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The Course
This course has been organized in a way that starts at the very beginning of literary history. We have tried to weave through various themes and cultures as they relate to how humans tell stories and some of the texts throughout history that make allusions to those stories. Because many districts are using this to fulfill a requirement for British Literature there is more of a focus on those texts. The English 11 course by the MN Partnership for Collaborative Curriculum covers the American Literature standards requirements. The course lacks in-depth review and analysis of Asian, African and South American texts. We are limited to texts in the public domain and there is a wide range of available materials for those topics. Many of those materials have been included in the Odell Education Materials referenced below. Those texts include a more diverse range of writing and should be integrated throughout the course (More on how to do that in the Odell section.)
Quizzes have been provided in the course to gauge student familiarity with concepts related to the standards. These are not suitable resources for students to “test out” of a standard but it will provide you with valuable information about where you may want to focus your attention.
The course avoids referencing to the 5 paragraph theme because at this level of writing students should have evolved beyond it. We encourage students to avoid some of the more common paragraph transitions and summary statements in favor of something a little more advanced. When essays are suggested we refer to them as the Three Part Paper (Introduction, Body and Conclusion) that can be flexible in terms of length but not expectation.
There are additional suggestions in the
Writing and Research Resources section in this course that provide presentational materials, and off-site handouts/activities/quizzes for students. These are included so that you do not have to teach grammar or writing mechanics in isolation but can use the materials with your students as the need arises.
You may want to move the Blogging unit up to one of the first units in the course if you would like students to keep a running journal or portfolio throughout the course. It would also require you to modify some of the assignments that allow students to write about any topics that interest them, but it would be an efficient way for them to gather their thoughts on all aspects of the course.
Odell Education Supplemental Material
https://goo.gl/WaLDNO
To enrich the choices available to ELA 12 teachers and students, we have included units from Odell Education’s Developing Core Proficiencies Curriculum.
The Developing Core Proficiencies Curriculum is an integrated set of English Language Arts/Literacy units spanning grades 6-12. Funded by the USNY Regents Research Fund, the free curriculum is comprised of a series of four units at each grade level that provide direct instruction on a set of literacy proficiencies at the heart of the Common Core State Standards.
- Unit 1: Reading Closely for Textual Details
- Unit 2: Making Evidence-Based Claims
- Unit 3: Researching to Deepen Understanding
- Unit 4: Building Evidence-Based Arguments
Each unit highlights a core literacy proficiency and provides approaches, instructional sequences, handouts, tools and texts for developing independent mastery and creative critical thinking in students. The Core Proficiencies units have been designed to be used in a variety of ways.
- Teach as short stand-alone units to introduce or develop key student proficiencies.
- Integrate them into larger modules that build up to and around these proficiencies.
- Apply the activity sequences and unit materials to different texts and topics.
Unit 1: Reading Closely for Textual Details has been adapted to work as a blended, online experience. The other Units have been uploaded in the .pdf format and are best suited for printing and distributing in a face-to-face setting.
Unit materials available at www.odelleducation.com
Final Thoughts
The topics, texts and activities provided in this course have been selected not only because they align to state academic and Common Core standards, but also because they have been used with students in multiple settings and have been highly rated as engaging and interesting. We value student input above all else. Please continue to provide us with your experiences in the Feedback/Suggestion form so that we may continually improve upon this course. If you have an idea about different ways in which you can use the course materials there are also Powerful Practice pages in each unit where you can submit your ideas to others using the course. Because of you, this course will continue to evolve into something that will be a valuable resource for all English/Language Arts students and teachers.
Thomas Brandt, Jon Fila and Scott Schwister
Course Authors
Year at a Glance
The Unit Plans in each section provide a more specific breakdown for time on various tasks in each unit. They also provide information on benchmarks, assessments, vocabulary, essential questions, and resources used. Within each unit is also a page for additional resources, teaching strategies and background information.
