CORE KNOWLEDGE 7th GRADE CURRICULUM

All students are expected to read a book a week through the La Cumbre Accelerated Reader program. Students will learn the 7th grade standards in language arts and the 7th grade standards in social studies, which cover world history from medieval through early modern times—there is an intensive focus on writing and grammar across both disciplines. Students will also study the following:

Etymology and Expressions

  • Latin and Greek roots
  • Foreign Phrases (carpe diem, bona fides, ad hoc, etc.)

Novels

  • John Steinbeck - The Pearl
  • Robert Louis Stevenson - The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
  • Jack London - The Call of the Wild
  • Edmond Rostand - Cyrano de Bergerac

Poetry

  • William Blake - "The Chimney Sweeper"
  • Robert Burns - "Auld Lang Syne"
  • Countee Cullen - "Heritage"
  • Emily Dickinson - "Because I Could Not Stop for Death"
  • T.S. Eliot - "Macavity - the Mystery Cat"
  • Robert Frost - "Fire and Ice" and "Nothing Gold Can Stay"
  • Langston Hughes - "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," "Life Is Fine" and "Harlem"
  • Wilfred Owen - "Dulce et Decorum Est"
  • Edgar Alan Poe - "Annabel Lee"
  • Robert Service - "The Cremation of Sam McGee"
  • Alfred Lord Tennyson - "The Charge of the Light Brigade"
  • William Carlos Williams - "The Red Wheelbarrow" and "This Is Just to Say"

Short Stories, Essays, and Speeches

  • Guy de Maupassant - "The Necklace"
  • O. Henry - "The Gift of the Magi"
  • Edgar Alan Poe - "The Purloined Letter"
  • James Thurber - "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" and "The Night the Bed Fell"
  • George Orwell - "Shooting an Elephant" and "Declarationof War Against Japan"

History

  • American History (America becomes a world power through World War II)
  • The Russian Revolution

Geography (19th and 20th Century)

  • United States
  • Europe
  • Russia

7th grade Core Knowledge students take a one semester Core Knowledge Fine Arts class through the La Cumbre Art Department that focuses on the history of art and music, as well as art making and the creation of music. Students study art from the age of Impressionism through Modern Art in the 1940's. The music standards focus on Romantic Classical Music through the Jazz and Blues age. This class is backed by one semester of Core Knowledge Perfoming Arts or Band.

All 7th grade Core Knowledge students have the optional opportunity in the spring to spend twelve days in Italy and France experiencing the art, architecture, culture, and political heritage that they’ve been learning about at La Cumbre.