In their last year of middle school,
8th graders immerse themselves in preparation for high school by practicing and strengthening skills they learned in earlier years of middle school while also learning new (and often more complex) skills. In many ways, 8th grade is a year of transition, as students are expected to have mastered the ways of middle school and begin becoming “high-schoolers.” Specifically, 8th graders are expected to be independent thinkers and workers analyzing and explaining what they learn in both their writing and orally. 8th grade is also a time of celebration and excitement for many students as they anticipate high school.
In 8th grade, students continue to practice many of the skills they learned in earlier grades, specifically paying attention to details like text evidence, language, and cross-text comparisons in different genres of text. However, 8th graders push their analyses of texts further as they examine the details and writing structure and assess how those elements affect the text.
The above content courtesy of Scholastic, read the entire article.