Grade 8 Classical Standards

Cathedral School of St Mary

 

History

Knowledge

• Understand the Incarnation as the decisive act of God in history

• Appreciate how the coming of Christ transforms history

• Understand the history of America in the context of Catholic and world history

• Understand how the respective time periods pursue and express truth, goodness, and beauty

• Know how Christianity has shaped the world and how the expansion of Christianity has brought increasing liberty, reason, and culture 8.3B, 8.24A&B

• Understand how American ideals are reflected in the way we practice religion and in our philosophy, government, economics, art, architecture, music, and technology 8.26A-C

  • Some important cultural contributions/artifacts: Hudson River School artists, John James Audubon, “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” “America the Beautiful,” transcendentalism

  • Recognize major American landmarks 8.10A-C

• Identify key figures, eras, and events in American and Texas history 7.1A&C, 8.1A&C

• Identify reasons for European exploration and colonization of North America and major American Indian tribes they encountered 8.2A&B, 7.2A&B

• Understand causes, events, and figures of the Revolutionary War 8.4A-C

• Understand major challenges faced by the new republic (i.e., national security, stable economic system, court system, central government, taxation, banking system) 8.5A-G

• Understand westward expansion and its effects on the political, economic, ad social development of the U.S and Texas 7.6A-D, 8.6A-E

• Trace events that led to the Texas Revolution

• Explain causes, events, and figures of the Civil War and Reconstruction 8.7A-D, 8.8A-C, 8.9A-D, 7.5A-C, 8.17B, 7.4C

• Understand the impact of landmark Supreme Court cases, including Marbury v Madison, McCulloch v Maryland, Gibbons v Ogden, and Dred Scott v Sandford 8.18A-C

• Explain the impact of religion (esp missions in California and Texas and the Great Awakenings) and major social reform movements (such as abolitionism, temperance, women’s rights, prison and labor reform) on the American way of life 7.2C, 8.24A&B, 8.25A-C, 7.7C-D

• Identify major events in the 20th century, including the growth of the oil and gas industry, the Great Depression, the World Wars, and the Civil Rights Movement 5.5A-C, 4.5A, 7.7E-F

• Trace growth of limited representative government, the separation of powers, and popular sovereignty during the colonial period, through the Articles of Confederation and the Declaration of Independence, and culminating in the U S Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and additional Amendments (esp 13th, 14th, 15th, and 19th) 8.3A&B, 8.4D&E, 8.15A-D, 8.16A&B, 8.17A, 8.19A&B, 8.22B

• Compare/contrast U.S and Texas Constitutions 7.14A&B

• Identify regional economic differences in the U.S and in Texas, and economic reasons for slavery, industrialization, and urbanization 4.5A, 7.12A-C, 8.12A-D, 8.13A&B, 8.27D, 8.28B, 5.5A-C, 4.5A

• Explain the benefits of the free enterprise system and the interdependence of markets; also, understand the importance of morality and ethics in maintaining a functional free enterprise system 8.14A&B, 6.9B-D, 7.13B

• Understand how the lives of the saints and political leaders shaped the respective historical periods within which they lived 8.20A-C, 8.22A&B

• Understand the historical and philosophical roots of modern materialist atheism

• Understand key technological developments of the different historical periods (esp developments in transportation, communication, and mass production) 8.27A-D, 8.28A&B

• Recognize basic geography of the U.S and Texas and how it influenced settlement patterns and was modified by settlers 8.11A-C, 7.2F

• Recognize major periods of history by using timelines 8.1B

• Acquire familiarity with primary sources foundational to American history, including the Mayflower Compact, Washington’s Farewell Address, Lincoln’s First and Second Inaugural Addresses, the Gettysburg Address, the Federalist Papers, and selected Anti-Federalist writings 8.3B, 8.5E, 8.8C

 

Skills

• Acquire facility in reading primary and secondary sources of various kinds and from different points of view 8.21A-C, 8.29A, ELA8.12E

• Conduct process-oriented research into historical events and/or figures and produce grammatically-correct written and oral presentations with a Works Cited page or bibliography 8.29A-J, 8.30A-D, ELA8.8D(i-iii), ELA.11B, ELA8.12A-J

• Discuss philosophical and theological questions which arise from history

• Recognize correlation between “secular” history and Biblical/Church history

• Explain causes and effects of historical events 8.2, 8.4A, 8.5D, 8.6D, 8.7B&D, 8.8B, 8.9D

• Compare, contrast, and explain the essential characteristics of cultures, governments, and figures in different historical periods

• Think and write imaginatively from within the mindset of different historical periods

• Analyze the importance of significant new ideas as they emerge in history

• Memorize significant dates and be able to build timelines from them 7.1C, 8.1C

• Use problem-solving and decision-making skills 8.31A&B

 

Aptitudes

• Deepen appreciation of history as an expression of man’s desire for God and his pursuit of goodness, truth, and beauty

• Evaluate world events and historical characters from a Catholic perspective

• Draw on past ideas to evaluate present assumptions and deepen self-knowledge.

