High School
A. English
Survey of English
In English I, students continue to develop skills through structured study and independent reading of literary and informational texts. A variety of informational texts as well as four major types of literary texts—fiction, literary nonfiction, poetry, and drama—are read and viewed both inside and outside of class. Through literary texts, students study the author’s craft by making inferences, determining point of view, and analyzing theme and figurative language. By reading a variety of informational texts, students analyze an author’s development and support of a thesis, create a variety of responses to texts, and examine the ways that bias is revealed in texts. In addition, students continue to develop and use in reading, writing, and oral communication, a knowledge of vocabulary that includes roots, affixes, euphemisms, and idioms.
High School students are a great deal more sophisticated in their use of language than they were in the lower grades. They now are expected to produce coherent and well-organized writing that includes a thesis and supporting evidence. In implementing the writing process, students compose various types of texts including informational (expository/persuasive/argumentative) pieces and narratives. They proofread and edit for the correct use of the conventions of written Standard American English, and they improve the content and development, the organization, and the quality of voice in their writing through the use of revision strategies. The ability to develop an idea thoughtfully is a skill that students will use in college and in the workplace.
In carrying out the research process, students in English I identify a topic, collect information from primary and secondary sources, and present their findings and conclusions in oral, written, and visual formats. In today’s technological world, with the amount of information expanding at an unparalleled rate, students must be adept at accessing information in order to become critical, independent learners, thinkers, and writers. They must be able to determine what particular type of information they need for a specific topic, and they must know how to locate that information efficiently. Students must also be able to evaluate the validity of their sources. In addition, after incorporating their own ideas with the information they have chosen from those sources, they must be able to clearly distinguish that information from their own ideas by providing accurate and complete documentation of the sources they have used
Honors requirements: English I students will read four separate full length works in addition to the program requirements and demonstrate their understanding through research and analytical papers. The Honors student is also expected to approach the class material with a level that is commiserate with their abilities as Honor students.
