Harwich Public Schools

English Language Arts Curriculum

(10 February 2005)

Grade:     Twelve

GENERAL STANDARD 1: Discussion

Students will use agreed-upon rules for informal and formal discussions in small and large groups. Group discussion is effective when students listen actively, stay on topic, consider the ideas of others, avoid sarcasm and personal remarks, take turns, and gain the floor in appropriate ways. Following agreed-upon rules promotes self-discipline and reflects respect for others.

1.6 Drawing on one of the widely used professional evaluation forms for group discussion, evaluate how well participants engage in discussions at a local meeting.

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Drawing on one of the widely used professional evaluation forms for group discussion, evaluate how well participants engage in discussions at a local meeting.	For example, using evaluation guidelines developed by the National Issues Forum, students identify, analyze, and evaluate the rules used in a formal or informal government meeting or on a television news discussion program.	Group Discussion Guidelines Group Discussion Rubric	Whole Class Discussion Group Discussion Rubric

GENERAL STANDARD 2: Questioning, Listening, and Contributing

Students will pose questions, listen to the ideas of others, and contribute their own information or ideas in group discussions or interviews in order to acquire new knowledge. Group discussions may lead students to greater complexity of thought as they expand on the ideas of others, refine initial ideas, pose hypotheses, and work toward solutions to intellectual problems. Group work helps students gain a deeper understanding of themselves as they reflect upon and express orally their own thinking in relation to that of others.

2.6 Analyze differences in responses to focused group discussion in an organized and systematic way.

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Analyze differences in responses to focused group discussion in an organized and systematic way.	For example, students read and discuss “The Fall of the House of Usher,” by Edgar Allan Poe, as an example of observer narration; “The Prison,” by Bernard Malamud, as an example of single character point of view; and “The Boarding House,” by James Joyce, as an example of multiple character point of view. Students summarize their conclusions about how the authors’ choices regarding literary narrator made a difference in their responses as readers, and present their ideas to the class.	One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; Brave New World; The Color Purple; Cry the Beloved Country	Oral Presentation Rubric Socratic Seminar

GENERAL STANDARD 3: Oral Presentation

Students will make oral presentations that demonstrate appropriate consideration of audience, purpose, and the information to be conveyed.

Planning an effective presentation requires students to make an appropriate match between their intended audience and the choice of presentation style, level of formality, and format. Frequent opportunities to plan presentations for various purposes and to speak before different groups help students learn how to gain and keep an audience’s attention, interest, and respect.

3.17 Deliver formal presentations for particular audiences using clear enunciation and appropriate organization, gestures, tone, and vocabulary.

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Deliver formal presentations for particular audiences using clear enunciation and appropriate organization, gestures, tone, and vocabulary	Students will present scenes from Shakespeare’s plays, including Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello.  Students will role play various scenes from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest	Macbeth Othello Hamlet One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest	Skits/ Presentations Presentation Rubric

3.18 Create an appropriate scoring guide to evaluate final presentations.

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Create an appropriate scoring guide to evaluate final presentations	Students brainstorm and construct appropriate evaluation criteria for presentations.	Macbeth Othello Hamlet One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Rubric Template	Skits/ Presentations Presentation Rubric

GENERAL STANDARD 4: Vocabulary and Concept Development

Students will understand and acquire new vocabulary and use it correctly in reading and writing. Our ability to think clearly and communicate with precision depends on our individual store of words. A rich vocabulary enables students to understand what they read, and to speak and write with flexibility and control. As students employ a variety of strategies for acquiring new vocabulary, the delight in finding and using that perfect word can heighten interest in vocabulary itself.

4.26 Identify and use correctly new words acquired through study of their different relationships to other words.

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Identify and use correctly new words acquired through study of their different relationships to other words	From assigned literature, develop a list of unfamiliar vocabulary words to study.	Brave New World The Canterbury Tales Frankenstein The Color Purple

4.27 Use general dictionaries, specialized dictionaries, thesauruses, histories of language, books of quotations, and other related references as needed.

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Use      general dictionaries      specialized dictionaries      thesauruses      histories of language      books of quotations      other related references as needed	For example, students each choose a word in a favorite literary passage and examine all the synonyms for it in a thesaurus. They decide if any of the synonyms might be suitable substitutes in terms of meaning and discuss the shades of meaning they perceive. They also speculate about what other considerations the author might have had for the specific choice of word.	The Color Purple I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings The Poisonwood Bible Their Eyes Were Watching God	Written quiz or test

GENERAL STANDARD 5: Structure and Origins of Modern English

Students will analyze standard English grammar and usage and recognize how its vocabulary has developed and been influenced by other languages.

The English language has changed through time and through contact with other languages. An understanding of its history helps students appreciate the extraordinary richness of its vocabulary, which continues to grow. The study of its grammar and usage gives students more control over the meaning they intend in their writing and speaking.

