English Semester 2 Course Description Academic Year 2016-2017

Grade 11

ENGLISH LANGUAGE

This courses is designed to teach students to use academic language analytically to accomplish a variety of intellectually challenging tasks, calling on them to use grade level appropriate sophisticated academic language to demonstrate, linguistic competence, their ability to use a variety of writing techniques, modes of development and formal conventions, and to demonstrate literacy skills, for instance, being able to locate, analyze and incorporate information gathered from multiple sources into their writing. Students will complete regular extensive reading assignments and write multiple drafts of essays using various text types, often in response to one or more reading passages.

Goals of the English requirement

The English subject requirement seeks to ensure that students grades K-12 are prepared to undertake all core subject areas in English language; to acquire and use knowledge in critical ways; to think, read, write and speak critically; and to master literacy skills and subject specific vocabulary for all classes.

More important than the specific topics covered are the more general abilities and habits of students should acquire through reading, writing, speaking and other course activities. As indicated in the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts[PDF], these include the following:

  1. They are well-informed, thoughtful and creative readers, writers, listeners and thinkers who incorporate the critical practices of access, selection, evaluation and information processing in their own original and creative knowledge production.
  2. They understand the ethical dimensions of academic life as grounded in the search, respect for and understanding of other informed viewpoints and pre-existing knowledge. They have a capacity to question and evaluate their own thoughts; the curiosity and daring to participate in, and contribute to, intellectual discussions; and the ability to advocate for their own learning needs.
  3. They comprehend and evaluate complex texts across a range of types and disciplines and can construct effective arguments and convey intricate or multifaceted information.
  4. They respond to varying demands of audience, task, purpose, genre and discipline by listening, reading, writing and speaking with awareness of self, others and context; and adapting their communication to audience, task, purpose, genre and discipline.
  5. They value evidence. Students can analyze a range of informational and literary texts, ask provocative questions and generate hypotheses based on form and content of factual evidence, see other points of view, and effectively cite specific evidence when offering an oral or written interpretation of a text.
  6. They use technology and digital media strategically and capably to enhance their reading, writing, speaking, listening and language use.
  7. They demonstrate independence by exhibiting curiosity and experimenting with new ideas.

Course requirements

Competencies for entering students cannot be reduced to a mere listing of skills. True academic competence depends on a set of interactive insights, perceptions and behaviors acquired while preparing for more advanced academic work. Good writers are most likely careful readers and critical thinkers—and most academic writing is an informed and critical response to reading. Courses at each grade level, give students full awareness and control of the means of linguistic production, orally and in writing.

Regardless of the course level, all courses are expected to stress the reading and writing connection and to address all of the Common Core College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards in Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking[PDF].They will also satisfy these criteria:

  • Reading. Courses will require extensive reading in a variety of genres, non-literary as well as literary, including informational texts, classical and/or contemporary prose and poetry, and literary fiction and non-fiction. Reading of literary texts will include full-length works; excerpts from anthologies, condensed literature, et cetera. Students will be expected to read for literal comprehension and retention, depth of understanding, awareness of the text’s audience, purpose and argument, and to analyze and interact with the text.
  • Writing. Courses will also require substantial, recurrent practice in writing grade appropriate, structured papers directed at various audiences and responding to a variety of rhetorical tasks. Students will demonstrate understanding of rhetorical, grammatical and syntactical patterns, forms and structures through responding to texts of varying lengths in writing assignments, and addressing basic issues of standard written English, including style, cohesion and accuracy.

Writing is taught as a recursive process involving invention, drafting, revision, and editing where writers return to
these activities repeatedly rather than moving through them in discrete stages. Writing is also a way of learning
and it will be used to enhance students’understanding of a subject.

  • Listening and speaking. Students will develop essential critical listening skills and be provided with ample practice speaking in large and small groups. Students are expected to be active, discerning listeners, to make critical distinctions between key points and illustrative examples, develop their ability to convey their ideas clearly, and listen and respond to divergent views respectfully, just as they must do when they read and write.

For expected competencies in English reading, writing, listening and speaking, consult the Common Core Standards for English Language Arts[PDF].

  • Course Content for Semester 2:

Literature:

1. Title: The Gettysburg Address – P.584 (speech)
  • The Emancipation Proclamation – p.588
Text type: Speech
2. Title: I Hear America Singing – p.530 (poem)
Text type: Poem
3. Title:Story of an Hour p. 782
  • Cartoon p.793
Text type: Story, Cartoon Illustration
4. Title: Census Data: The US Population (Government Document) – p. 1272 to 1277
Text type:(Government Document)
5. Title: Unit 5 – The Harlem Renaissance & Modernism
A New Kind of War by Ernest Hemingway– p. 1094 to 1103
Text type:News report
6. Title: Home Reader:
The Crucible by Arthur Miller (contd.) Acts 3 + 4
Text type: Play

Writing:

1. Title: APA Research (American Psychological Association)
Type : Research
2. Title: TOEFL Integrated Writing Tasks
Type: : Write an essay in response to both listening and reading passages
2. Title: Modern Topic Online Feature Article P.620
Genre: : Online Feature Article
3. Title: Writing an Analytical Essay (p. 835) on The Raven (poem) by Edgar Allan Poe– p.435
Genre: Analytical Essay
4. Title: Resume
Genre: Informative/ Writing Resume – p. 1312

Grammar:

L 3 – Using Verbs – p. 15- 24
L 14 – Spelling – p. 160-164
L 10 – Combining Sentences
  • Using Participial Phrases to Combine Sentences - p. 115
  • Using Phrases to Combine Sentences – p. 117
  • Combining Sentences by Coordinating Ideas –p.. 119
L 12 - Punctuation
  • Using Semicolons, Colons, Commas – p. 143 to 146
L 13 - Punctuation
  • Using Hyphens, Dashes and Brackets – p. 157

Vocabulary Workshop:

Lessons 11-18

Project:

  • Books on Wheels
  • Movies
  • Interviews
  • Innovative Project of the students choice (create any project that involves technology and is introducing a new innovative idea)
  • Creating linked in
  • Movies/Interviews
  • Creating a class newspaper
Cross-curricular Activity: with IT Photoshop

Listening and Speaking:

Practiced daily in class through developing critical listening skills and providing ample opportunities to practice speaking in large and small groups. Students are expected to be active, discerning listeners, to make critical distinctions between key points and illustrative examples, develop their ability to convey their ideas clearly using correct English grammar, tense, subject-verb agreement, etc, and listen and respond respectfully, just as they must do when they read and write.

Speaking:
Independent Task:
1. Plan the free-choice response.
2. Make the free-choice response.
3. Plan the paired-choice response.
4. Make the paired-choice response.
Integrated Task (Reading and Listening)
1. Note the main points as you read.
2. Note the main points as you listen.
3. Plan before you speak.
4. Make the response.
Listening:
1. Basic comprehension.
2. Understand the speaker’s stance.
3. Understand organization.
4. Understand relatioships

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