Welcome to 8th grade English!  

I look forward to working with you this year in English.  I have heard many good things about you from your teachers last year, so I am eager to get to know you myself.  I hope you will enjoy the things we will be doing, but most of all I hope you will make a lot of progress in your education.  This year will give you an opportunity to develop skills and attitudes that will help you succeed in high school and in life.

English is a tool we use all the time: it's our language and we use it to share thoughts and ideas.  With this in mind, I am sure you want to learn how to use it to the best of your ability.  As your teacher, I promise to help you learn as much as you're able.  We will be spending our time doing different types of writing (including narrative, informative, response to literature, and argument), reading and analyzing both fiction and nonfiction (including novels like Animal Farm and The Outsiders, as well as Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream), strengthening the foundations of grammar and spelling, and expanding vocabularies.