Spanish Fort Middle School

Elective Class Descriptions

**Class availability is subject to change**

General Electives

***The following classes MAY have an application process***

Yearbook (7^th and 8^th grade) All Year

Yearbook production is designed from a combination of graphic and language arts skills. This class assumes the responsibility of compiling and designing a yearbook, which provides a complete directory of the school population, a history of the school’s events of the school population, and a history of the school’s events during the course of a year. These responsibilities are accomplished by staff members who have received instruction in the areas of (1) theme selection, (2) basic layout design, (3) techniques in writing, (4) captions and headlines, (5) type-fitting, (6) assessing and selecting interesting photographs, (7) cropping pictures, and (8) preparing materials to be shipped to professional printers. Staff responsibilities include financing publications costs through the sale of advertisements and books. In accomplishing the ultimate goal of producing a quality yearbook, students who are part of the organization gain journalistic training and skills in photography, sales techniques, and organizingmaterial.

Peer Helper (7^th and 8^th grade) Semester class

Peer Helpers are sponsored by the Jennifer Claire Moore Foundation.  The Peer Helpers meet daily in an elective class. Students use this time to be involved in peer tutoring, mentoring, peer mediation, kindness and anti-bullying activities, and service projects.  They also follow a curriculum that teaches students about compassion, confidentiality, empathy, and other skills needed to help them be successful Peer Helpers.  Peer Helpers are chosen based upon completed applications and teacher recommendations. 

Morning News (7^th and 8^th grade) Semester class

Listening, analyzing, and writing for SFMS morning news segments. Students will have a variety of real-world experiences writing and editing scripts, producing media pieces, and performing production and operations tasks.

Boys Chorus (7^th and 8^th grade) All Year

This course is designed especially for young men interested in exploring choral music from a wide variety of cultures and time periods through study and performance. By creating, performing, and responding, students will develop basic vocal skills and sight-reading techniques.

Chorus (7^th and 8^th grade) All Year

This course is designed for students to explore choral music from a wide variety of cultures and time periods through study and performance. By creating, performing, and responding, students will develop basic vocal skills and sight-reading techniques.

Gifted (7^th and 8^th grade) All Year

The Gifted Explorations elective course offers 5 hours of weekly accelerated and challenging curriculum that is designed to offer identified gifted students an opportunity to investigate specific units of study.  The interdisciplinary curriculum of each unit of study will emphasize higher-level abstract thinking and problem-solving skills.  Instructional strategies that may be incorporated into the curriculum include Socratic Questioning and Seminars, simulations, problem-based learning, independent study, and service learning.

Band (7^th and 8^th grade) All Year

Beginning in the sixth grade, students develop in areas of responsibility, self-discipline, social skills, confidence, leadership and dependability.  Being in band will give students a sense of accomplishment and pride. In addition, students will develop musical skills, which will enrich their lives.  Band is a wonderful opportunity to make and interact with friends with similar interests.  All band students will be carefully screened and should, with practice and effort; achieve success on his or her instrument.  The amount of practice and effort on the student’s part will directly reflect upon their degree of success.  Parental support and encouragement are vital not only to the student’s musical success now; but will also affect their appreciation of music for the rest of their lives.

If your child is in the beginning stages of band, the emphasis is on learning the fundamentals of music and the basic skills required to play an instrument.  Mastery of these fundamental skills will lead to further development of higher-level skills, which will enable students to achieve great things in our band program.

The more advanced students will continue to perfect skills while learning new and more challenging aspects of music and music performance.  There is a greater emphasis placed on ensemble performance at this level.  Healthy competition is a larger part of this class as well. Instrumentation needs of the ensemble, the individual’s attitude, conduct, playing ability, and existing openings in this ensemble will determine membership.