Eighth Grade

Students with science goggles examining rocks

Confident, Capable, Empathic, and Compassionate Human Beings

Eighth grade is a year of preparation as students get ready for the transition to high school. Students think critically and delve deeper into their worldview as they evolve from an observer of the world to a participant. As leaders of Westside’s Middle School, students focus on self-reflection, empathy, connection to one another, and legacy. Students are stretched to look inward in order to identify and pursue their passions and to explore many subjects that will shape who they are.

Students engage in transformational experiences in the classroom and in the community in order to grapple with tough problems, learn through service, and apply what they have experienced to create real-world solutions now and in the future. Also pushed to look outward, students explore questions like “how can I come to embrace, not just tolerate, what makes others different from me?”, “how can I lift others up, and make their experience a better one?” and “how can I critically question the world around me?” The end result is graduates that are confident, capable, empathic, and compassionate human beings.

LANGUAGE ARTS

8th grade Language Arts is devoted to helping students investigate, write, and share about themselves before they embark on their journey into high school. The overarching themes of “who am I, where do I fit in the world, and what do I believe?” connect units that stretch from memoir writing to analyzing books like The Hate U Give.

Later in the year students will examine propaganda (in conjunction with a social studies unit), join book clubs, complete research projects, read and write epic poetry, watch and perform spoken word poetry, and finish with an adaptation unit that focuses on scriptwriting and filmmaking.

LIFE SKILLS: LEADERSHIP

Leadership is a life skills course with a particular lens of leadership and eighth graders transition to High School. Students examine neurodiversity and executive functioning while preparing for more rigorous and structured study habits and routines. During Trimester 2 our students collectively read a novel on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and their role in society to use their voice for systemic change on a number of social justice issues. Students end their year with a Health course focused on body positivity, consent, the influences of drugs and alcohol, their digital footprint, and safe sexual health.

SOCIAL STUDIES

Eighth grade Social Studies will challenge students to understand the history of our country, and to make connections between the legacies of the past, the challenges of today, and the possibilities of tomorrow. Specifically, we use context to interpret events of the past and remember that history does not occur within a bubble.

We begin by looking at American expansion and imperialism in the late 19th century and the aggressive push to industrialize, even at the cost of workers’ health and safety. We transition into examining both world wars and the periods right before each. Within this unit, students learn about different social and economic systems, forms of propaganda that were used, and the dangerous rise of nationalism and extremism that drove the world to war.

Finally, we look at more modern times of revolution and change. The focus begins in the postwar era of civil rights movements and the Cold War, followed by the revolutionary actions of activists, citizens, and governments during the sixties.

We focus on hearing a diverse range of voices and constantly make relevant connections to current events as we unpack the positive and negative events of the past.

MATH

Three girls putting quarters on a paper bridge.

In eighth grade, students will take either Algebra 1 or Math 8.

Algebra 1 is a high school-oriented course which covers the following topics: Expressions and Equations, Linear Equations and their Graphs, Slope and Rates of Change, Functions, Exponents and Radicals, Polynomials and Quadratics. Algebra 1 allows students to understand linear vs. nonlinear change in the real world and represent those changes by creating equations and graphs.

Math 8 is a traditional course that covers the following topics: Real Numbers, Algebraic Expressions, Equations & Inequalities, Ratio, Proportion & Percent, Functions, Graphs & Linear Equations, Systems of Equations, Geometry, Measurement, Probability & Statistics.

SCIENCE

In the fall, the focus of science is chemistry and students explore the periodic table, elements, properties of materials, molecules, compounds, and investigate the life cycle of computers. In the winter, the students conduct an independent research project and share their findings at the Science Fair. In the spring, we end the year with an investigation into genetics. Students learn about DNA, recessive and dominant traits, mutations, evolution, and how to use a Punnett square.