5.30 Identify, describe, and apply all conventions of standard English.

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Identify, describe, and apply all conventions of standard English	For example, students write an essay and then engage in peer editing using an evaluation and feedback format where they must identify, describe, and apply all conventions of standard English.	Evaluation and Feedback Form Writing Rubric	Essay Writing Rubric

5.31 Describe historical changes in conventions for usage and grammar.

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Describe historical changes in conventions for usage and grammar	Students will read and examine literature from Old English, Middle English, the Renaissance Period, to the Romantic and Modern Ages, and then compare and contrast changes in grammar and usage from past to present.	Beowulf The Canterbury Tales Hamlet Frankenstein One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Compare/Contrast Rubric	Comparison/Contrast essay Compare/Contrast Rubric

5.32 Explain and evaluate the influence of the English language on world literature and world cultures.

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Explain and evaluate the influence of the English language on world literature and world cultures.	For example, students will complete a list of words from assigned literature that are still in use today.	Beowulf Canterbury Tales Hamlet	Quiz Test

5.33 Analyze and explain how the English language has developed and been influenced by other languages.

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Analyze and explain how the English language has developed and been influenced by other languages	Students will choose a word from selected works and trace its history or development.	Beowulf The Canterbury Tales Sir Gawain and The Green Knight’ Everyman; The Fairie Queen, Paradise Los Oxford English Dictionaryt	Oral Presentation Rubric

GENERAL STANDARD 6: Formal and Informal English

Students will describe, analyze, and use appropriately formal and informal English. Study of different forms of the English language helps students to  understand that people use different  levels of formality in their writing and speaking as well as a variety of regional and social dialects in their conversational language.

6.10 Analyze the role and place of standard American English in speech, writing, and literature.

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Analyze the role and place of standard American English in speech, writing, and literature	Students will read selected pieces of literature and determine whether or not they meet the criteria for standard, written English.	The Color Purple I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings; The Shipping News; Their Eyes Were Watching God.	Compare/contrast essay

6.11 Analyze how dialect can be a source of negative or positive stereotypes among social groups.

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Analyze how dialect can be a source of negative or positive stereotypes among social groups.	Students will choose an excerpt from a text and determine whether or not the vernacular contributes to a negative or positive stereotype.	The Color Purple I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings; The Shipping News; Their Eyes Were Watching God	Compare/contrast essay

GENERAL STANDARD 8: Understanding a Text

Students will identify the basic facts and main ideas in a text and use them as the basis for interpretation. (For vocabulary and concept development see General Standard 4.) When we read a text closely, we work carefully to discern the author’s main ideas and the particular facts and details that support them. Good readers read thoughtfully and purposefully, constantly checking their understanding of the author’s intent and meaning so that their interpretations will be sound.

For imaginative/literary texts:

8.32 Identify and analyze the point(s) of view in a literary work.

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Identify and analyze the point(s) of view in a literary work	For a series of texts, students will keep a journal, documenting the point of view.	Frankenstein;  I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings; The Poisonwood Bible; The Joy Luck Club; Misery	Journal Reading quizzes Compare/contrast essay

8.33 Analyze patterns of imagery or symbolism and connect them to themes and/or tone and mood.

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Analyze patterns of imagery or symbolism and connect them to themes and/or tone and mood	Students will keep a journal documenting various images, symbols, and connected themes.	Macbeth Hamlet Their Eyes Were Watching God; The Secret Life of Bees	Journal Reading quizzes Analytical essay

For informational/expository texts:

8.34 Analyze and evaluate the logic and use of evidence in an author’s argument.

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Analyze and evaluate the logic and use of evidence in an author’s argument.	Students will create an outline, itemizing the author’s thesis and supporting evidence.	A Modest Proposal The Rape of the Lock Pilgrim’s Progress Everyman	Critical Essay

GENERAL STANDARD 9: Making Connections

Students will deepen their understanding of a literary or non-literary work by relating it to its contemporary context or historical background. By including supplementary reading selections that provide relevant historical and artistic background, teachers deepen students’ understanding of individual literary works and broaden their capacity to connect literature to other manifestations of the creative impulse.

9.7 Relate a literary work to the seminal ideas of its time.

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Relate a literary work to the seminal ideas of its time.	For example, students read Matthew Arnold’s poem, “Dover Beach.” In order to understand the 19th century controversy over the implications of evolutionary theory, they read letters, essays, and excerpts from the period. Then they use what they have learned to inform their understanding of the poem and write an interpretive essay	Frankenstein Dracula Sir Gawain and the Green Knight In Cold Blood Cry the Beloved Country Dover Beach	Quiz Test Essay

GENERAL STANDARD 10: Genre

Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the characteristics of different genres.

