Our ELA Foundations Series builds essential literacy skills through an integrated reading and writing curriculum aligned with Common Core standards. Each program ensures students strengthen their comprehension, vocabulary, and written expression, essential building blocks of academic success. Each class is divided into 3 sections:
Foundations: Building Core Literacy Skills
Students explore story structure (setting, character, and theme) while learning to infer, summarize, and think critically through guided reading and discussion.
Reading: Understanding Stories and Ideas
Through rich literature and coaching, students practice identifying tone, voice, and structure while building key comprehension habits.
Writing: Expressing Ideas Clearly and Creatively
Students turn reading insights into writing, crafting personal stories with clear organization, vivid language, and purposeful revision.
ELA 110: Finding Your Voice
Students explore how style and author’s voice can create a unique perspective by reading Junie B. Jones. They’ll study how authors use humor and exaggeration to convey emotion, explore characters, understand the purpose of writing stories, and find their own voice!
ELA 120: Friendship and Finding Home
Students explore narrative foundations like story arc, setting, characters, and main idea. By reading Because of Winn Dixie, students learn how to deconstruct connections and themes throughout a story to understand the central message, and then write their own stories.
ELA 130: Webs of Meaning
Students explore analytical reading and writing, practicing identifying setting, characters and conflict. By reading Charlotte’s Web, students dive deep into a classic text, interpreting the story through symbols and character development, and then craft their own narratives.
ELA 140: An Introduction to Mystery
Students foray into the mystery genre! By reading Westing Game, students identify clues, plot twists, infer character motives, and learn how authors build suspense. After defining key mystery elements, students create their own mini-mystery story inspired by the reading.
ELA 150: Exploring Identities Through Verse
Students explore how verse can be used for storytelling and autobiographical writing. By reading Inside Out and Back Again, students connect literary techniques to textual themes, and identify elements of character and plot development. After reading, students write poems reflecting on their own lives.
ELA 210: Dystopia and Imagining the Future
By reading The Giver, students think critically about how dystopia and fiction can help us understand the real world. Through reading, analysis, and writing, student connect what they read to historical context and personal experience, and explore how speculative writing poses questions about people and society.
ELA 220: Historical Lenses
By reading A Long Walk to Water, students think critically about how creative writing and fiction can help us understand real events in history. Through reading, analysis, and writing, students explore how stories bring history to life by exploring survival, resilience, and hope across cultures and time.
ELA 230: Sawyer and Satire
By reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, students think critically about how fiction and humor can be used as social commentary. Through reading, analysis, and writing, students consider moral development and individuality, and write reflective or analytical essays connecting text themes to modern society.
ELA 240: Exploring Science Fiction
By reading Ender’s Game, students think critically about how science fiction can be used to pose questions about power and morality. Through reading, analysis, and writing, students consider ethical dilemmas and symbolism, and write argumentative or creative pieces about technology and society.
ELA 250: Get a Clue: Advancing in the Genre of Mystery
Students study deductive reasoning, tone, and structure in mystery writing. By reading Sherlock Holmes and Auguste Dupin, students evaluate evidence and logic, and write analytical paragraphs or short mysteries using literary techniques.
ELA 310: Burning & Banning Books
Students analyze themes of censorship, conformity, and truth. By reading Fahrenheit 451, students identify and evaluate symbolism, and write critical essays or creative reflections about the power of literature and freedom of thought.
ELA 320: Shakespeare & Storytelling
Students study a classic play and playwright, exploring character motivation, conflict, and language. By reading Macbeth, students interpret figurative language and dramatic structure, and perform or write reflections connecting Shakespeare’s ideas to modern life.