Abington Junior High School Course Selection Guide 2012-2013 ...

READINGCritical Thinking for the Gifted 7Gifted students in seventh grade are enrolled in the Critical Thinking for the Gifted 7 course that meets twotimes per week. Literature selections for the course focus on the following themes: Immigration,Discrimination, Cultural Diversity, Fantasy, and Realistic Fiction. Strategies for developing critical thinkingskills related to reading selections and technology projects are emphasized in this course. Students will alsocomplete an independent study related to a chosen literature selection.Critical Thinking for the Gifted 8Gifted students in eighth grade are enrolled in the Critical Thinking for the Gifted 8 course that meets twotimes per week. Literature selections for the course focus on the following themes: Life in the NineteenthCentury United States, Modern Medicine, Memoirs and Realistic Fiction. Strategies for developing criticalthinking skills related to reading selections and technology projects are emphasized in this course. Studentswill also complete an independent study related to a chosen literature selection.Reading 7 and 8RAC (Reading Across the Curriculum) 7 and 8Students in seventh and eighth grade are enrolled in Reading classes that meet either two (RAC 7/8) or five(Reading 7/8) times per week. Emphasis is placed on achieving proficiency in the Pennsylvania AcademicStandards for Reading. All instruction is designed to foster reading comprehension with narrative andexpository selections. Emphasis is also placed on teaching students strategies to improve study skills,listening skills, content area/standardized test preparation, note-taking and research skills. Students readnovels, short stories, as well as magazines and newspaper articles from online databases, in addition to selfselectedmaterials. Textbooks from content area classes are used to teach reading strategies forcomprehending that material.17