Scope/Essential Question

• How do authors use rhetorical strategies and devices to inform our understanding of past and present events?

• What is the author’s purpose?

• What is the author’s central claim?

• How does the author use rhetorical strategies and devices to advance her purpose and develop her central claim?

Skills Taught

Students will:

• read closely for textual details.

• annotate texts to support comprehension and analysis.

• engage in productive evidence-based discussions about text.

• collect evidence from texts to support analysis.

• organize evidence to plan around writing.

• determine meaning of unknown vocabulary.

• question texts during reading to deepen understanding.

• analyze the impact of an author’s choices.

• summarize a text objectively.

• revise writing according to purpose.

• analyze the impact of an author’s choices.

• make connections to other texts, ideas, cultural perspectives.

Text/Materials

Choice  Texts:

• “The Ways We Lie" by  Stefanie Ericsson

• "Auli'i Cravalho"  by Auli'i Cravalho

• "Diane Guerrero"  by Diane Guerrero

•  "On Keeping a Notebook"  by Joan Didion

• "Crying in H Mart" (excerpt) by Michelle Zauner

• "The Ugly Tourist"  by Jamaica Kincaid

• Night by Eli Weisel

Choice texts by students

Standards

Students will:

• read closely for textual details.

• annotate texts to support comprehension and analysis.

• engage in productive evidence-based conversations about text.

• collect and organize evidence from research to support analysis in writing .

• collect and organize text to support claims made in writing.

• use vocabulary strategies to define unknown words.

• identify potential topics for research in a text.

• use questioning to guide research.

• conduct pre searches to validate sufficiency of information for exploring potential topics.

• delineate arguments and explain relevant and sufficient evidence.

• analyze perspectives in potential research texts.

• assess sources for credibility, relevance, and accessibility.

• conduct independent searches using research processes including planning for searches, assessing sources, annotating sources, recording notes, and evaluating arguments.

• develop, refine, and select inquiry questions for research.

• develop and continually assess a research frame to guide independent searches.

• collect and organize research to support analysis in writing.

• craft claims about inquiry questions, inquiry paths, and a problem based question using specific textual evidence from the research.

• develop counter claims in opposition to claims.

• create oral presentations keeping in mind audiences’ concerns, values, and potential biases.

• collect and organize evidence from research to support analysis in writing.

• analyze, synthesize, and organize evidenced based claims.

• write effective introduction, body and conclusion paragraphs for a research based argument paper.

• use proper MLA citation methods in writing.

• edit for a variety of purposes, including hyphens, capitalization, punctuation, and correct spelling.

• use formal style and objective tone.

• adhere to conventions of argument writing (eg. addressing all sides of an issue, avoiding emotional appeals, etc.

• write coherently and cohesively.

• vary syntax for effect, consulting references when needed.

Text/Materials

• Texts: Student directed research

Standards

• How do authors use setting to reveal values of a culture?

• How do authors establish and develop a character’s internal and external conflicts?

• How do authors use a variety of literary strategies and techniques to establish and develop meaning?

• How do authors use fiction to communicate social commentary?

Skills Taught

Students will:

• read closely for textual details.

• annotate texts to support comprehension and analysis.

• engage in productive, evidence-based discussions about texts.

• collect and organize evidence from texts to support analysis in writing.

• collect and organize evidence from texts to support analysis in discussion.

• use vocabulary strategies to define unknown words.

• independently read texts in preparation for supported analysis.

• paraphrase and quote relevant evidence from a text.

• generate and respond to questions in scholarly discourse.

• examine and analyze fiction texts for effective narrative writing technique.

• identify a wide range of literary techniques.

• identify what the text states explicitly and what is inferred.

• rack multiple themes as they develop over the course of a narrative.

• identify patterns in a literary work:

  • Contrast of images, characters, concepts

  • Repetition of images, ideas, concepts or symbols

  • Links to the outside world through references to that which is outside the text (ex. allusion)

  • Curiosities — that which is ambiguous, intriguing

Text/Materials

Core Texts:

• The Catcher in the Rye  by J.D. Salinger

• The Great Gatsby  by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Choice Texts:

Choice Graphic Novels:

• Watchmen

• Maus

Choice Short Stories:

• “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner

• “In the Company of Wolves” by  Angela Carter

• “The Night the Ghost Got In” by James Thurber

• “In Another Country” byErnest Hemingway

• “Winter Dreams” by F. Scott Fitzgerald

• “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” by Katherine Anne Porter

• “A Worn Path” by Eudora Welty

• “Hills Like White Elephants”  by Ernest Hemingway

• “Story of an Hour,”  by Kate Chopin

• “Desiree’s Baby" by Kate Chopin

•  “A White Heron" by Sarah Orne Jewett 

• “A&P"  by John Updike

• “Evelyn"  by James Joyce

• “Araby”  by James Joyce

Standards

• How does a poet use structure and form to contribute to meaning?

• How does a poet employ poetic devices to establish and develop meaning?

• How does a poet develop theme throughout the course of the work?

Skills Taught

Students will:

• read closely for textual details.

• annotate texts to support comprehension and analysis.

• engage in productive, evidence-based discussions about text.

• collect evidence from texts to support analysis.

• organize evidence to plan around writing.

• revise writing according to purpose.

• determine meaning of unknown vocabulary.

• question texts during reading to deepen understanding.

• make connections to other texts, ideas, cultural perspectives.

• analyze the impact of an author’s choices.

• summarize a text.

• collect and organize evidence from texts to support analysis in writing.

• independently preview text in preparation for supported analysis.

• paraphrase and quote relevant evidence from a text.

• identify a wide range of poetic devices, literary devices, and poetic forms.

Text/Materials

Choice Texts:

• ¨My Last Duchess,”  by Robert Browning

• "The Red Wheelbarrow"  by William Carlos Williams

• "This is just to Say" by William Carlos Williams

• "Ode on a Grecian Urn "by John Keats

• "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" by John Keats

• "Porphyria’s Lover" by Robert Browning

Standards

• How does an author develop a character over the course of a work?

• How do various themes develop and intersect through the course of a literary work?

• How do characters reveal themselves through relationships with others

Skills Taught

Students will:

• read closely for textual details.

• annotate texts to support comprehension and analysis.

• engage in productive evidence-based discussions about text.

• collect evidence from texts to support analysis.

• organize evidence to plan around writing.

• revise writing according to purpose.

• determine meaning of unknown vocabulary.

• question texts during reading to deepen understanding.

• make connections to other texts, ideas, cultural perspectives.

• analyze the impact of an author’s choices.

• summarize a text.

• collect and organize evidence from texts to support analysis in writing.

• independently preview text in preparation for supported analysis.

• paraphrase and quote relevant evidence from a text.

Text/Materials

Core Texts:

• Hamlet  by William Shakespeare

Choice Texts:

• Death of a Salesman  by Arthur Miller

• The Crucible  by Arthur Miller

Standards