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Unit: First Words Standards Addressed: 11.4.1.1; 11.4.2.2; 11.4.3.3 Unit: Search Engines vs. Electronic Databases Standards Addressed: 11.7.7.7; 11.7.8.8; 11.9.1.1 Unit: The Written Word Standards Addressed: 11.7.2.2; 11.7.3.3; 11.7.4.4; 11.7.6.6; 11.7.7.7; 11.7.8.8; 11.7.9.9 Unit: It’s Greek to Me Standards Addressed: 11.4.4.4; 11.4.10.10 Unit: Read this Book (Frankenstein) Standards Addressed: 11.4.1.1; 11.4.2.2; 11.4.3.3; 11.4.4.4; 11.4.5.5; 11.4.7.7; 11.4.10.10; 11.9.7.7; 11.9.8.8; 11.11.4.4; 11.11.5.5 Unit: That Couldn’t Really Happen Standards Addressed: 11.5.1.1; 11.5.2.2; 11.7.1.1 |
Unit: Shakespeare Again? (Othello) Standards Addressed: 11.4.2.2; 11.4.3.3; 11.4.4.4; 11.4.5.5; 11.4.6.6; 11.4.7.7; 11.4.10.10; 11.11.3.3; 11.11.5.5 Unit: Norse Myths Standards Addressed: 11.4.1.1; 11.4.2.2; 11.4.3.3; 11.4.4.4; 11.4.5.5; 11.4.6.6; 11.4.7.7; 11.4.10.10; 11.5.1.1; 11.5.2.2; 11.5.3.3; 11.5.9.9; 11.5.10.10; 11.7.3.3; 11.11.5.5 Unit: Current Events Standards Addressed: 11.5.1.1; 11.5.2.2; 11.5.3.3; 11.5.5.5; 11.5.6.6; 11.5.7.7; 11.5.10.10; 11.7.1.1; 11.7.2.2; 11.7.8.8, 11.7.9.9; 11.9.4.4 Unit: Blogging Standards Addressed: 11.7.6.6; 11.7.10.10 Unit: The Future of Communication Standards Addressed: 11.4.6.6; 11.5.4.4; 11.5.5.5; 11.5.6.6; 11.7.3.3; 11.9.3.3; 11.9.7.7; 11.9.8.8; 11.11.3.3 Unit: Problem/Solution Standards Addressed: 11.5.7.7; 11.7.1.1; 11.7.2.2; 11.7.3.3; 11.7.4.4; 11.7.5.5; 11.7.7.7; 11.7.8.8; 11.7.9.9; 11.7.10.10; 11.9.2.2; 11.9.4.4; 11.9.5.5; 11.9.6.6; 11.9.7.7 |
Student and Teacher Resources
Here are some general resources which you may find useful throughout the course (additional resources on these topics are provided in their own sections within the course and are for specific types of lessons or benchmarks):
Student Research/Projects
Electronic Library of MN
– Access to various electronic databases for student research.
http://www.elm4you.org
Research Project Calculator
– Part of ELM but this will allow students to plan assignment submissions. It breaks longer assignments up into step by step tasks and helps them budget their time.
https://rpc.elm4you.org
Reading Support
Rewordify
allows students to swap out difficult words in selections of text with something they already understand. It will highlight the words that were changed and allow them to study those words and help them to learn the definitions in context.
- Preloaded materials
- Paste existing materials
- Generate vocabulary lists and quizzes
- Students can use it as well.
http://rewordify.com
Read & Write for Google
is a free Chrome extension offering reading and writing support for Google Docs and web pages to students with learning difficulties, dyslexia, or ELL/ESL, including:
- Text to speech
- Speech to text
- Visual dictionary
- Translation
- Simplify web page view for readability
https://goo.gl/xpU7jC
English Language Learner materials for students and teachers are available from the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL).
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/5/
You can find information on Reading Levels by using the following resources:
- Microsoft Word (Settings allow for Show readability statistics)
- readability-score.com
- lexile.com/analyzer
(limited to 1000 words) - Rewordify.com
Statistics tab for READ score
Text to Speech
- Librivox & Archive.org for audio versions of text
- SpeakIt –
Chrome Extension
https://goo.gl/7k4RP3 - NVDA – Open Source; downloads to device.
http://www.nvaccess.org/ - Screen reader support in Google Docs
https://goo.gl/s05ckb
Writing Support
Student Writing Support resources from the University of Minnesota
http://writing.umn.edu/sws/quickhelp/index.html
Online Writing Lab
(OWL) from Purdue. This is an extensive collection of resources and handouts that gives examples of various types of writing; support for citations and more. There are teacher resources and presentations that can be used in class.
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/
Easybib
– Generate citations for works cited pages. There is also an add-on for Google Docs (click Add-ons–>Get add-ons and select Easybib) and a Browser extension that may also be useful.
http://www.easybib.com/
Course Preparation
It’s referenced throughout the course, but before submitting any written assignments, please review for proper formatting.
Because this course contains components written composition, we will be making a special effort to formalize most of your writing. That means a limitation on things like slang, acronyms, sentence fragments and things like that. This is the kind of thing better suited to email, Facebook, Twitter, or whatever.
Many of you are used to a very particular style of writing, one that has been drilled into you from the time you were in Middle School (perhaps earlier!) It includes things like making sure your essays have five paragraphs; telling the reader what you are going to talk about later in your paper (Don’t do this! Your introduction should provide some interesting ideas, conclusions or assertions which you will later explain, prove or defend in that section.); or that you end your essays by stating, “
In conclusion…” Let me be the one to tell you before it’s too late that college professors hate that (many of them anyway). They’ll say things like, “Don’t tell me it’s your conclusion, I can see it’s the last paragraph, I know it’s your conclusion!” They also tend to hate it when there are sentences that act as filler and don’t add anything to the overall essay.
For example, don’t ever say something like, “
This essay is going to be about...” Just come out and say what you’re going to say. If you think that you could take a sentence out of your paper and it wouldn’t change anything then by all means, do it!
Avoid using any general statements as well, they don’t mean anything. If you want to write, there are many reasons for and against blah, blah, blah. Don’t. It doesn’t add anything to the discussion.
I happen to dislike those types of things as well, but I won’t yell at you for doing it, I’ll just point it out and ask you to consider a better way. It’s time for your writing to grow and I think this course will help you with that.
End of rant, you may now move on…