8th Grade Report Overview

The instructional materials for SpringBoard Grade 8 partially meet the expectations of alignment. The texts studied are rigorous and engaging for 8th grade students, providing a breadth of topics and themes for students to experience. Texts are high quality and organized so students have an opportunity to read, discuss, and write about different types and genres. Writing instruction spans the course of the school year and provides in-depth support for students to develop skills in writing different types of texts. Some questions and tasks are text-dependent and do require evidence from texts, but other questions do not, instead asking for students' opinions. Sequences of questions do not consistently support completion of rich culminating tasks that grow knowledge and allow students to demonstrate deep understanding of the texts. There is a structure to develop students' vocabulary, but words are not consistently used context and mostly are centered around literary and writing terms in service of writing exercises. Speaking and listening opportunities provide students much opportunity to practice different types of small group and oral presentation practice, but they do not consistently support students' building knowledge nor do they consistently connect to the texts that anchor each section.