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ELA Core 7th Grade
Course Overview
The Grade 7 Core ELA course deepens the middle school progression (Self → Belonging → Systems) by asking students to look beyond their own experience and witness the lives, histories, and struggles of others. Students examine how identity is shaped by social class, cultural memory, economic opportunity, and biological connection and begin to develop the civic awareness and analytical voice needed to analyze fairness and argue effectively. At the heart of the course is a central question: How do we learn to see beyond our own experience and what do we do with what we witness?
Key Focus
Building connections, historical understanding, and argumentative reasoning through texts that explore belonging, barriers, and the many threads both cultural and biological that shape who we become.
Arcs of inquiry
Where do I belong? Which stories have been widely shared, which are less known, and what does it mean to understand someone else's story?
Unit 1: Belonging & Identity: Social Life, Empathy & Perspective
Duration: 9 weeks
Knowledge-Building Topic
Youth, Identity, and Belonging: How social class, peer groups, empathy, and chosen family shape who we are and how we relate to the world.
Essential Questions
Investigation 1: How do relationships and communities shape a person's sense of belonging and identity?
Investigation 2: What helps people navigate social differences and see from one another’s perspectives?
Unit 2: Witness, Testimony & Argument: Reading the Historical Record
Duration: 9 weeks
Knowledge-Building Topic
Japanese Internment and the Historical Record: How historical events are recorded through testimony, images, and witness accounts—and how readers evaluate sources for accuracy, perspective, and purpose.
Essential Questions
Investigation 1: How do historical records (texts, images, and testimony) shape what is remembered about the past?
Investigation 2: How can readers evaluate words and images for accuracy, perspective, and ethical use?
Unit 3: Dreams & Barriers: Researching Opportunity in America
Duration: 9 weeks
Knowledge-Building Topic
The American Dream and Modern Opportunity: How housing segregation, historical forces, and evidence-based inquiry reveal the complexity of the American promise.
Essential Questions
Investigation 1: How do our dreams shape who we are, and how do historical circumstances shape what becomes possible?
Investigation 2: How can understanding the experiences of others help us think critically about fairness and opportunity?
Unit 4: Connections that Shape Us: Family, Culture & Identity
Duration: 9 weeks
Knowledge-Building Topic
Connections of Blood and Culture: How biological ties and cultural heritage shape identity—and what it means to belong to more than one community or world.
Essential Questions
Investigation 1: What is blood, and how does it work as a symbol of both family ties and our shared humanity?
Investigation 2: What is culture, and how does it shape our identity and sense of belonging especially when we move between more than one world?
