8th Grade Curriculum

Listed below are the skill sets and knowledge expected of all eighth grade students by the end of the year. Please be aware of these expectations and work in cooperation with your child's teacher to assist your child in acquiring these skills. If you have any questions about the expectations, please contact your building principal. The expectations are separated into the four core curriculum areas.

Language Arts/Reading

• Expand knowledge of prefixes, suffixes, and roots
• Comprehend text by focusing on key ideas
• Read books independently
• Recognize how literary elements contribute to the meaning of text
• Question, predict, and form conclusions based on main ideas and supporting details
• Reveal the author's style
• Write developed narrative, expository, and persuasive pieces
• Prepare and deliver a presentation to fit within a given time limit
• Write a grade level appropriate research paper using MLA works cited

Mathematics

• Apply various problem solving strategies and approaches to mathematics
• Solve problems involving unit rates
• Make and interpret stem-and-leaf, box-and-whisker, and scatter plots
• Find measures of central tendency
• Find the volume and surface area of prisms and cylinders
• Combine like terms to solve 2-step problems
• Find theoretical and experimental probability
• Add/subtract, multiply/divide rational numbers
• Write and graph simple inequalities
• Find and estimate square roots using rational and irrational numbers
• Graph and write linear equations
• Write numbers in scientific notation
• Understand and apply the Pythagorean Theorem
• Solve problems using parallel lines cut by a transversal
• Use formulas to solve problems
• Use proportional reasoning to solve problems

Science

• Compare the process of mitosis and meiosis
• Understand the structure of DNA
• Understand basic rules of heredity
• Identify simple compounds and balance simple equations
• Differentiate between acids and bases
• Understand electric charges, currents, circuits
• Identify magnets and the relationship between electric currents and magnetic fields
• Understand how the oceans affect climate
• Summarize properties of the oceans and freshwater

Social Studies

• Identify, compare, and analyze political systems
• Explain and analyze US international relationships: trade, environmental policy, technological, its development as a world power
• Explain economic functions: market, productivity, wages, taxes
• Describe how historians make historical interpretations and inferences
• Identify differences between historical fact and interpretation
• Describe how economic developments and governmental policies affected US economic institutions after 1865
• Describe characteristics of different kinds of families in America-19th Century
• Describe the impact of urbanization and sub-urbanization 1850 to present
• Explain how resources are used in the world ^p Analyze settlement patterns
• Understand how beliefs of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness developed
• Explain how diverse groups have contributed to US social systems