Grade 7 · secular · Common Core-aligned
This is a full year of 7th grade English built around one question your child will keep answering in harder and harder situations: is this argument actually any good, and why? They start with short opinion pieces, move to a novel, then myths, poems, a play, and end the year writing their own research paper. The same four moves show up every single time — find the claim, check if the evidence actually backs it up, notice that other people see it differently and say why, and answer the other side instead of ignoring it. By June they should be able to pick up something they've never seen — a speech, a poem, a website — and do all four moves without being told to.
The whole year, in plain English. Tap any unit to see every skill inside, nothing is hidden.
This is where the vocabulary for the whole year gets built: claim, reason, evidence, counterclaim, and sufficiency (whether there's enough good evidence to actually support the claim). Your child learns one specific test for evidence — 'what would have to be different for this inference to be false?' — and practices it on short opinion texts before writing their own paragraph that answers an opposing view.
Given a short persuasive paragraph, students identify which sentence states the claim and which sentences function as reasons.
Students define claim, reason, evidence, counterclaim, and sufficiency using the class's working definitions, without notes.
Given a persuasive text with claim, reasons, and evidence marked, students judge whether the evidence is sufficient using relevance, amount, and credibility, and justify the judgment in writing.
Given an unfamiliar persuasive text with no criteria pre-marked, students locate the claim, trace its reasons and evidence, and evaluate sufficiency independently.
Students select the strongest textual evidence for a given inference by applying the filter question: what would have to be different if the inference were false.
Students compare two arguments that use overlapping evidence but reach different conclusions and explain why persuasiveness and logical sufficiency can diverge.
Students write an argumentative paragraph stating a claim and explicitly acknowledging one counterclaim, using evidence to respond to it.
Given a brand-new persuasive text in an unfamiliar domain (e.g., a historical speech never discussed in class), students evaluate whether its evidence is sufficient and identify what additional evidence would be needed.
Students propose what kind of new evidence would change their sufficiency judgment of an argument, generalizing the relevance/amount/credibility framework to a claim outside the persuasive-text genre entirely (e.g., a scientific or personal claim).
Two honest, fact-checked accounts of the same event can still tell different stories — because of what each writer chose to include, leave out, and how they worded it. Your child reads two real short nonfiction pieces on one event and figures out where they diverge and why, using Unit 1's vocabulary on a harder case: nobody's lying, they just chose differently.
Given a short review passage, students recall the definitions of claim, evidence, and sufficiency from Unit 1 with at least 80% accuracy on a warm-up quiz.
Students distinguish an author's point of view from an author's purpose when given a single nonfiction paragraph.
Students explain how a specific word choice in a nonfiction text reveals the author's point of view, citing the sentence and naming the effect of that choice.
Given two public-domain nonfiction texts on the same event, students compare the facts each author selected to include or omit and infer how that selection shapes point of view.
Students apply the Unit 1 sufficiency filter question to evaluate whether each side's evidence would survive if the opposing side's strongest fact were true.
Given a text pair with no factual errors in either, students infer that disagreement must come from selection and framing rather than accuracy, and generate that explanation without being told it.
Students critique a peer's draft counterclaim paragraph, judging whether it names the opposing side's strongest point or a weak version of it.
Students produce a comparative analysis essay on two novel public-domain texts, stating their own claim and acknowledging the strongest point from the rejected side.
Your child reads a full novel, chapter by chapter with discussion in between, and tracks one narrator's point of view across the whole book instead of one paragraph. They use Unit 1's inference test to argue what a character's real motive is at a key turning point, even when the book never says so directly.
Given two passages from the novel, students identify whether the narrator is first-person or third-person limited and name one textual signal.
Students explain how the narrator's limited access to other characters' thoughts affects which causes of an event the reader is shown.
Using the 'what would have to be different' filter, students select the strongest textual evidence for a character's motive at a given turning point from two competing quotes.
Students trace how a specific character's stated or implied point of view changes across three assigned chapters, citing one passage per chapter.
Students infer a character's strongest motive at a turning point neither explicitly discussed in class nor covered by teacher-modeled examples.
Students generalize the 'narrator leaves things out' principle to argue what a different, untaught novel's narrator likely omits, based on a short unseen excerpt.
Students write a counterclaim paragraph addressing one plausible alternative motive and rebut it using textual evidence, following the essay's required structure.
Students recall the definitions of 'claim,' 'evidence,' 'counterclaim,' and 'sufficiency' from Unit 1 without reference to notes.
