College Prep English 12

Understandings:

What will students understand (about what big ideas) as a result of the unit? Students will understand that:

• College reading requires advanced skills in exploring and synthesizing related ideas and connecting them to prior knowledge and context; evaluating, critiquing, and challenging positions.

• Writing requires rhetorical awareness—the ability of writers to understand the various elements of the context in which they write—and to make choices in their writing based on their understanding.

Essential Questions:

What arguable, recurring, and thought-provoking questions will guide inquiry and point toward the big ideas of the unit?

• How will I change my reading focus from reading what is “on the lines,” to reading “between and beyond the lines”?
• How will I attain the skills to become a good writer in various contexts?

Major concepts/content

In this course, students have the choice of the Culminating Project or a senior English research project.

To prepare students for college and the work place, the course provides rigorous learning experiences in reading, writing and communications. This course will provide “multiple and varied opportunities for students to read, inquire, and respond across disciplines, genres, and purposes.” Readings will include literature, non-fiction and technical texts. Reading skills and strategies are relevant to constructing meaning from all types of texts, and the critical reading of literature also requires knowledge of literary and narrative elements. Comprehending informational texts often requires knowledge of common text structures and organizational patterns used in literature Students will practice “reading and responding to complex and sophisticated situations in order to be ready for the demands of the college curriculum.” Writing instruction will promote rhetorical awareness and will give students practice in a broad range of essay and rhetorical modes. College testing (SAT, ACT) and the personal essay for applications will be included. (College Readiness Project: http://www.learningconnections.org/clc/hecb.htm)

Course Goals

Students are expected to

¦ develop a repertoire of reading comprehension strategies that they can draw on flexibly to comprehend, analyze, and critique both literary and informational texts

¦ develop a repertoire of writing strategies and a facility with certain types of writing commonly taught in the classroom, including argumentative writing, research writing, literary analysis, and creative and reflective writing

¦ become active and effective listeners

¦ view and produce media critically

Required Texts and Materials

In the College Preparatory English 12 course, the student should consider obtaining a personal copy of the various texts used in the course. You may purchase copies from a local new or used bookstore, or from an online book source.

Many of the works used can also be accessed online. If available, you may check out books from your school’s English Department. All titles may also be found in the local library branches. Many of the works used can also be accessed online.

Preliminary list of drama, novel, and anthologized material:

• The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark, Shakespeare
• Oedipus Tyrannus, Sophocles [please use selected translation]
• Essays and non-fiction—as selected
• Poetry—as selected
• Modern novels—as selected

Performance Tasks:

• Essay questions as required of pre-college writers
• Reading/responding/analyzing essays, novels, drama, fiction, non-fiction and poetry
• Imaginative writing including but not limited to: poetry, imitative structures
• Writing in rhetorical modes: exposition, definition, analysis, cause and effect, comparison and contrast, personal essay and research
• Graphic organizers, double-entry journals, paragraph responses, questions

Course Syllabus

Writing Expectations

You will be expected to use every assignment that involves writing to practice your best composition skills. Composition assignments will include: statements, paragraphs, essay tests, and formal essays (personal, expository and argumentative).No matter the kind of writing assigned, your best composition skills should be practiced. We will work with various composition constructions, Standard Written English, sentence variety, and word choice.

1. When an assignment calls for a “paragraph” please check your work against the paragraph criteria below:

	Stand-Alone Paragraph Evaluation Criteria Use these criteria to evaluate paragraphs that are not part of a longer piece of writing.
	1. The first, second, or last sentence contains the main idea and key words from the question or assigned topic. (The first sentence is usually preferable.)
	2. Paragraph contains one to three explanatory sentences.
	3. Paragraph contains two to four sentences about specific details.
	4. Details are colorful, interesting, and appropriate.
	5. Paragraph ends with a good closing sentence that refers to the main idea without repeating it.
	6. Paragraph contains no run-ons or sentence fragments.
	7. Paragraph is free of errors in agreement. A. Subject/verb—singular or plural, B. Pronoun selection correct—singular or plural C. Pronoun selection correct—subject or object
	8. Free of punctuation errors.
	9. Free of spelling errors.
	10. Free of punctuation errors.
	11. Handwriting is easy to read.

• 2. Many times you will be asked for your opinion or idea about an aspect of a text. You will post these to a discussion board. Please use complete sentences with clear support for your ideas.
• 3. All assignments for formal papers will include a specific grading rubric. We will go over the rubrics prior to submitting papers and review expectations for the particular composition or paper. Please consult each rubric carefully before submitting your work. You will be expected to rewrite larger papers and literary analysis after you receive feedback.
• 4. Grammar and usage: As a senior in a college preparatory English course, you should have a good command of Standard Written English. There will be mini lessons throughout the course dealing with complex grammar and usage issues, sentence constructions, and diction. Occasionally you may need some additional help with this.

