Start Date: 08/27/2009
Instructor: Andy Lang
Course Overview:
English 10 is a continuation and refinement of skills from the 9th grade. English 10 A - B will further challenge sophomores in the language arts. Grammar usage and a variety of writing are included. Writing strategies and skills will make up the writing strand. Students will read a variety of texts, practicing and further exploring and refining the skills of careful readers, including marking and annotating texts. In addition to short story, novel, drama, and poetry, units on mythology, research writing and careers are presented. Students may choose their own level of rigor: the regular sophomore track or the honors track.
To achieve long-term impact, Sophomore English is designed to build learning around the following enduring understandings:
- Storytelling carries vital information about our cultures, histories and heritages.
- Writing is an effective means of communicating information.
- Writing communicates more than just information.
- Different formats of writing require different skills for clarity and intent.
- Careful, active, dedicated readers become better writers
Semester One
- Close text reading of complex narratives
- Text Features
- Theme
- Inference and prediction
- Summary
- Story elements and literary devices
- Author's style, author's purpose
- Persuasive devices
- Drama
- Examining common themes among various literary texts (The hero's journey, creation/explanation)
- The
writing process (prewriting, drafting,
editing, revising, and publishing):
- Organization
- Elaboration
- Persuasive devices, appropriate style and language
- Conventions
- Timed writing and scoring based on scoring criteria/rubrics
- WASL timed writing and scoring
- Advanced Placement style timed writing and scoring (honors level)
- Text-based response
- Single and multiple text prompts
- Persuasive analysis and media literacy
- Analyze speeches for persuasive techniques/devices
- Analyze/examine media (advertising) for intent and effect
Semester Two:
- Research-driven writing: I-Search paper
- MLA Handbook
- Continued close reading of complex texts. Analyzing and evaluating writing
- Poetry analysis using SOAPS and TP-CASTT methods
- Drama
- Career/ College unit
- The writing process continued: Writing in a variety of forms:
- speculative
- narrative
- cause & effect
- extended definition
- compare & contrast
- summary
- technical writing
- Continued Timed writing and scoring based on scoring criteria/rubrics
- WASL timed writing and scoring
- Advanced Placement timed writing and scoring (honors level)
- Text-based response
- Single and multiple text prompts
- SAT timed writing and scoring
Grading scale: 90-100%=A 80-89%= B 70-79%= C 60-69%= D 0-59% = Incomplete
The focus on Sophomore English will be on building stronger writing and reading skills. Specifically, we will be working to achieve the following:
Writing Goal: To write effectively, displaying style and voice, in both a persuasive and expository format for a variety of audiences. Specifically, the student will:
Reading Goal: To continue to employ effective reading strategies to read for meaning. To apply an understanding of literary and text-organizational devices to uncover deeper meanings. The students will analyze writing for author's style and purpose, and analyze the overall effect of the writing using a common vocabulary of literary and poetic devices and analytical terms. Specifically, the student will: · develop questions before, during, and after reading and use knowledge of questioning strategies to locate answers, · organize text-based information into graphic organizers to enhance text comprehension, · create accurate, objective informational and literary summaries that include an introductory statement, main ideas, and supporting text-based details, analyze informational and literary text for similarities and differences and cause and effect relationships.
|