Students critique a peer's motive claim by identifying whether the cited evidence would survive the 'what would have to be different' filter.
Myths are old and symbolic — 'the facts' in a myth are really a culture's values, not literal events. Your child learns archetype words (trickster, hero, hubris, nemesis) and compares two tellings of the same myth to figure out what each culture's version protects or cares about. They also look at similar patterns across unrelated cultures and resist the urge to assume one culture copied another.
Given a single myth, students identify the specific sentence(s) whose presence signals the archetype pattern (trickster, hero, hubris/nemesis) at work.
Students state the correct definition of hubris, nemesis, and one word built from -log- or -path-, using the root's contribution to meaning.
Given two tellings of the same myth, students compare how each version resolves the central conflict and identify the specific detail that differs.
Students explain what a specific difference between two tellings of a myth reveals about each culture's values, connecting the textual detail to the value it protects.
Given an archetype pattern found in three unrelated cultures' myths, students generate at least two possible explanations for why the pattern recurs, beyond 'one culture copied another.'
Students critique a classmate's claim that a myth's theme is universal by pointing to a cultural detail the claim ignores.
Given an unfamiliar myth from a culture not studied in this unit, students infer one likely cultural value using the archetype and detail-difference reasoning taught with studied myths.
Students plan a comparative essay by organizing textual evidence from both tellings under a stated claim about cultural values, including a counterclaim paragraph that addresses the strongest objection with evidence.
Students produce a complete comparative essay draft analyzing how two tellings of a myth differ in point of view and what that reveals about cultural values.
A poem's speaker has a point of view too, and the poem's structure (line breaks, stanza breaks, form) and figurative language are evidence for that stance — not just decoration. Your child learns to tell the speaker apart from the poet, and to argue what a speaker's stance is using specific lines as proof, including comparing two poems that take opposite stances on a similar subject.
Given a poem with a clear persona, students distinguish the speaker from the poet and cite the specific line that makes the two non-identical.
Students identify at least two structural choices (line break, stanza break, or form) in a given poem and state the literal effect each has on pacing or emphasis.
Given the exact structural terms and the exact poem used in the Day 1-3 worked examples, students apply the modeled three-step reasoning chain (identify choice, state literal effect, name it as evidence) to produce the speaker's stance, reproducing the taught routine step by step.
Students infer a speaker's stance toward the poem's subject from a specific structural choice, explaining why the opposite structural choice would suggest a different stance.
Students infer a speaker's stance from a figurative-language detail (metaphor, personification, or connotation) and justify the inference using the strongest available line, rejecting a weaker line that merely mentions the same image.
Given two poems on a related theme, students compare the two speakers' stances and explain that the difference is a choice about what to notice, not a factual disagreement.
Students write a counterclaim paragraph that names an alternative reading of specific lines, addresses it directly, and rebuts it using textual evidence, meeting this unit's raised bar over Unit 1's 'name it' standard.
Given an unfamiliar poem never discussed in class, students determine the speaker's stance and defend it using structural and figurative evidence without teacher scaffolding.
Students generalize the claim that structure functions as evidence for inference beyond poetry, predicting how the same filter question would apply to a genre not yet studied in this course (e.g., a staged play's line delivery).
A play has no narrator to explain anything — dialogue and stage directions are the only evidence your child gets for what a character wants. They apply the same inference test from Unit 1 to a protagonist-versus-antagonist conflict, learn dramatic irony (when the audience knows something a character doesn't), and compare a filmed or staged version of a scene to the written script to see how a director's choices change what a viewer thinks about a character.
Given a two-line stage direction and a line of dialogue from an unread scene of the assigned play, state what each contributes as evidence, without conflating the two.
Label the character header, one stage direction, and one line of dialogue on a single unmarked script page, matching each to its correct category.
Apply the Unit 1 inference filter question ('what would have to be different for this inference to be false?') to a character's line of dialogue to test a proposed motive, in a scene read together in class.
Distinguish the protagonist's point of view from the antagonist's point of view in a central conflict of the play, citing at least one line from each character that reveals what each treats as important.
Explain what a moment of dramatic irony reveals to the audience that a specific character does not know, naming the exact information gap.
Compare a filmed or staged version of a scene to its script, identifying at least one detail present in the production but absent from the script, and explain how that choice changes a viewer's read on a character's motive.
Given a conflict and character pair the class has never analyzed together, argue in writing which character's motive is more justified, using one piece of dialogue evidence that passes the inference filter and one that does not, explaining the difference.
