Literature and Language 9B offers students the opportunities to study texts closely from varying perspectives, honing their critical reading skills at the same time as they apply the writing strategies they developed during the first term.
The semester is organized into three six-week units.
Unit 1—Literature as Craft—students read novels and short stories that reward a careful analysis of style, applying the lessons of the Writing and Language semester to the authorial choices of professional writers.
Unit 2—Literature in Context—students use a wider lens to explore fictional and nonfictional narratives set in a particular time and place. The impact of these settings on the authors’ themes and purposes becomes a focus of reading, as well as how our interpretation of these texts has changed in the time since they were written.
Unit 3—Literature as Art—students not only explore in depth the poetic and dramatic achievement of Romeo and Juliet but also look at how poetry has communicated over the years since Shakespeare’s time.
Students will complete two writing tasks each quarter matched to the types of writing identified by the Common Core State Standards: narrative, informative/explanatory, and argument.
Analysis & Argument
An explanation of how an author develops a particular argument within a fictional text, followed by a response to that argument (recommended to be centrally reported in MP3)
Narrative
A narrative or extended poem about a significant event in the life of another person
Extension: Write your narrative or poem imitating the style of an author or poet
Narrative & Argument
A narrative or dramatic scene that raises an important issue and includes dialogue presenting both sides of the argument (centrally reported in MP4)
Student Choice:
Analysis
A multimedia presentation explaining how a historical allusion or detail from a work informs readers’ understanding of the work
-OR-
Performance
A performance of a scene from Romeo and Juliet, Comedy of Errors, or Twelfth Night, adapting the setting or style to enhance a theme or idea