English 11
English 12
In Senior English, students start the year by returning to the writing of memoir and personal essays, this time with a stress on giving the narratives an arc. In other words, students will learn to take episodes in their lives and turn them into stories of change and discovery. Units on a variety of topics hone reading to learn skills and give students a chance to write and respond to readings academically and creatively. Time is also devoted to the fine-tuning of grammar, mechanics, and rhetoric in preparation for college-level writing. The spring term dovetails with the Senior Evaluation sessions with its focus on “What is the good life, and how do you lead it?” Texts from Genesis to Plato and Aristotle and the Stoics help students explore this ultimate question.
English 11 focuses on short stories, novellas, and memoirs by American authors with the aim of teaching students about how narratives are constructed and about different techniques that authors use to engage readers and to convey their messages. Topics include the definition and nature of narrative, plot analysis, masterplots, character types, imagery, symbols, allusion, and more. Units include relevant non-fiction in order to build needed background knowledge and to reinforce annotation and summary strategies. Ongoing instruction in descriptive grammar and sentence analysis builds students’ appreciation of literary style, as well as improving their own writing. Students use this knowledge to perform written analyses of literary fiction and are asked to do frequent revisions in order to take their writing to new levels of clarity and expression. The year ends with a unit on memoir and the personal essay to prepare students for writing their college essays.
Learning goals include:
Proficiency in active reading with ability to grasp the different levels of meaning in text, to make logical inferences, and to support conclusions with evidence. Emerging sophistication in summary and analysis of college-level readings. Development of individual writing plans/strategies which effectively address each student’s writing process Development of peer and self-assessment skills for improving written work. Mastery of the conventions of grammar and mechanics with ability to compose controlled, complex prose. Mastery of the conventions of college writing, including strategies of essay structuring, research methods, and citation using the MLA Style.
Learning goals include:
Proficiency in Active Reading at the 11th- Grade level, including the ability to draw valid, nuanced inferences from readings about narrative voice, character, theme, plot, imagery, allusions and symbols. Competence in writing paraphrases and summaries of stories and informational texts. Competence in composing strongly-structured paragraphs and analysis essays using a formal tone. Ability to understand the genre of memoir and to use the conventions of memoir writing to compose life stories.
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