We become better readers by understanding both the structure and the conventions of different genres.

A student who knows the formal qualities of a genre is able to anticipate how the text will evolve, appreciate the nuances that make a given text unique, and rely on this knowledge to make a deeper and subtler interpretation of the meaning of the text.

10.6 Identify and analyze characteristics of genres (satire, parody, allegory, pastoral) that overlap or cut across the lines of genre classifications such as poetry, prose, drama, short story, essay, and editorial.

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Identify and analyze characteristics of genres satire      parody      allegory      pastoral that overlap or cut across the lines of genre classifications such as poetry, prose, drama, short story, essay, and editorial.	For example, as they read Joseph Heller’s Catch 22, students consider: “Satirists harbor some distaste for the establishment and are most effective only when they present their message subtly. One way to present the savage follies of human beings more subtly is to create a fictional world in which humor, irony, circular logic, and double talk are used to make the disturbing, vulgar, and the gruesome more palatable.” They write essays evaluating the novel as an effective piece of satire based on the criteria in the statement.	A Modest Proposal The Importance of Being Ernest; Everyman; Pilgrim’s Progress; The Fairie Queene; The Rape of the Lock;  The Passionate Shepherd to His Love; The Nymph’s Reply	Quiz Test Critical Essay

11.6 Apply knowledge of the concept that a text can contain more than one theme.

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Apply knowledge of the concept that a text can contain more than one theme.	Students will write an essay, delineating the various themes of a literary work.	Frankenstein The Secret Life Of Bees Madame Bovary The Picture of Dorian Gray Pride and Prejudice	Written Essay

11.7 Analyze and compare texts that express a universal theme, and locate support in the text for the identified theme.

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Analyze and compare texts that express a universal theme Locate support in the text for the identified theme	For example, students compare,  cross-cultural examples of a similar theme and locate words or passages that support their understanding.	Murder in the Cathedral Beowulf Macbeth Hamlet Once and Future King One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest	Compare/contrast essay

GENERAL STANDARD 12: Fiction

Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the structure and elements of fiction and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding. We learn from stories. They are vehicles for a student’s development of empathy, of moral sensibility, and of understanding. The identification and analysis of elements of fiction—plot, conflict, setting, character development, and foreshadowing—make it possible for students to think more critically about stories, to respond to them in more complex ways, to reflect on their meanings, and to compare them to each other.

12.6 Analyze, evaluate, and apply knowledge of how authors use techniques and elements in fiction for rhetorical and aesthetic purposes.

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Analyze, evaluate, and apply knowledge of how authors use techniques and elements in fiction for rhetorical and aesthetic purposes.	For example, students analyze events, point of view, and characterization in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye in light of Stanley Crouch’s criticism of her work, and conduct a class debate on the validity of his criticism.	The Bluest Eye Debate Rubric	Whole class discussion Debate Rubric

GENERAL STANDARD 13: Nonfiction

Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the purpose, structure, and elements of nonfiction or informational materials and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding. Most students regularly read newspapers, magazines, journals, or textbooks. The identification and understanding of common expository organizational structures help students to read challenging nonfiction material. Knowledge of the textual and graphic features of nonfiction extends a student’s control in reading and writing informational texts.

13.26 Analyze and evaluate the logic and use of evidence in an author’s argument.

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Analyze and evaluate the logic and use of evidence in an author’s argument	Students will read Kennedy’s Inaugural address and assess the effectiveness of his argument.	Various autobiographies from text, speeches and current newspapers and journals.	Class discussion Persuasive essays Tests/quizzes

13.27 Analyze, explain, and evaluate how authors use the elements of nonfiction to achieve their purposes.

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Analyze, explain, and evaluate how authors use the elements of nonfiction to achieve their purposes	For example, students analyze Night Country, by Loren Eiseley, or several essays by Lewis Thomas or Stephen Jay Gould, and then explain and evaluate how these authors choose their language and organize their writing to help the general reader understand the scientific concepts they present.	Night Country Selected Essays	Socratic Seminar Socratic Seminar Rubric

GENERAL STANDARD 14: Poetry

Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the theme, structure, and elements of poetry and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding. (See also Standard 15.) From poetry we learn the language of heart and soul, with particular attention paid to rhythm and sound, compression and precision, the power of images, and the appropriate use of figures of speech. And yet it is also the genre that is most playful in its attention to language, where rhyme, pun, and hidden meanings are constant surprises. The identification and analysis of the elements generally associated with poetry— metaphor, simile, personification, and alliteration—have an enormous impact on student reading and writing not only in poetry, but in other genres as well.

14.6 Analyze and evaluate the appropriateness of diction and imagery (controlling images, figurative language, understatement, overstatement, irony, paradox).

