocks for future societies to learn from to create more complex and sustaining civilizations. Unit Question: How do complex societies develop over time?

Unit 6.2: The Impact of Economies

Building on the idea that societies are complex due to various factors, students explore which factors makes a civilization an empire. From there, students explore the first dynasties of China to modern day China examining the relationship between the economic and political system and the impact the growth and decline of the economic system has on the structure and effectiveness of China's political system. Unit Question: How does economic growth and decline impact society?

Unit 6.3: Citizenship and Governance

Students learn how a political system, such as a democracy, strives to meet the common good of its citizens through shared accountability. Political systems influence how people in power make decisions that then impact the social and economic system of a civilization , including how they operate and who benefits from the choices. Unit Question: How does a government meet the common good of its citizens?

Unit 6.4: Cultural Systems

Students learn how culture is made up of beliefs, values, religion and traditions. Individuals and groups in societies use their cultural identity to influence structures and processes in their political, economic and social system. Culture is ever changing due to the interactions between groups of people from different societies. It is through these interactions facilitated many times both past and present by trade that people either accepted or resisted changes in their beliefs, ideas or traditions. Unit Question: How does culture influence the development of a civilization?

WORLD LANGUAGES

Students are encouraged to pursue World Language offerings as early as possible in middle school. The world languages available in middle schools are Chinese, French, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, and Spanish for Spanish Speakers. Offerings vary by school. The world language courses are high school credit-bearing courses. Please see page 4 for more information about high school credit in middle school. Course numbers are language and level dependent.

Level 1A/1B
HS credit

Students begin to learn to communicate orally and in writing in a culturally appropriate manner about topics related to daily life. They interpret basic information when listening and reading. Vocabulary and basic grammatical structures are taught within the context of these familiar topics. Culture is embedded throughout the course.

NOTE: Levels 1A and 1B may be offered in middle school as full-year courses. In that case, students must pass the full year of 1A and the full year of 1B in order to earn one high school credit.

Level 2A/2B
HS credit

Students expand their ability to communicate orally and in writing in a culturally appropriate manner about topics related to daily life. They interpret information when listening and reading. Vocabulary and grammatical structures are taught within the context of these topics. Culture is embedded throughout the course.

Level 3A/B
HS credit

Students continue to expand their ability to communicate orally and in writing in a culturally appropriate manner about a variety of familiar topics. They interpret detailed information when listening and reading. Vocabulary and more complex grammatical structures are taught within the context of these topics. Culture is embedded throughout the course.

Spanish for Spanish Speakers 1 A/B (WLG2141A/B)
HS credit Spanish for Spanish Speakers 2 A/B (WLG2142A/B)
HS credit

Spanish for Spanish Speakers 1 A/B and Spanish for Spanish Speakers 2 A/B are offered at selected middle schools. Spanish for Spanish Speakers provides language instruction for students with proficiency in Spanish, either because it is their first language or it is spoken extensively in their home. Each course integrates history, culture, language, and connections related to the Spanish-speaking world.