• Appreciate the beauty of saints and the integrity and courage of leaders and heroes, religious and political 8.20A-C, 8.22A&B

• Develop a desire to be both a good citizen (with all its rights and responsibilities) and a faithful Catholic 8.19C-F

• Develop a sense of inquiry 8.29A-J

• Develop a comprehensive and ordered sense of the world

• Cultivate a desire for wisdom

 

Religion

 

Knowledge

• Know that God made us for Himself and that our hearts are restless until they rest in Him

• Understand history as oriented to Christ before his Incarnation and flowing from Christ after his Incarnation

• Know the major moments of salvation history from creation to the modern day

• Recognize the competing claims about God (or the gods) offered by pagans and philosophers and how the Christian understanding of God is radically different

• Recognize how Christianity transforms the classical inheritance

• Recognize how the Christian culture of the Middle Ages is reflected in art, music, architecture, literature, the liturgical calendar, the structure of cities, organization of labor, and the code of chivalry; and how this is transformed in the Modern period

• Recognize relevance of Christian faith and teachings of Christ to fundamental human questions and aspirations that have animated every culture

• Begin to understand how the Trinity and Incarnation reveal both God and man

• Know the teachings of select books of the Bible

• Begin to know the theological tradition

• Begin to understand the art of apologetics and how the teachings of the Church flow from the truth about God and man

• Begin to understand the claims of the Protestant Reformers, modern atheists, and moral relativists and how the Catholic Church defends the truth in the face of these claims

• Begin to understand the Mass: its structure, its meaning, and its place in God’s plan for the world

• Understand the basic teachings on the Sacraments, especially Confirmation

• Begin to understand and appreciate that a person is a unity of body and soul, created in God’s love and called to love and truth, and thus to understand the true personal meaning of their own bodies

• Begin to understand how the Christian vision of love and Catholic sexual morality flow from the truth about God and man

 

Skills

• Give more advanced theological explanations of Church doctrine

• Defend the tenets of the faith against heresy and atheism, as well as the major moral teachings against confusion

• Begin to think theologically

• Memorize Scripture and scriptural arguments

 

Aptitudes

• Cultivate and reflect on longing for God

• Deepen the habit of contemplative prayer

• Deepen the familiarity with and participation in the liturgical life of the Church

• Deepen appreciation of silence

• Examine conscience, go to Confession, “offer up” sacrifices

• Strengthen the conscience so that they begin to love God’s will and wish to avoid sin

• Heed the double commandment to love God and neighbor

• Cultivate friendships based on virtue

 

Art

 

Knowledge

• Begin to understand how truth is expressed in the beauty of art

• Understand the significance of the Christian contribution to art and how art reveals the depth of the Christian mystery

• Compare and contrast pagan and Christian art, and how Christians incorporate or transform pagan themes in their art 8.2D, 8.3A-C

• Appreciate the development of art in its historical, philosophical, and stylistic dimensions 8.1A

• Give more complex explanations and interpretations of works of art 8.1D, 8.4A&B

• Understand how art is the expression of a culture’s desire for truth, goodness, and beauty 8.3C

• Continue rendering

• Deepen understanding of the elements of a work of art: shape, line, color, texture, form, space, and value 8.1B

• Deepen understanding of the principles of design: emphasis, repetition/pattern, movement/rhythm, contrast/variety, balance, proportion, and unity 8.1C

• Explore career and avocational opportunities in art 8.3D

 

Skills

• Continue to learn how to look at, examine, and see a painting and other works of art 8.4C&D

• Learn how to justify why something is beautiful or not

• Reflect on the experience of beauty and its relation to longing

• Develop drawing, painting, and sculpting skills 8.2C

• Develop creativity on the basis of imitation, tradition, and discipline, no in opposition to them 8.2A&B

 

