Academics

Seventh Grade

Falmouth Academy’s Seventh Grade
Your child’s best foundation for learning

Writing and More Writing

Falmouth Academy teaches students to write.
In the course of the seventh-grade year, students learn the structure of the thesis paragraph. They work with this form not only in English and history, but in science as well. Indeed, they discover that the structure of their lab reports parallels the structure of the thesis paragraph.

Assignments become longer and more challenging as the year progresses. In science, for instance, each student designs an independent research project in the fall, conducts experiments through the following months, and prepares a presentation for the Falmouth Academy Science Fair in February. The final paper for this project follows the same format as their lab reports: hypothesis, materials and methods, data, analysis, conclusion.

Seventh graders also begin to write in their foreign language classes as soon as practicable. By the time they reach the high school level, four of their five academic courses require significant writing.

Reading

For all Falmouth Academy students, required reading begins during the summer before school starts. Seventh graders read four books that will form the basis of their comparative cultures study in the humanities course. During the school year, in addition to their regular texts, they have an outside reading requirement, designed to encourage a life-long habit of reading for pleasure and information.

In their classroom discussions and writing, seventh graders begin to develop the skill of close reading and analysis that they will apply more deeply with each year at Falmouth Academy in English, history, science, and foreign language.

Time Management

Managing time becomes an art as students balance short-term and long-term assignments, the requirements of sports practice or play rehearsals, the commute to and from school, and time for self, for homework and for outside interests. Seventh grade at Falmouth Academy is built around making good time-management skills a matter of habit.

To that end, students are given a Falmouth Academy Plan Book, in which they keep track of assignments and special events. Teachers check seventh graders’ plan books from time to time to be sure students are using them effectively.

Teachers specify the way students should set up notebooks, in order to speed retrieval of class notes, homework, past quizzes and handouts—all leading up to an orderly study for final exams.

Students learn to weigh their choices and plan their time so that homework, extracurricular commitments and household chores are all taken care of with a minimum of panic and crisis. Because the syllabus for each seventh-grade course is crafted in incremental steps, students gradually take on larger assignments and greater responsibility as the year progresses.

Cooperation and Community

Falmouth Academy consciously works against the self-centered stereotypes so prevalent in much of popular culture. In their first year at Falmouth Academy, seventh graders conduct science labs in pairs or threes; prepare a geographical and historical tour of China with a partner; design and conduct a math lesson for their class; work with a four-person ensemble to write a script and produce a play for the spring Greek Drama Festival.

They also learn to work with older students, on the all-school trip, on the sports field or stage, in the Student Council, or in electives like drawing or photography. They see, modeled by their teachers and the older students, a sense of collegiality. Everyone, from every grade, is a member of this community and all are working toward common goals through a curriculum they all share.

Arts-in-Humanities

The arts-in-humanities program brings our fine-arts teacher and music teacher into the humanities classroom, where the seventh graders complete four art and music projects supporting their humanities curriculum. During their study of China, for example, they make a comparison between the Western style of landscape painting and the Eastern style. Each student paints a Western-style landscape using acrylics. Later students return to the art room to work with rice paper and ink block to paint an Eastern landscape. They may write poetry as well, incorporating Chinese images to accompany their Oriental landscape.

As the year progresses, they visit the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston to study its collection of the art of India; later, they design tessellations as part of their study of Islam. And, after a second trip to the MFA, they each create a ceramic kylix, decorated with a black-figure design representing one of the members of the Greek pantheon.

High Standards

Seventh graders learn to take pride in their work and to engage in the re-thinking, re-design, and re-writing that go into making the finished product one that will meet their teachers’ and their own high expectations.

What helps them to reach this level of success is the constant and generous support of their teachers and of older students. Seventh graders are encouraged to meet individually with their teachers to confer on an idea, an outline, or a draft. They know they can call on older students who have been through the FA seventh-grade curriculum for coaching or brainstorming. They can, and do, call their teachers at home in the evening with the burning questions that simply can’t wait until morning.

By June, seventh-grade students approach the grade-eight summer reading and curriculum with confidence, a solid base of skills, and a sense of accomplishment as they move forward toward the Falmouth Academy high school experience.