Mrs. Jensen - ELA
Welcome to 8th grade ELA! You'll find a link to the syllabus below. As for curriculum, we will be using StudySync which is a new and incredible program that hits every ELA standard. It is completely online and has the capability of being extra-personalized for each student's unique needs. I am really looking forward to delving into this program with you! It is easy to use, straightforward, and engaging. I hope we see a lot of growth and spark a love of literature in all students this year!
About Our Classroom
About the Teacher
I was born and raised in Salt Lake City, UT, and I received my B.A. in English Literature from Southern Utah University. This will be my third year teaching 8th grade English, and I am looking forward to a wonderful school year with all of you.
Outside of teaching, I enjoy staying active by teaching High Fitness at Mountainside Fitness. I have also spent several years as a women's boxing instructor, which has been a rewarding experience. I love going to the movies, perusing bookstores, and everything Halloween.
On a personal note, I have been happily married for 20 years. My husband and I have lived in Utah, Colorado, Nevada, California, and Florida, but our home for the past 12 years has been Arizona. We have one sweet daughter, Gwen, who is going to be in 6th grade at Sonoran Foothills. I am excited to be a Bobcat with her, and to see her continue to grow and learn.
This school year is going to be great! I look forward to lots of learning and fun while helping each student achieve their best!
Book List
-
Ender's Game
by Orson Scott CardYear Published: 1994Students will read Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card during Quarter 1. There will be a classroom set available for students to use while in class, so purchasing a copy isn't necessary.
From Amazon:
In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut--young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.
Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers, Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.
Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If the world survives, that is.
Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards. -
Something Wicked This Way Comes
by Ray BradburyYear Published: 1962Students in Advanced ELA will read this novel during Quarter 2. There will be a class set available for students to use while in class. Because there is only one class using them, the books can be checked out in order for students to take them home as needed.
From Amazon:
For those who still dream and remember, for those yet to experience the hypnotic power of its dark poetry, step inside. The show is about to begin. Cooger & Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. The carnival rolls in sometime after midnight, ushering in Halloween a week early. A calliope’s shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. Two boys will discover the secret of its smoke, mazes, and mirrors; two friends who will soon know all too well the heavy cost of wishes…and the stuff of nightmares.
Few novels have endured in the heart and memory as has Ray Bradbury’s unparalleled literary masterpiece Something Wicked This Way Comes. Scary and suspenseful, it is a timeless classic in the American canon. -
To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper LeeYear Published: 1960In Quarter 3, all students will read To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. Because there are some sensitive topics addressed in this novel, alternate novels will be provided for those students and/or parents who choose not to read this particular text. Alternate novels will be provided at the beginning of Q3 for consideration. Copies of To Kill a Mockingbird will be available for students to use while in class.
From Amazon:
Voted America's Best-Loved Novel in PBS's The Great American Read
Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South—and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred
One of the most cherished stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father—a crusading local lawyer—risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.
-
The Book Thief
by Markus ZusakYear Published: 2007All classes will read The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak for Quarter 4. Copies of this novel will be available for use in class.
From Amazon:
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE’S 100 BEST YA BOOKS OF ALL TIME
The extraordinary, beloved novel about the ability of books to feed the soul even in the darkest of times.
When Death has a story to tell, you listen.
It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will become busier still.
Liesel Meminger is a foster girl living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement.
In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak, author of I Am the Messenger, has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.
“The kind of book that can be life-changing.” —The New York Times