Aptitudes

• Deepen the habits of attending and noticing

• Sit still and observe carefully works of art and subjects to be rendered

• Deepen love and appreciation of beauty

• Deepen reflection on the experience of beauty and its effect on the soul

• Begin to look at art contemplatively as revealing objective beauty and truth

• Deepen appreciation of art and beauty in the life of faith

• Be able to question artworks for their meaning

 

Language Arts: Literature, Grammar, Composition, and Drama

 

Knowledge

• Understand literature and poetry as vehicles for the revelation of truth

• Understand literature as culture’s way of seeking truth, goodness, and beauty

• Lear to think poetically 8.8B

• Know the elements of good speaking in order to speak truthfully, persuasively, beautifully, and well 8.1C, 8.6H

• Possess a command of English grammar 8.10D

  • Simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences

  • S/V and pronoun-antecedent agreement

  • Consistent, correct use of verb tenses

  • Active and passive voice

  • Conjunctive adverbs, relative pronouns, subordinating and correlative conjunctions

  • Correct capitalization and punctuation

  • Correct spelling

• Recognize a variety of writing styles and how to employ them 8.8A&F

• Understand the elements of argument 8.8E

• Ponder the relationship between the Word of God (Christ), the word of God (Scripture), and the words we use

• Continue to develop vocabulary 8.2A-C, 8.6F&H

 

Skills for Literature

• Make connections to related topics, especially history and religion 8.5E

• Identify and evaluate the effectiveness of tone, style, and use of language and other text features (e.g., graphs, pictures) 8.9C

• Analyze the effects of narrative elements such as plot (conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution), setting, theme, characterization, style, tone, and voice 8.7A-D, 8.9F

• Discuss the effects of such literary devices as figurative language, dialogue, flashback, foreshadowing, subplots, parallel plot structures, allusion, irony, and symbolism 8.7C, 8.9D&E

• Analyze and evaluate themes and central ideas in literature

• Recognize relevance of literary themes to contemporary problems and one’s own life 8.5E, 8.6A, 8.7E

• Discern author’s purpose and an implied main idea, identify supporting evidence, draw an inference, and recognize how different texts address the same fundamental, human questions 8.9A&B

• Deepen the ability to question the text and characters through “Socratic” discussions and text annotations 8.6E, 8.5B

• Develop ability to discuss literature intelligently and insightfully with proper grammar and diction and specific references to the text 8.1A-D, 8.5A-I, 8.6A-J

• Read appropriate texts with fluency and comprehension 8.3&4

 

Skills for Grammar and Composition

• Master all facets of English grammar, demonstrable through the ability to diagram sentences 8.10D

• Properly express the relationship of ideas in a sentence, paragraph, and essay 8.8D(iii), 8.10B(i)

• Recognize and correct stylistic errors such as comma splices, run-ons, and sentence fragments 8.10C, 8.10D(i)

• Use the writing process to compose multiple texts that are legible and use appropriate conventions 8.11A-D, 8.8F

• For Narrative Writing:

  • Write original narrative and descriptive passages 8.11A

  • Write coherent and logical prologues, epilogues, sequels, dialogues or alternative endings for fiction and nonfiction

  • Incorporate effective narrative techniques into a short story, focusing on the following:

    • Multiple points of view 8.9E

    • Setting, including time and place

    • Character development

    • Elements of plot structure

    • Evocative imagery (vivid words, active voice verbs, colorful modifiers)

    • Figurative language (e.g., simile, metaphor, personification, allusion)

• For Persuasive Writing: 8.8E(i-iii), 8.9G, 8.11C&D

  • Analyze and imitate good examples of persuasive writing

    • Discuss effects of rhetorical devices, such as analogy and juxtaposition

  • Develop a rhetorically persuasive, logical writing style

  • Develop a thesis that makes a disputable claim directed toward a specific audience

  • Support a thesis with logically organized and relevant evidence

  • Develop and logically support a position addressing reader concerns ad counterarguments

• For Analytical/Expository Writing: 8.6B-D, 8.11B

  • Develop interpretations exhibiting careful reading, understanding, and insight

  • Organize interpretations around several clear ideas, premises, or images

  • Develop a thesis that makes a disputable claim

  • Make an argument for the thesis, providing reasons, details, and examples

  • Write a response to literature demonstrating a comprehensive understanding of the text and justifying the interpretation through use of examples and textual evidence

  • Begin to explore the connections among characters, incident, setting, symbol, and conflict

  • Write a character analysis

 

Skills for Drama

• Perform a play, preferably Shakespeare or a Greek tragedy

• Analyze and discuss characters and their motivations 8.8C

• Design costumes, props, and sets

 

