The ultimate goal of Bay Shore Middle School’s English Language Arts program is to create lifelong readers and writers. The curriculum is designed to align with New York State Education Department’s core curriculum and NGLS. Instruction is tightly aligned to the content and context of the state’s benchmark exams. The program uses varied and active instructional strategies that invite students to experience the educational enjoyable powers of literature within a largely thematic approach that often includes a variety of genres. The program has been expanded to include an increased amount of non-fiction, a feature that aligns with the content with not only middle school assessments but also the commencement assessment, the English Regents, and the New SAT.
Students receive direct instruction on the use of reading strategies and engage in responsive reading, interpretation and literary analysis through encounters with a myriad of texts. Students are provided with opportunities to address specific skills through the use of “mini-lessons.” This framework allows students to develop comprehension, analytical, and vocabulary skills within the context of their literature study as well as to develop proficiency with key elements of the writing process, including grammar and usage. Students leave the middle school with a solid foundation in literacy, fully prepared to address the rigors of not only high school English but also with the requisite reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills needed in other content areas.