English Aims for the Year develop reading and understanding skills develop speaking and listening skills develop writing skills, making drafting and essential part of the process encourage a critical attitude to what is heard, seen or read build on the key skills acquired in Year 7 on word and sentence level work What we will do prose -post and pre 1914 one play eg Shakespeare poetry, including poems from other cultures media and internet research various non-literary texts narrative, personal and letter writing a discursive essay knowledge about language ICT revision of key skills Assessment continuous classroom assessment regular marking of homework self-assessment – termly year 8 examination Ways you can help ensure that the pupil has a dictionary and thesaurus revise spellings with pupils and play word games (Scrabble, crosswords) encourage reading for pleasure; any kinds of text are useful e.g newspapers, non-fiction, the internet read and discuss the literature the pupil is studying take the pupil to the library, theatre, cinema Keywords argument definite necessary weird beginning disappoint separate business environment weight