Aptitudes

• Develop a love and language and a love of reading across genres 8.8A

• Appreciate the beauty, playfulness, and logical possibilities of language 8.9B&F

• Explore own ideas through writing

• Draw on literature for deeper self-knowledge

• Habitually look for poetry and literature as vehicles of truth

• Deepen love for listening to stories

• Deepen habits of concentration, stillness, and memory

• Develop ability to penetrate literature and plumb the depths of its meaning

• Nurture the habit of listening

• Foster sustained concentration

 

Logic

 

• Learn the basics of logical reasoning

• Learn and identify logical structures, logical fallacies, and biases in speeches and various non-fiction texts ELA8.9G, 8.12H(ii)

• Express own arguments logically and clearly through speech and the written word

 

Latin

• Acquire a basic facility in reading, praying, and translating Latin

• Master basic declensions, conjugations, and simple grammar

• Possess a solid vocabulary

• Memorize Latin prayers, hymns, and liturgical responses

• Know how to translate complex sentences and short stories from Latin to English

• Compose sentences in Latin

 

Nature Studies   

 

Knowledge

• Contemplate important questions, such as: What is life? What is nature? How does “world” differ from “environment”? What makes a human distinct from other animals?

• Be familiar with different historical answers to these questions

• Name and employ the Four Causes of Aristotle in the explanation of nature

• Understand more deeply the relation between science and philosophy in the study of nature

• Recognize the study of nature as part of the human endeavor to understand the world

• Understand science as one aspect of the study of nature which must be integrated into a more comprehensive vision of reality as God’s creation

• Acknowledge nature as God’s creation and so behold nature in a different way

• Recognize persons and animals not as historical accidents or the sum of their mechanical parts, but living wholes that transcend their parts and are irreducible to them

  • Understand how this wholeness is exhibited in the relation between the parts of an animal

  • Understand how this wholeness is visible in animal form and patterns, whose meaning in the animal’s life is not reducible to utility or survival value

• Understand that as living wholes, organisms possess an inexhaustible depth and are worthy of awe, wonder, and affection

  • The human organism is always a person: an indivisible unity of body and soul

  • Human beings, because they are made in the image of God, possess a unique dignity among creatures

• Understand that nature is therefore hierarchically arranged according to a capacity fofr self-transcendence

  • All organisms, including plants, exhibit some form of metabolism that relates them to the world through appetite

  • Animals exhibit metabolism as well, but also a capacity for self-movement and an awareness through the senses

  • Human beings, in addition to these, move and transcend themselves through reason and will, are able to contemplate God and the world, and can offer themselves in love

• Beginning with the study of living things, students should be able to:

  • Successfully grow and tend to plants, recording stages of development

  • Render detailed observations of different organisms

  • Distinguish between genera in the plant and animal kingdoms

  • Specify essential differences between species

  • Identify unique characteristics in different forms of animal life

  • Identify essential differences in distinguishing human beings from other animals

• From this basis, students should proceed to the interior world of plants and animals:

  • Botany

  • Anatomy

  • Physiology and biological processes

  • Human anatomy: the correlation between the physical structure of the human body (e.g., upright form, opposable thumbs, etc.) and uniquely human characteristics associated with the soul (e.g., desire to know, longing for God, human craft, etc.)

  • Fetal development

  • Beginning organic chemistry

  • Heredity and genetics

  • Evolutionary development

• Students should then proceed to the external world, understanding the Earth as a home for life:

  • Ecosystems

  • Natural processes which support life (e.g., weather, soil formation, water cycles, atmosphere)

  • Geological processes (e.g., plate tectonics, volcanoes, erosion)

  • Earth’s place in the solar system: the finely-tuned astronomical factors necessary to support life

  • Astronomy

 

Skills

• Ask philosophical and scientific questions of nature

• Describe various creatures using Aristotle’s Four Causes

• Observe animals and plants in their natural habitats

• Render animals and plants through art

• Employ scientific method

• Continue to develop the skill of observing, rendering, and cataloguing this knowledge in a “nature notebook”

• Relate different parts and systems of nature to the comprehensive whole

• Explain and defend the distinction between the animate and the inanimate

 

Aptitudes

• Appreciate the wholeness of animals and plants

• Develop wonder and appreciation of the natural world and the mystery of living things

• Recognize the beauty of creation

• Develop enthusiasm for examining nature and acquire the habit of curiosity regarding the physical world

