English 12

2 Semesters 2 Credits

Prerequisite: Successful completion of English 11 or Honors English 11 or Teacher Recommendation

Students will encounter authors’ perspectives as they read literature from across time periods and cultures. Students will read classic and contemporary fiction and nonfiction texts and view/listen to media selections, all related to an Essential Question. Students will use technology to interact with texts and activities, and their writing will become meaningful.

Students will be expected to take ownership of their learning as instruction will help students develop independent reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills in the context of meaningful projects. We will combine whole-class, small-group, and independent learning in addition to performance-based assessment. We will develop close reading and build literacy. Additionally, students will benefit from the power of collaboration since most students learn best by doing things and working with others.

Unit One: Forging a Hero, Warriors and Leaders

Essential Question: What makes a hero?

WHOLE-CLASS LEARNING

  • Which counts more – taking a stand or winning? from “Beowulf” - Burton Raffel, translator - Epic
  • from “Beowulf” - Gareth Hinds - Graphic Novel

SMALL-GROUP LEARNING

  • “To Lucasta, Going to the Wars” - Richard Lovelace - Poetry
  • “The Charge of the Light Brigade” - Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Poetry
  • “The Song of the Mud” from At the Somme - Mary Borden - Poetry
  • “Dulce et Decorum Est” - Wilfred Owen - Poetry
  • “How Did Harry Patch Become an Unlikely WW1 Hero?” - BBC iWonder - Interactive Website

INDEPENDENT LEARNING

Students will choose one of the following selections to read independently.

  1. “Accidental Hero” - Zadie Smith - Essay
  2. “The New Psychology of Leadership” - Stephen D. Reicher, Michael J. Platow, S. Alexander Haslam - Science Article
  3. “Speech Before Her Troops” - Queen Elizabeth I - Speech
  4. “The Battle of Maldon” - Burton Raffel, translator - Poetry
  5. “Defending Nonviolent Resistance” - Mohandas Gandhi - Speech
  6. “Pericles’ Funeral Oration” - Thucydides - Speech

Performance-Based Assessment: Write an argument essay and then deliver the argument to the class answering the questions: Which counts more – taking a stand or winning? What contributes more to heroism – sacrifice or success?

Unit Two: Reflecting on Society, Argument, Satire, and Reform

Essential Question: How do people come to have different views on society?

WHOLE-CLASS LEARNING

  • “The Prologue” from The Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer - translated by Nevill - Coghill poetry
  • “The Prologue From The Canterbury Tales, Slam Remix” - Patience Agbabi - media: poetry

SMALL-GROUP LEARNING

  • from “The Worms of the Earth Against the Lions” - Barbara Tuchman - historical account
  • “Shakespeare’s Sister” - Virginia Woolf - essay
  • “On Seeing England for the First Time” - Jamaica Kincaid - essay
  • "XXIII from Midsummer" - Derek Walcott - poetry
  • Passenger Manifest - for the MV - Empire Windrush - public document

INDEPENDENT LEARNING

Student will choose one of the following to read independently.

  1. “Occupy LSX May Be Gone, but the Movement Won’t Be Forgotten” - Giles Fraser - newspaper article
  2. “Today’s Pygmy Protesters Are No Heirs to Martin Luther King” - Nick Herbert - newspaper article
  3. “Inequality and the Crisis: Still Pre-Occupied" - The Guardian - editorial
  4. "What We Mean When We Say the People" - Edmund Burke - argument
  5. from The Rape of the Lock - Alexander Pope - mock epic
  6. from Candide - Voltaire - novel excerpt
  7. An Interview With Benjamin Zephaniah - Eric Doumerc - interview
  8. Poetry of Benjamin Zephaniah - Benjamin Zephaniah - Poetry

Performance-Based Assessment: Write an explanatory essay and create a video explanation addressing the questions: What factors lead people to criticize their society rather than simply accept it? How does Chaucer find humor in the difference between the ideal and the real in the characters that populate The Canterbury Tales? Which aspects of English society would you change? Which would you keep?


Unit Three: Facing the Future, Confronting the Past

Essential Question: How do our attitudes towards the past and future shape our actions?

WHOLE-CLASS LEARNING

  • The Tragedy of Macbeth - William Shakespeare - drama
  • “The Tragedy of Macbeth, Act V, Scene i” - Los Angeles Theatre - Works - media: audio performance
  • “The Tragedy of Macbeth, Act V, Scene i” - LibriVox - media: audio performance

SMALL-GROUP LEARNING

  • “Sonnet 12", "Sonnet 60", "Sonnet 73” - William Shakespeare - poetry
  • “Sonnet 32” - Mary Wroth - poetry
  • “Sonnet 75” - Edmund Spenser - poetry
  • from "The Naked Babe and the Cloak of Manliness" - Cleanth Brooks - literary criticism
  • from "Macbeth" - Frank Kermode - literary criticism

INDEPENDENT LEARNING

Students will choose one of the following to read independently.

  1. from Oedipus Rex - Sophocles, translated by David Grene - drama
  2. “Ozymandias” - Percy Bysshe Shelley - poetry
  3. “Why Brownlee Left" - Paul Muldoon - poetry
  4. "Man’s Short Life and Foolish Ambition" - Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle - poetry
  5. from Macbeth: The Graphic Novel William Shakespeare, illustrated by John Haward, script adapted by John McDonald - media: graphic novel
  6. "The Lagoon" - Joseph Conrad - short story
  7. "What’s Your Time Perspective?" - Jane Collingwood - science article
  8. "Does Time Pass?" Peter Dizikes - science article

Performance-Based Assessment: Write an argument essay and record a TV commentary answering the questions: In what ways does Macbeth attempt to control the future and to bury the past? What is the relationship of human beings to time?