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Analyze and evaluate the appropriateness of diction and imagery controlling images       figurative language        understatement      overstatement      irony      paradox	For example, students examine poems to explore the relationship between the literal and the figurative in Mark Strand’s “Keeping Things Whole,” Elinor Wylie’s “Sea Lullaby,” Louis MacNeice’s “Prayer Before Birth,” Margaret Walker’s “Lineage,” A.E. Housman’s “To an Athlete Dying Young,” W.H. Auden’s “Unknown Citizen,” Emily Dickinson’s “I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed,” and Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias.” They report their findings to the class, compare observations, and set guidelines for further study.	Selected Poems Socratic Seminar Rubric	Whole class discussion Socratic Seminar Socratic Seminar Rubric

GENERAL STANDARD 15: Style and Language

Students will identify and analyze how an author’s words appeal to the senses, create imagery, suggest mood, and set tone and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding.

(See also Standard 14.) Above all, authors are wordsmiths, plying their craft at the level of word and sentence—adding, subtracting,  and substituting, changing word order, even using punctuation to shift the rhythm and flow of language. Much of a student’s delight in reading can come from identifying and analyzing how an author shapes a text.

15.9 Identify, analyze, and evaluate an author’s use of rhetorical devices in persuasive argument.

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Identify, analyze, and evaluate an author’s use of rhetorical devices in persuasive argument	Non-fiction works such as speeches of early American Native chiefs (Chief Joseph), presidents, (Lincoln, FDR) social reformers( Douglass, Tubman, Henry)	Selections from American Literature Anthology	Assign speeches or parts of speeches to read aloud/ memorize Write a persuasive essay on a contemporary topic

15.10 Analyze and compare style and language across significant cross-cultural literary works.

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Analyze and compare style and language across significant cross-cultural literary works.	For example, students compose essays in which they analyze and compare figurative language in a variety of selections taken from English and World literature to those of classical texts such as The Bible, Gilgamesh, the Odyssey, and the Koran	Anthology of English Literature Selected Novels	Using passages from texts read in class that allude to classical texts, student show how these references are relevant to today’s reading

GENERAL STANDARD 16: Myth, Traditional Narrative, and Classical Literature

Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the themes, structure, and elements of myths, traditional narratives, and classical literature and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding. Young students enjoy the predictable patterns, excitement, and moral lessons of traditional stories. In the middle grades, knowledge of the character types, themes, and structures of these stories enables students to perceive similarities and differences when they compare traditional narratives from different cultures. In the upper grades, students can describe how authors through the centuries have drawn on traditional patterns and themes as archetypes in their writing, deepening their interpretations of these authors’ works.

16.12 Analyze the influence of mythic, traditional, or classical literature on later literature and film

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Analyze the influence of mythic, traditional, or classical literature on later literature and film	For example, students trace the archetypal theme of “the fall” from the Old Testament as they read Hawthorne’s “Rapaccini’s Daughter,” and excerpts from Milton’s Paradise Lost and view the film version of Bernard Malamud’s The Natural. Or, students read The Oresteia, by Aeschylus and compare it to a modern version such as Eugene O’Neill’s Mourning Becomes Electra or Jean-Paul Sartre’s The Flies.	Anthology of English Literature Selected Texts	Critical Essay Essay Rubric

GENERAL STANDARD 17: Dramatic Literature

Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the themes, structure, and elements of drama and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding. (See also Standards 12, 18, 27, and the Theatre Strand of the Arts Curriculum Framework.)

Since ancient times, drama has entertained, informed, entranced, and transformed us as we willingly enter into the other worlds created on stage and screen. In reading dramatic literature, students learn to analyze the techniques playwrights use to achieve their magic. By studying plays, as well as film, television shows, and radio scripts, students learn to be more critical and selective readers, listeners, and viewers of drama.

17.8 Identify and analyze types of dramatic literature.

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Identify and analyze types of dramatic literature.	For example, students read a comedy and discuss the elements and techniques the playwright used to create humor.	A Midsummer Night’s Dream	Define and discuss genre, style, theme and structure and apply them to works read in class. Whole class discussion Discussion Rubric

17.9 Identify and analyze dramatic conventions (monologue, soliloquy, chorus, aside, dramatic irony).

Student Learning Outcomes	Instructional Strategies	Texts/ Materials	Assessment
Identify and analyze dramatic conventions monologue       soliloquy      chorus      aside      dramatic irony	For example, students select a soliloquy from Shakespeare’s Macbeth, a monologue from Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author, or the lines from a chorus in a Greek play such as Euripides’ The Bacchae, analyze its purpose and effects in the play, deliver the speech, and discuss their interpretation of it to the class.	Selected Plays Oral Presentation Rubric	Oral Presentation Oral Presentation Rubric