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Course Description
The purpose of this course is to provide grade 11 students, using texts of high complexity, integrated language arts study in reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language for college and career preparation and readiness.
This course will be centered mostly on American Literature. We will explore the many genres of American literature, as well as become acquainted with some of America’s most famous authors. We will do so through in-class activities, independent and guided reading assignments and the completion of a research project. We will study poetry, prose, and drama in this course. This course will be aligned with the Florida State Standards.
As this is also a writing class, we will be doing numerous written projects and activities to enhance and advance our own skills as writers. There will be numerous in-class “free-writes” as well as several writing assignments. Many assignments will be done in class; however, students will be expected to edit at home. Finally, vocabulary quizzes will be given on a weekly basis. An emphasis will be placed on preparations for the ACT Exam, including vocabulary acquisition and both guided and independent practice with ACT-prep activities.
Course Objectives
The content will include, but not be limited to, the following:
- active reading of varied texts for what they say explicitly, as well as the logical inferences that can be drawn
- analysis of literature and informational texts from varied literary periods to examine:
- text craft and structure
- elements of literature
- arguments and claims supported by textual evidence
- power and impact of language
- influence of history, culture, and setting on language
- personal, critical, and aesthetic response
- writing for varied purposes
- developing and supporting argumentative claims
- crafting coherent, supported informative/expository texts
- responding to literature for personal and analytical purposes
- writing narratives to develop real or imagined events
- writing to sources (short and longer research) using text based claims and evidence
- effective listening, speaking, and viewing strategies with emphasis on the use of evidence to support or refute a claim in multimedia presentations, class discussions, and extended text discussions
- collaboration amongst peers.