Write a counterclaim rebuttal paragraph, within the summative essay, that answers the opposing character's strongest justification with a specific line of dialogue rather than only naming the objection.
Given a new short script excerpt from an unfamiliar play, generalize the inference-filter and dialogue-evidence method to identify a character's likely motive without teacher scaffolding.
Up to now your child has judged whether an argument's evidence is good. Now they judge whether the SOURCE carrying that evidence can be trusted — using four checks: who's behind it and what qualifies them, how recent it needs to be, whether a second source actually confirms it or just repeats it, and whether it's a first-hand or second-hand account. They also learn that judging one source and judging a whole set of sources together are two different jobs.
Given a single source, students state who the author or publisher is and what credential or role qualifies them to make this specific claim.
Students classify a given source as primary or secondary based on the source's relationship to the event or claim it describes.
Students explain why a source's currency (how recent it is) matters or does not matter for a specific claim, distinguishing claims where recency changes reliability from claims where it does not.
Given two sources making the same factual claim, students determine whether the second source corroborates the first or merely repeats/cites it without independent verification.
Students synthesize information about one research question drawn from a text, a data chart, and an audio transcript into a single written summary of what is known and disputed.
Students apply the Unit 1 sufficiency filter question to a set of three or more sources, judging whether the set together gives enough evidence to justify a claim, not whether any single source does.
Given four sources on a shared research question that partially disagree, students rank the sources by credibility and justify each ranking decision in writing using authority, currency, and corroboration vocabulary precisely.
Given a brand-new research question and two brand-new sources never seen in this unit, students independently identify which credibility criterion is most in doubt and explain what additional information would resolve that doubt.
Students generalize the authority-currency-corroboration framework to evaluate a non-text source type not explicitly taught, such as a podcast episode or an infographic, and justify their adapted criteria.
Students recall the definitions of sufficiency and counterclaim from Unit 1 accurately when prompted at the opening of Day 1.
This is the year's final project: a research paper with a claim that could genuinely be argued either way, evidence pulled from at least three credible sources, and a counterclaim your child actually rebuts with evidence rather than just names. New skills here are limited to what hasn't been taught yet — picking a real debatable question, paraphrasing with proper attribution, avoiding plagiarism, and weaving three sources into one argument instead of summarizing them one at a time.
Given a topic, formulate a research question that a credible source-based argument could genuinely dispute, distinguishing it from a settled-fact question.
Apply lateral reading (checking an organization's identity and funding outside the source page itself) to judge whether a given source is credible for a specific claim.
Paraphrase a source sentence in original wording and attach correct in-text attribution, distinguishing this from plagiarized restatement.
Judge whether a set of three sources is sufficient evidence for a claim by identifying whether each source contributes distinct evidence or merely repeats another.
Synthesize evidence from three sources into a single paragraph organized around the claim rather than organized source-by-source.
Given a claim and its strongest counterclaim, write a rebuttal that cites specific evidence responding to the counterclaim's actual reasoning, not merely restating disagreement.
Given two real, previously unseen sources that disagree on a topic outside their own research question, infer what evidence would constitute a fair test of the disagreement.
Given a professionally published op-ed never discussed in class, identify how the author acknowledges and responds to a counterclaim, and compare that move to the student's own draft.
Recall the definitions of claim, evidence, counterclaim, and sufficiency from Unit 1 with correct usage in a new sentence.
Evaluate whether a peer's counterclaim paragraph names, addresses, or rebuts with evidence, citing the specific sentence that supports the judgment.
From the parent guide
This is a full year of 7th grade English built around one question your child will keep answering in harder and harder situations: is this argument actually any good, and why? They start with short opinion pieces, move to a novel, then myths, poems, a play, and end the year writing their own research paper. The same four moves show up every single time — find the claim, check if the evidence actually backs it up, notice that other people see it differently and say why, and answer the other side instead of ignoring it. By June they should be able to pick up something they've never seen — a speech, a poem, a website — and do all four moves without being told to.
Unit 1 · what to expect
This is where the vocabulary for the whole year gets built: claim, reason, evidence, counterclaim, and sufficiency (whether there's enough good evidence to actually support the claim). Your child learns one specific test for evidence — 'what would have to be different for this inference to be false?' — and practices it on short opinion texts before writing their own paragraph that answers an opposing view.
The full guide covers all 8 units: where kids get stuck, what to say, and how to tell it's working. Included with the course.
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