Firefly Curriculum: 8th Grade Literature

Course Title: 8th Grade Literature: Conscience, Redemption, Courage, and Christian Discernment

Welcome to 8th Grade Literature! This course is to be used in conjunction with 8th Grade Writing and 8th Grade Grammar to provide a comprehensive 8th Grade Language Arts curriculum.

All Lessons have printable workbooks in the “Materials” tab. This course is the textbook, the printable workbook is the student book to apply the concepts in this course. This workbook includes answer keys and pacing instructions. 

Materials Needed: pencil, printable workbook. 

Course Description:
This 8th grade literature course helps students grow into mature readers, thoughtful writers, and discerning Christian thinkers. Students will study Shakespearean drama, classic Victorian fiction, Christian literary nonfiction, poetry, rhetoric, and media adaptation while learning to analyze theme development, complex characterization, symbolism, allusion, irony, rhetoric, point of view, structure, tone, and author’s purpose. Throughout the course, students will ask how literature reveals truth about human nature, sin, conscience, ambition, betrayal, repentance, redemption, providence, courage, suffering, forgiveness, and faithful obedience under Christ.

Recommended Anchor Texts:

1. Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

2. Silas Marner by George Eliot

3. The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom

Note on The Hiding Place:
This course uses the original version of The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom. Because the book deals honestly with World War II, Nazi persecution, imprisonment, concentration camp suffering, cruelty, death, and trauma, parental discretion is advised. Families may choose the Young Reader’s Edition if they prefer a gentler version for sensitive students.