Humanities
PROGRAM OVERVIEW
Del Mar Middle School students are provided with a myriad of opportunities to refine their knowledge and develop their skills. Literate and well-spoken students are cultivated through trans-disciplinary approaches that address the California College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards. Through common planning and professional development, teachers use current instructional trends and relevant student data to identify teacher and student needs, resulting in thoughtful instructional practices.
Reading Curriculum Overview
Students will continue to develop literacy skills through the integration of reading, writing, listening, speaking, language, and vocabulary practice. Instruction is aligned with California’s Common Core State Standards. Students will read and analyze a wide variety of literary texts and informational texts.
Writing Curriculum Overview
The Del Mar Middle School writing program emphasizes organization and idea development as students work on expressing their ideas and unique voice with ever-increasing clarity, creativity, and complexity. Students write fluently and productively in various contexts, in different genres, and for a variety of audiences and purposes throughout their middle school years. Del Mar students also use writing to think and learn (e.g., writing in the content areas), respond to reading (e.g., use of written summaries, writing comprehension questions for class discussion), and research and build knowledge (e.g., research projects and data gathering). Students will write narrative, informative, and argumentative pieces.
Social Studies Curriculum Overview
In Middle School, a wide variety of resources are used to help students master the California State Standards for Social Studies. There is a focus on the interaction between culture and geography. Students will learn about the development of laws and governments by analyzing and critiquing historical documents from various time periods. As students move through middle school, more specific content is studied and thinking and learning skills are developed in order to try and ensure that students are engaged citizens and are prepared for the academic rigor of high school.
Common Core Standards
The Del Mar English and History Departments have upgraded curriculum and instruction to adhere to the Common Core standards. Key ELA shifts as delineated by the Common Core include 1.) regular practice with complex texts and their language 2.) reading, writing, and speaking grounded in evidence from the text, both literary and informational 3) building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction. A premium is placed on cross-curricular assessments and projects that make use of both English and history class time and resources.
21st Century Learning
As a school with 1-1 iPad technology access, the Humanities department designs learning experiences and summative assessments with technology as a key component. Students are provided instruction using a wide variety of current technology applications. Additionally, students demonstrate their knowledge through a variety of media. These opportunities to develop multimedia presentations transform how writing and the writing process occurs for authentic audiences while using 21st Century tools.