12th English

Welcome to the 12th English page!

This is the final stage of your high school journey. In this class, we will continue building the literacy foundation students will need for both college and career success. Last year, we introduced many new terms, concepts, and skills. This year, students will continue using these skills as they interact with new genres: fairy tales, Dystopian literature, graphic novels, to name a few. More specifically, this course will work to achieve the following types of learning:

Surface Learning: Students will recall basic literacy terms, concepts, and skills from 9th grade, skills necessary to having a strong English foundation. In addition, new terms, concepts, and skills will be introduced, adding to what the students learned last year. In mechanical terms, surface knowledge is knowing what a battery, radiator, fan belt, and a spark plug are.

English Examples: What is a character? What is the definition of conflict? What are the different types of conflict? What is the definition of plot? What is theme?

Deep Learning: Once students build a strong surface knowledge, they will be instructed in how to use these terms, concepts, and skills to engage in deeper learning. In other words, they will put the parts together to accomplish a greater purpose--writing a paragraph, engaging in a discussion, analyzing a story, etc. In mechanical terms, this is knowing what a battery is, how it works, and understanding the role it plays so I can put it together with the other parts for the greater purpose of making the car run. It's not enough to know the parts, we have to know their function and how they work together.

English Examples: What is the theme of the story? How does the author use the character, the plot, the different conflicts to develop and communicate this theme?

Transfer Learning: The ultimate goal is for students to take what they learned in both the surface and deeper levels and apply this to new contexts and circumstances. This answers the "what does this have to do with real life?" question. In mechanical terms, this is the mechanic's ability to move from one car to a different car and apply (transfer) both the surface and deep knowledge learned on the first car to the new car.

English Example: How can we use what we know to find themes in movies, novels, other short stories, our own lives?