There are many good online guides to grammar. The link below is one such guide. Please consult this guide or a writing handbook for syntax and/or structure problems. http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/index.htm

Semester 1

Unit 1: Introduction to Critical Reading and Composition and the Writing Process

4 Weeks

Unit Expectations: Students will gain experience with:

Active Reading Strategies

Levels of Questions

Double Entry Notes

Annotation

Answering an essay question

Essay of Response

Grammar and Usage as tested on the writing portion of the SAT

Visual Literacy

Unit 2: Personal Essay for College Admission/Scholarship Application

4 Weeks

• Writers often use the personal reminiscence/personal essay/essay of experience to state an opinion, explain a viewpoint, clarify the significance of a person or event.
• The personal essay may take one of three forms: p ersonal essay, personal reminiscence, and essay of experience.

Unit Objectives

• Students will explore ideas about themselves to determine their topics for writing.
• Students will understand and work with personal writing including but not limited to anecdote, dialogue, details, language, syntax, and varied structures.
• Direct composition instruction on introduction/openings, voice, use of first-person pronouns, apostrophe, and conventions
  • Students will work with conventions of Standard Written English.
  • Students will participate in peer editing, rewriting/revising
• Students will complete at least one personal essay for college admission.

Unit 2: Classic Tragedy 4 Weeks

World Literature in Translation: National Standards

• Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.
• Students read a wide range of literature from many periods in many genres to build an understanding of the many dimensions (e.g., philosophical, ethical, aesthetic) of human experience.

Aristotle: Tragedy

Sophocles: Oedipus Tyrannus

• Oedipus Tyrannus is a discussion of the conflict between faith and doubt. Oedipus represents any of us who wrestle with our own problems of faith and doubt; he represents all our hopes and our fears.
• Sophocles wanted Oedipus to teach that man’s confidence in his own abilityis anillusion if he abandons the idea of a higher power .
• This play seeks truth about the cosmos. Every detail of Oedipus Tyrannus is contrived so as to reinforce the conception of order disturbed and order restored.
• Knowledge comes through suffering .

It was not going to happen because it was foretold. It was foretold because it was going to happen. Character is Fate.

Unit Expectations

• Active reading/Cornell Notes incorporated into understanding drama, including dramatic irony, theater beginnings, the origin and function of the chorus, myth.
• Formal cause and effect paper tracing the fate of the protagonist analyzing causes and effect of the tragedy. Essay will be expository and analytical in nature. Students will write, edit, and rewrite. Paper will emphasize Sophocles use of “Action” and dramatic techniques to illustrate the fate of Oedipus. Students will work with incorporating quotes, word choice, syntax and understanding of the dialogue and details presented as support to writing. Direct composition instruction: active verbs, clear viable thesis statement, incorporation of lines and dialogue, conventions as necessary.

Unit 4: Introduction to Poetry 4 Weeks

Students will learn that:

• Reading poetry well means responding to it: if one responds on a feeling level, he or she is likely to read more accurately, with deeper understanding, and with greater pleasure.
• Reading poetry accurately, and with attention to detail, will enable one to respond to it on an emotional level.
• Reading poetry involves conscious articulation through language, and reading and responding come to be, for experienced readers of poetry, very nearly one.
• Paying close attention to the text in poetry makes one appreciate, and understand, textuality and its possibilities.

Unit Expectations

Study and analyze poems from the Renaissance

• Introduction: Essay of analysis. This essay is a literary analysis (expository)—Shakespeare's “Winter” including teacher model and rubric. Essay will be shared in class and emphasis includes sonnet form, paraphrase, imagery, syntax, and poetic language. Direct composition instruction: summary/paraphrase, thesis statement, syntax/sentence structures, audience.
• Ballad—analyze using callouts
• Sonnet—study and analyze multiple sonnets, write a original sonnet
• Metrical Romance
• Essay Question—literary analysis comparing and contrasting two Renaissance sonnets including samples and scoring guide. Direct Composition Instruction: comparison and contrast, thesis statement.
• Essay analyzing the rhetorical argument in a poem.

Semester 2

Unit 1: Advanced Composition and Non fiction texts 4 Weeks

The English language arts include several areas of practice that require specific content knowledge, including the study of literature, the study of rhetoric and writing, the study of language, and the study of communication. These can best be accomplished through the study of a variety of non-fiction texts and visual literature.

Students will read and work with a variety of non-fiction texts and media.

Students will write an argumentative paper

Study will include Visual Literacy.

Unit 2: The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

6 Weeks

“For anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now was and is, to hold, as ‘twere, the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.” -- Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Act III. Scene ii.

• Why is Hamlet considered by many as Shakespeare's greatest achievement?
• How did the religious, scientific, and cultural beliefs of the Elizabethan age influence Shakespeare in the writing of Hamlet?
• How and why is the character of Hamlet depicted as the most complex in English literature?
• What is Hamlet’s essential question?

Study includes great chain of being, Shakespeare’s language, form and function of tragedy

Unit Expectations

Literary analysis paper—formal, persuasive essay. Direct composition instruction: format—clear thesis, incorporation of lines and quotes, pronoun usage, support paragraphs, introduction necessary for audience, thesis followed throughout, strong concluding paragraph

Unit 3: Short Fiction and Satire

Unit 4: Modern Novel