• Desire to inquire into the lived life of organisms and the world that sustains them

• Acquire reverence for nature as God’s creation

 

Mathematics   

 

Knowledge

• Master arithmetic necessary for algebra: order of operations; fraction, decimal, and integer operations

• Develop more advanced number sense (integers, irrational numbers, percentage, scientific notation, absolute value, exponents, roots and radicals)

• Understand factors and multiples; find greatest common factor and least common multiple/denominator

• Understand measurement concepts

• Master developmentally appropriate algebra and geometry

• Read and use a coordinate plane

• Recognize mathematical and geometrical patterns in nature and art

• Begin to understand the philosophical and theological history of mathematical symbolism

 

Skills

• Think algebraically and geometrically

• Use logic and hands-on experience to solve problems

• Convert fractions, decimals, and percents

• Rewrite fractions using factors and multiples

• Solve problems using rate, proportion, common formulas, and percentage applications

• Use estimation techniques

• Use mental arithmetic

• Use and convert customary and metric measurements

• Solve developmentally appropriate functions, equations, and inequalities and graph them on a coordinate plane

• Calculate slope

• Write and use formulas to solve problems

• Combine like terms

• Add, subtract, multiply, divide, and factor polynomials

• Represent simple quadratic functions

• Identify properties of and congruency between angles, parallel lines, triangles, quadrilaterals, other polygons, and common three-dimensional figures

• Calculate area and perimeter or circumference of two-dimensional figures

• Calculate surface area and volume of three-dimensional figures

• Use the Pythagorean Theorem to solve problems

• Use a coordinate plane to translate, rotate, and reflect a given image

• Calculate simple probability

• Read and create bar graphs, line graphs, circle graphs, and stem-and-leaf plots representing data; make predictions from statistical data

• Analyze musical compositions for mathematical properties, particularly Baroque music (Bach, Vivaldi, Pachelbel, Albinoni, etc.)

• Understand Christian iconography in relation to dimension

• Analyze poetic meter

• Recognize sacred number in writing and art

 

Aptitudes

• Appreciate mathematics as one way humans give an account of reality

• Appreciate relevance of math to music, art, science, and architecture

• Enhance logical reasoning

• Acquire a foundation for logical reasoning through math

• Be attuned to the relevance and significance of number and shape

• Begin to appreciate the “aesthetics” of number through the recognition of patterns

 

Music

 

Knowledge

• Understand the elements of music, including notation, dynamics, tempi (largo and presto), and articulations (sfrorzando) 8.1B, 8.2A, 8.3F

• Understand the essential differences between genres of music, especially within classical and sacred music 8.1D, 8.4B

• Appreciate the theology inherent in sacred music

• Recognize the characteristic differences between different composers

• Be able to recognize beautiful music and explain why it is beautiful 8.1A-D

• Be able to sing and, if possible, play an instrument 8.2C, 8.3A

• Be able to read music 8.1C, 8.2B&D

• Memorize lyrics and know how to sing liturgical music and traditional Catholic hymnody

• Appreciate carols, ballads, and authentic folk music from different historical periods and cultures 8.4A-C

• Sing and sight read plan chant in Latin and English 8.2E

• Deepen understanding of the mathematics of music 8.1C

 

Skills

• Acquire some musical skill singing and/or playing an instrument 8.3B-E/G

• Be able to concentrate on, listen to, and discuss a piece of music 8.5A-E

• Sing or play various parts of a musical piece (applying an understanding of melody, harmony, and rhythm) 8.3C&G

• Describe music-related careers and avocations 8.4D

 

Aptitudes

• Deepen love and appreciation of beautiful music and its power

• Appreciate the profundity and playfulness of music

• Understand the contemplative and mystical dimension of sacred music

• Acquire the habit of patient, attentive listening, and active participation 8.5A&F

 

Physical Education   

 

Knowledge

• Understand embodiment and physical excellence as a gift

• Recognize unity of psychic and physical powers in playing well

• Know and be able to regulate the rules of major sports and races

• Recognize importance of discipline for achieving bodily excellence

• Understand dynamics of competition

 

Skills

• Achieve facility in throwing, catching, hitting, and kicking

• Be able to transfer these skills to new sports and activities

• Learn to work as a team in order to achieve a goal

• Compete against other students of similar skill level

• Learn basics of contra, square, country, and ballroom dancing

 

Aptitudes

• Practice teamwork and good sportsmanship

• Aspire to physical gracefulness

• Admire excellent athletic performances, especially their aesthetic qualities