• Attends monthly school Mass, prayer services and coordinates two school Masses
• Understands God became a human-being in Jesus Christ
• Recognizes God is experienced as Father, Son and Holy Spirit and judges each of us at death and all people at the end of time
• Recognizes God is very close to us, intimately involved in our lives
• Understands the sacraments are special signs of Christ’s grace and our faith
• Understands the church works for compassion, justice, and peace 
• Actively participates in community service projects   
• Recognizes our Christian values help us make social, economic, and political choices
• Recites standard prayers from memory, recites spontaneous prayers
• Leads classroom prayer
• Understands papal documents/letter
  

WRITING STRATEGIES

• Creates compositions that establish a coherent thesis and end with a clear, well supported conclusion (5 paragraph essay)
• Supports all statements with analogies, paraphrases, quotations, anecdotes, facts, statistics, examples
• Uses parallelism in sentence structure
• Exhibits mastery of note taking, organizing, outlining and summarizing
• Develops ideas leading to research investigation
• Uses Thesaurus to improve word choices
• Uses standard rubric for proofreading and editing
  
• Leads classroom prayer

WRITING APPLICATIONS (GENRES AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS)

•  Writes biographies, autobiographies, prose and poetry
• Uses narrative and descriptive strategies
• Writes responses to literature
• Writes research reports, persuasive compositions, documents related to career development and technical documents

WRITTEN AND ORAL ENGLISH LANGUAGE CONVENTIONS

• Uses a proper heading on all published papers
• Uses correct and varied sentence types
• Edits for correct grammar and usage
• Identifies and correctly uses hyphens, ellipses, brackets, and semicolons
• Applies correct spelling conventions
  

LISTENING AND SPEAKING

•  Analyzes oral interpretations of literature, including word choice, delivery, and effect of delivery
• dentifies inferences and draws conclusions
• Uses precise language, action verbs, sensory details, colorful modifiers, and the active voice for a lively presentation
• Uses appropriate grammar, word choice, enunciation, and pace of speech

SPEAKING APPLICATIONS (GENRES AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS)

• Delivers narrative presentations, research presentations, persuasive presentations
  

ALGEBRA AND FUNCTIONS

• Uses algebraic expressions, equations, and inequalities to model linear and non-linear relationships
• Explains equations and equalities written in a variety of ways
• Simplifies basic monomials by adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing

MEASUREMENT AND GEOMETRY

• Evaluates and describes situations, both geometrically and algebraically
• Uses both coordinate geometry and the Pythagorean Theorem to construct and solve problems
• Reviews and practices the specific language of geometry  related to perimeter, area, and volume

PROBLEM SOLVING AND MATHEMATICAL REASONING

•  Analyzes and formulates reasonable mathematical conjectures
• Uses strategies, skills, and concepts to find solutions, predict outcomes
• Demonstrates mathematical reasoning in solutions involving words, numbers, symbols, pictures, charts, graphs, tables diagrams, and models

EARTH SCIENCE

• Understands the shaping of Earth’s surface
• Recognizes earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, and floods change human and wildlife habitats
• Understands heat moves in a predictable flow and is also transferred between objects by radiation
• Understands sources of energy and material differ in amounts, distribution, usefulness, and the time required for their formation
• Knows the natural origin of the materials used to make a common object
• Identifies and utilizes the Scientific Method to state a problem
• Researches and develops a hypothesis
• Identifies the dependent and controlled variables in an investigation

LIFE SCIENCE

•  Understands cell biology
• Understands genetic instruction
• Distinguishes the differences between the life cycles and reproduction  methods of sexual and asexual organisms
• Explores Gregor Mendel’s scientific study of heredity

PHYSICAL SCIENCE

• Understands physical principles underlie biological structures and functions
• Conducts careful investigations to understand that all forms of matter are composed of one or more of the elements

US HISTORY

• Identifies the major events preceding the founding of the nation
• Compare and contrast geographic, political, economic, religious, and social structures of Meso-American and Andean civilizations
• Describes the impact of U.S. foreign policy on the government and economy of the early Republic
• Understands the impact of the enlightenment (age of reason) on US Government
  
• Demonstrates an understanding of the causes and key events of the Civil War, including the issue of slavery
  
• Explains how industrialization, immigration and expansion transformed the United States
• Evaluates the importance of the South’s agrarian economy and labor  system, and explains their effect on the region’s political, social, economic, religious, social justice and cultural development

• Demonstrates behavior that is in keeping with Catholic values when using technology, including respect for property, honesty, and compassion
• Demonstrates legal and ethical behaviors when using information and technology
• Supports and masters the general computing knowledge introduced in the previous grades
• Will continue to polish and enhance formal keyboarding skills using proper technique
• Supports and masters word processing concepts introduced in the previous grades
• Supports and masters the internet and telecommunications objectives introduced in the previous grades
• Understands HTML
• Uses graphics, electronic presentations, database and spreadsheet applications effectively 
• Increases touch type to  45 words per minute with 80% accuracy
  

EXERCISE AND CALISTHENICS AND SPORT SKILLS

• Plays organized agility games exercising Christian sportsmanship
• Acquires knowledge to build responsible decision making, healthy lifestyles, and general wellness
• Participates in team sports to develop tolerance of others and cooperative skills
• Understands and utilizes rules for organized sports like: basketball,  football, baseball, soccer, track and volleyball
  

VISUAL AND TACTILE PERCEPTION

• Understands perspective (1 and 2 vanishing points), 3-dimensional composition, landscapes, portraits and still life shading, recognizes line suggesting plane figures, distance; uses pencil, pen and ink, markers, acrylics, oils and mixed media in producing art work
  

CREATIVE EXPESSION

• Demonstrates ability in drawing, shaded for depth, proportion, figures; emphasizes facial proportion in drawing
• Demonstrates ability to work with a variety of crafts/media, printing, clay, papier-mache, weaving, collage, mosaics

VISUAL ARTS HERITAGE

• Appreciates art work  from a cultural perspective, art history,  variety of artists and their work
• studies cultural diversity in the arts
  

ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

• Appreciates art work using these criteria:  design elements, art media and processes, artistic mood and style, major artists and their works
• understands careers and future applications of artists
  

• Tolerance Museum -Los Angeles  (7th or 8th grade) 
• San Diego Museum of Art
  
• J. Paul Getty Museum (7th or 8th grade)
• Class Retreat

One non-fiction

One novel

One historical fiction