Home Curriculum English Language Arts
Language Arts at Park Day focuses on empowering students to read, write, listen, speak, and debate their ideas. We strive to foster intellectually curious, independent thinkers who use literacy to make sense of the world. English Language Arts Curriculum Overview
Names
What is the first word most people learn to read and write? Their name, of course! In TK, students are motivated to learn to recognize and write their names so they know where to put their belongings, when it’s going to be their turn, what group they will be in, how to sign up to take a turn, and so much more. Teachers help students build phonological awareness, decoding, sight recognition as they support students in linking letters to sounds and sounds to parts of words, building facility with these critical literacy skills.
Writing the Room
Kindergartners become letter detectives by playing a game called “Writing the Room”. Students find letters and words hidden around their classroom and then practice writing them using their best handwriting and spacing. In literacy centers students play “just right” games to introduce phonemic awareness including sorting objects by beginning sounds, as well as tapping and blending CVC (consonant vowel consonant) words and then using them in differentiated writing assignments.
Community Cookbook
1st graders cook up their very own class cookbook! They study real recipes to see how ingredients, tools, and steps come together, then use sequencing words like first, next, then, and finally to guide their readers. After drafting, revising, illustrating, and testing their recipes, this project culminates in a class tasting and cookbook publishing party.
Mysteries in Our Universe
Students work in pairs to explore topics they are most curious about in a mini Project-Based Learning experience called Mysteries in Our Universe. After developing guiding questions, they gather information from books, online articles, and video clips, then organize their notes into clear paragraphs. They practice self-editing and revision before presenting their findings through slideshows and publishing their work in a class magazine.
Story Plays
Over the course of the school year, students craft stories with partners, incorporating peer feedback to develop engaging characters, clear narratives, and meaningful messages. Later, selected stories are transformed into plays, with students taking full ownership of the process including designing and crafting their own props, sets, and backdrops. These plays are performed for the entire lower school, staff, and families, showcasing their creativity and collaboration.
Brown Bag Essays
What three objects represent important parts of your identity? 4th graders explore this question through their Brown Bag Essays. Starting with a bag filled with three meaningful items, students practice narrative and creative writing, build their skills with planning tools, and craft classic five-paragraph essays. To complete the project, they illustrate their essays in hand-drawn triptychs, adding a personal artistic touch to their writing.
Magazine Project
Throughout the year, 5th graders develop their writing skills through a comprehensive magazine project on a topic of their choice. They explore editorial and persuasive writing, craft poetry, conduct interviews, write profiles, short stories, feature articles, and create advertisements. This project hones their drafting, revision, sequencing, organization, editing, proofreading, and research skills, culminating in a final magazine that showcases their growth as writers.
A Wish in the Dark
6th graders read A Wish in the Dark by Christina Soontornvat, a novel that deals with issues of privilege, protest, class, carceral systems, and justice set in a Thai-inspired fantasy world. After large and small group discussions to help guide abstract and representational thinking, students write a literary essay identifying motifs and themes, and create a project in the Innovation Workshop to visually represent that theme, and how it connects to their own world.
Media Literacy & Storytelling
Students delve into media literacy by analyzing various forms of media, from TikTok videos to advertisements. Through assignments that dissect content and production, they explore who creates media, the intended audience, its purpose, and identify missing voices and perspectives, sharpening their ability to distinguish reliable sources. Their final project, a podcast on a topic that matters to them, showcases these skills, with three students’ work featured in KQED’s Youth Media Staff Picks!
Mock Trial
Students read The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton and participate in a mock trial, using the novel as their anchor for evidence. Assigned roles in prosecution, defense, or unbiased positions, they collaborate to build cases with textual evidence. This project hones their essay-writing, evidence-citing, and persuasive argument skills, culminating in a dynamic experience that showcases their analytical abilities.
In Lower School, through direct and implicit instruction, students develop oral and written vocabulary, learn the decoding and encoding skills needed to construct meaning, and become practiced in how to best communicate their thoughts and ideas. Teachers take a structured literacy approach that places emphasis on phonological awareness with a systematic phonics approach using Fundations and leveled reading assessments along with other regularly scheduled formative and summative assessments. Writing occurs daily in the classroom through journaling, research reports, learning logs, persuasive paragraphs, descriptive paragraphs, and essay construction.
In Middle School, students engage in multiple types of literary analysis while flexing and improving their writing and persuasive skills. The curriculum is comprised of written responses to literature, character analysis exercises, expository writing, persuasive writing, creative short story, and more. Park Day’s progressive approach also includes mock trials, literary re-enactments, writers workshops, peer review, and the Harkness method for student led class discussions. Hands on projects that require students to dive deeply into the material and develop personal connections to it help spark creativity and connection.
Peer and teacher feedback plays a pivotal role and revising and editing is considered an integral part of the learning process. Throughout the grades, teachers use individual instruction, small discussion groups, individual instruction, small discussion groups, guided annotation strategies, and class activities. Students learn to respond emotionally and intellectually to what they read. Most importantly, they are encouraged to lose themselves in books, and find their passion on the journey to becoming lifelong readers.