Green Acres School

In early adolescence, the parts of the brain that control emotion and judgment develop more quickly than at any other time. Students between 10 and 14 easily find connections between the literature they read and their own lives.

The Middle School curriculum responds to these developments in the brain with increasingly challenging reading and writing projects. For example, in fifth grade, students use their growing understanding of personal interactions to make predictions about characters in novels set during the American Revolution. While reading My Brother Sam Is Dead, students use emerging understanding of the perpsectives of others as they debate competing loyalties between family and principles such as fairness and loyalty.

Sixth grade students spend part of the year reading The Giver, a story which challenges them to consider the values dictated by Utopian societies. Responding to the emerging ability to learn from literature on multiple levels, students write their own tall tales, and reflect not only on simple lessons, such as “always tell the truth,” but on more complex questions of morality, such as potential conflicts between taking responsibility for one’s own actions and helping others who struggle to make their own good decisions.

In seventh grade, students read S.E. Hinton’s classic The Outsiders to consider themes of friendship, loyalty, and conflicting morality. They move through the year in our Geography and Literature class by examining the ways geography, topography, and literature intersect to influence American culture and several others around the world.

Eighth graders complete a variety of more sophisticated projects, from developing, writing, editing, and publishing their own magazines to writing multichapter memoirs — a creative way for students to reflect on their experiences and accomplishments as they prepare for the transition to high school.

In Language Arts, Middle School students increase their competence and independence in speaking, listening, reading, and writing. They expand their capacity for deep thinking about all aspects of language. They develop the willingness and ability to consider ideas different from their own. As a result, Green Acres graduates earn consistent accolades from high school teachers, and they feel prepared to tackle the most demanding literature and ideas in the years to come.