META24 CORE · PROJECT-BASED · ENGLISH · MIDDLE SCHOOL · GRADE 7 · 1 CREDIT · CCSS ELA
English 7 · The Writer’s Floor
Read like a writer: the moves a story makes, the devices that make them, and the argument underneath. Write from the cold open, shoot it, and take the first position in the Seminar.
THE MIX · HOW MUCH OF EACH CORE SUBJECT THIS COURSE CARRIES · IN ORDER
READING & WRITINGHISTORY, GEOGRAPHY & HUMANITIESART & DESIGNTECHNOLOGY & TRADES
The squares are a picture of a course — how much of each core subject its own rooms carry, read from the rooms’ text — never a score of a student. Every course in a lab is graded to the core across the board; the squares say which columns it feeds most.
WHAT YOU WILL BE ABLE TO DO
- Trace a device across a whole story and say what it does to the reader
- Write the rest of a story from a cold open, in the story’s voice, with the beats held
- Read a primary source for who wrote it and why, and write the case it supports
- Take a position in a seminar, cite the text, and change your mind when the text says so
AT A GLANCE · 36 WEEKS
Q1 The cold open · The Last Meal — Write the rest, then shoot it
Q2 Four hundred candles · The Last Good Batch — The counter scene
Q3 The Record · reading history as a reader — THE CASE · sugar
Q4 The Seminar · a position, the split — The position paper
Semester 1
WEEKS 1–18 · QUARTERS 1 AND 2The cold open · The Last Meal
WEEKS 1–9 · IN THIS OFFERINGTHE WEEKS · THE ROOMS EACH ONE OPENS
WK 1–4Eight investors rent your cafeteria
Read the cold open; map the wants and the obstacles.
WK 5–6Between the lines
Inference as a written move.
WK 7–9The script
The rest of the story written as a script, scene by scene.
THE PROJECT · WHAT THE QUARTER IS FOR
Write the rest, then shoot it
The question. What do the investors want that the cold open never says?
The make. The rest of The Last Meal as a script, the room cast, one scene shot
The evidence. The script and the scene (link), handed in through The Last Meal
RL.7.3RL.7.6W.7.3W.7.4SL.7.5
Four hundred candles · The Last Good Batch
WEEKS 10–18 · IN THIS OFFERINGTHE WEEKS · THE ROOMS EACH ONE OPENS
WK 10–13Three weeks, thirty seconds at the counter
A story about making and selling, read for its turns.
WK 14–15The device hunt
Ship-Trap at a higher rung: the devices you missed the first time.
WK 16–18The Lyric Lab
The devices in the song that gets you through.
THE PROJECT · WHAT THE QUARTER IS FOR
The counter scene
The question. What does thirty seconds at a counter cost a person — and how do you show it?
The make. One scene rewritten from the other character’s point of view, with the device changes marked
The evidence. The scene and the device sheet, handed in through The Last Good Batch
RL.7.2RL.7.4RL.7.6W.7.3W.7.10
Semester 2
WEEKS 19–36 · QUARTERS 3 AND 4The Record · reading history as a reader
WEEKS 19–27THE WEEKS · THE ROOMS EACH ONE OPENS
WK 19–22The History of Sugar · sources 1–3
A visitor, a captive, a Parliament: who wrote it, when, and what they wanted.
WK 23–25Sources 4–5 · the map, the line, the ledger
A pamphlet and a queen; the map traced, the line ordered, the ledger worked.
WK 26–27The case
A claim that one source carries, written and defended.
THE PROJECT · WHAT THE QUARTER IS FOR
THE CASE · sugar
The question. What does a 1791 pamphlet have to do with an 1893 queen?
The make. A written case with a claim, two sources cited by line, and the strongest objection answered
The evidence. THE CASE, handed in through The Record
RI.7.1RI.7.6RI.7.8W.7.1W.7.9
The Seminar · a position, the split
WEEKS 28–36THE WEEKS · THE ROOMS EACH ONE OPENS
WK 28–29Sparks
Questions with two honest sides.
WK 30–33The Seminar
A position taken, the text cited, the room split and counted.
WK 34–36MZUZI · Story 2
Predict, cast, seven beats, Scene 1 — at the seventh-grade rung.
THE PROJECT · WHAT THE QUARTER IS FOR
The position paper
The question. What do you believe about this — and which line in the text made you?
The make. A position paper with the text cited, the counter-position stated fairly, and the moment you changed your mind (or did not)
The evidence. The paper, handed in through the Seminar and kept in My Work
W.7.1W.7.2SL.7.1SL.7.3SL.7.4
A course is a quarter, a semester or a year — nine, eighteen or thirty-six weeks — a project a quarter. Offered as the year, a semester or a quarter, it is the same course seen through a window. A lab is a family: its year, each of its tracks as a course, and its rooms. The evidence is what a student hands in through the room; the Report reads it from there. Nothing in the catalog is a grade.
THE PASS · THIS COURSE AND EVERY OTHER ONE
One pass includes English 7 · The Writer’s Floor and every course in the catalog. Pick a pass, or enter a school code; checkout stays on this page.