Middle School Academics

List of 6 items.

• Homeroom

  Homeroom is home base, where the day starts and ends, opening with prayer and school announcements. 
  
  Highlights: 

  • 6th Grade: Builds self-management and organizational skills through tracking assignments, long-term projects, and managing personal belongings.
  • 7th Grade: Takes greater ownership of academic performance; students begin earning service hours toward Confirmation and NJHS consideration.
  • 8th Grade: Takes on leadership roles across Student Council, Mass, athletics, and school traditions, while preparing for high school placement.

• English Language Arts

  English Language Arts is its own graded block, separate from Reading, built around the full writing process and a strong emphasis on grammar and mechanics, including Daily Oral Language (DOL) practice, to foster clear, correct writing.

  
  

  Curriculum: Writer's Choice, NoRedInk, and McGraw Hill for grammar, writing, and composition.

  
  

  Highlights: narrative, expository, persuasive, and descriptive writing; a pen-pal letter-writing exchange; journaling; research skills; Eighth graders enter the Daughters of the American Revolution Essay Contest. Writing projects connect across subjects: descriptive restaurant menus, persuasive commercials, expository museum projects, and an explanatory Kachina project tied to Social Studies.

  
  

  Progression:

  • 6th Grade: Builds writing fundamentals across argument, informative, and narrative forms, alongside grammar work in pronoun use and punctuation for clarity.
  • 7th Grade: Refines sentence structure and precise language, and completes a short research project to answer a real question.
  • 8th Grade: Takes on more advanced grammar, such as verb mood and active and passive voice, and strengthens argument writing by learning to address counterclaims, not just build a case.

• Reading & Vocabulary

  Reading is its own graded block, taught in mixed-ability groups, pairing peer-to-peer learning with the teacher's ability to differentiate instruction and target support to each student's needs. Vocabulary study is woven throughout, built to strengthen reading and writing together.

  
  

  Curriculum: McGraw Hill Anthology and three full novels read each year, supplemented by CommonLit.com, vocabulary study through Sadlier's Vocabulary Workshop, with tests every other week.

  
  

  Highlights: literature-based instruction covering literary elements, plot, and analysis; literature circles built around shared novels; poetry and theater units; two book reports each year (one fiction, one non-fiction), novel projects, and an annual Poetry Slam.

  
  

  Progression:

  • 6th Grade: Builds the foundation of literary analysis, citing evidence to support their thinking, identifying themes, and tracing how plot and characters develop across a story.
  • 7th Grade: Strengthens evidence-based analysis, drawing on multiple textual details to examine how a story's elements work together, and learns to evaluate the strength of an argument in nonfiction.
  • 8th Grade: Sharpens close reading and comparative analysis, selecting the strongest evidence to support an interpretation, comparing different versions or perspectives of a text, and connecting stories to broader literary traditions.

• Mathematics

  All students complete Algebra I by the end of Eighth Grade, on either an on-level or accelerated track, and math classes meet in small, leveled sections for more targeted instruction. Students are introduced to graphing calculators in sixth grade to build proficiency before high school, and course pacing is coordinated with Lake Forest High School and other feeder schools.

  
  

  Curriculum: Glencoe Math Accelerated: A Pre-Algebra Program, Big Ideas Math Algebra I, Big Ideas Math Algebra II.

  
  

  Progression:

  • 6th Grade: First half of Pre-Algebra on-level; accelerated students complete Pre-Algebra.
  • 7th Grade: Second half of Pre-Algebra on-level; accelerated students take Algebra I.
  • 8th Grade: On-level Algebra I; accelerated students take Algebra II with Trigonometry.

• Science

  Inquiry-based instruction using McGraw Hill Science, aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), blending hands-on activities with field trips that reinforce real-world connections. Students write and argue like real scientists and engineers.

  
  

  Progression:

  • 6th Grade: Earth Science and Space: the structure of space, the nature of the Earth, forces shaping Earth’s surface, and weather and climate. 
  • 7th Grade: Life Science: molecular-to-organismal structures, evolution, heredity and traits, and organism-environment interactions. 
  • 8th Grade: Physical Science: forms and properties of energy, force and motion, magnetic fields, phase changes, and chemical reactions. 

• Social Studies

  Students in every grade prepare weekly current-event reports and discuss current election cycles alongside their historical coursework, using the Illinois Constitution and U.S. Constitution Workbook as core resources.

  
  

  Progression:

  • 6th Grade: Map skills and geography, indigenous peoples, European exploration, and colonial development through the founding of the original thirteen colonies.
  • 7th Grade: American government and the Constitution, the Electoral College and popular vote, the Bill of Rights, and U.S. history from the Early Republic through the Road to the Civil War, including a class trip to Springfield.
  • 8th Grade: Post–Civil War through modern American history, including Reconstruction, industrialization, and both World Wars, plus an Illinois Constitution assessment.