Unit Four: Seeing Things New, Visionaries and Skeptics

Essential Question: Why are both vision and disillusion necessary? A vision can be inspiring. Disillusion can cause disappointment. It can also refer to a positive sense of realization. How do you develop a vision? What might a disillusion teach us about ourselves?

Primary Study: Dead Poet’s Society

WHOLE-CLASS LEARNING

  • “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” - John Donne - poetry
  • “Holy Sonnet 10” - John Donne - poetry
  • from Gulliver’s Travels - Jonathan Swift - novel excerpt
  • from “Gulliver’s Travels Among the Lilliputians and the Giants" - George Méliès - media: film
  • Gulliver’s Travels Cover Art - media: cover art

SMALL-GROUP LEARNING

  • “To His Coy Mistress" - Andrew Marvell - poetry
  • “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” - Robert Herrick - poetry
  • “Youth’s the Season Made for Joys” - John Gay - poetry
  • from the Divine Comedy: Inferno - Dante Alghieri; translated by John Ciardi - poetry
  • "The Second Coming" - W. B. Yeats - poetry
  • "Araby" - James Joyce - short story
  • "The Explosion" - Philip Larkin - poetry
  • "Old Love" - Francesca Beard poetry

INDEPENDENT LEARNING

Student will choose one of the following to read independently.

  1. from Pilgrim’s Progress - John Bunyan - allegory
  2. “The Lamb", "The Tyger", "The Chimney Sweeper” - William Blake - poetry
  3. “Sleep" - NOVA scienceNOW - transcript
  4. from The Pillow Book - Sei Shōnagon - translated by Ivan Morris - diary
  5. "Kubla Khan" - Samuel Taylor Coleridge - poetry

Performance-Based Assessment: Write a reflective narrative and perform a dramatic reading answering the questions: When do we need a new vision of things? When can the way we look at things lead to growth—and when can it hold us back?


Unit Five: Discovering the Self, Individual, Nature, and Society

Essential Question: What makes a self, and what does it mean to find it - or lose it? How do we learn about ourselves? How do you define yourself?

WHOLE-CLASS LEARNING

  • “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey” - William Wordsworth - poetry
  • from The Prelude - William Wordsworth - poetry
  • “Ode to a Nightingale” - John Keats - poetry
  • “Ode to the West Wind” - Percy Bysshe Shelley - poetry
  • from Frankenstein - Mary Shelley - novel excerpt

SMALL-GROUP LEARNING

  • from Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf - novel excerpt
  • “Apostrophe to the Ocean” - George Gordon, Lord Byron - poetry
  • “The World Is Too Much With Us” - William Wordsworth - poetry
  • “London, 1802” - William Wordsworth - poetry
  • “The Madeleine” - Marcel Proust - novel excerpt
  • “The Most Forgetful Man in the World” - Joshua Foer - science journalism
  • “When Memories Never Fade, the Past Can Poison the Present” - Alix Spiegel - media: radio broadcast

INDEPENDENT LEARNING

Student will choose one of the following to read independently.

  1. “Seeing Narcissists Everywhere” - Douglas Quenqua - newspaper article
  2. “A Year in a Word: Selfie” - Gautam Malkani - newspaper article
  3. from Time and Free Will - Henri Bergson - essay
  4. from The Portrait of a Lady - Henry James - novel excerpt

Performance-Based Assessment: Student will write a brief personal narrative then perform a brief introduction to the narrative in response to the questions: How does the world around us contribute to our sense of self? What does it mean to find or lose oneself? What types of experiences allow us to discover who we really are?


Unit Six: Finding a Home, Nation, Exile, and Dominion

Essential Question: In what ways is home both a place and a state of mind?

WHOLE-CLASS LEARNING

  • “Back to My Own Country: An Essay” - Andrea Levy - essay
  • “Shooting an Elephant” George Orwell - essay

SMALL-GROUP LEARNING

  • from A History of the English Church and People - Bede, translated by Leo Sherley-Price - history
  • from “History of Jamaica” Encyclopaedia Britannica - media: website
  • “The Seafarer” translated by Burton Raffel - poetry
  • “Dover Beach” - Matthew Arnold - poetry
  • “Escape from the Old Country” - Adrienne Su - poetry
  • “The Widow at Windsor” - Rudyard Kipling - poetry
  • “From Lucy: Englan’ Lady” - James Berry - poetry

INDEPENDENT LEARNING

Students will choose one of the following to read independently.

  1. “St. Crispin’s Day Speech” from Henry V, Act IV, Scene iii - William Shakespeare - speech
  2. “Home Thoughts, From Abroad” - Robert Browning - poetry
  3. from The Buried Giant - Kazuo Ishiguro - novel excerpt
  4. “My Old Home” - Lu Hsun - short story
  5. from “Writing as an Act of Hope” - Isabel Allende - essay

Performance-Based Assessment: Student will write an informative essay, create a group panel discussion, and give a a media presentation answering the questions: How did British colonialism complicate the idea of home? What makes a place important enough to write about? In what ways is home both a place and a state of mind?