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Course Description
This course meets the state requirement for honors courses and meets the requirements for English 2. In this course students will read extensively to strengthen their skills and deepen their understanding of literary and informational texts. This course will expose students to literary and informational texts that will steadily increase in sophistication and complexity. Emphasis will be placed on drawing evidence from literary and informational texts in order to support analysis, reflection, and research. Additionally, this course will challenge students to apply their skills and knowledge in the areas of writing, speaking and listening, word study, and language. Writing instruction will focus on teaching students to assert and defend claims and in order to demonstrate what they know about a topic. Students will learn to consider task, purpose, and audience as well as how to combine information, structures, and formats deliberately to make their claim. Students will participate in research that requires them to gather information, evaluate sources, and cite material accurately. Students will become skilled in determining and clarifying the meanings of words and phrases in order to comprehend complex texts and build extensive vocabularies. Because of the pace, depth, and rigor, this course is highly recommended for students who plan to take Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate courses in the future.
As part of the Academic Leadership Academy, we fully expect students to engage in a variety of challenging ideas, to think critically, to debate each other respectfully, to keep up with all readings and assignments in a fast-paced course, to contribute to the classroom community, and to move towards becoming a global thinker. While attention will continue to be given to the ways in which life shapes literature and in which literature reflects life, we will also being evaluating the other various nonfiction modes of discourse, specifically argumentation, and determining what creates an effective argument. Students will be constantly challenged to answer the question, “How can I use my learning and skills to serve and to lead?” In an attempt to answer this question, we will examine various motifs in literature, including but not limited to the following: justice, identity, sacrifice, societal expectations, responsibility, and integrity.
As part of the Academic Leadership Academy, we fully expect students to engage in a variety of challenging ideas, to think critically, to debate each other respectfully, to keep up with all readings and assignments in a fast-paced course, to contribute to the classroom community, and to move towards becoming a global thinker. While attention will continue to be given to the ways in which life shapes literature and in which literature reflects life, we will also being evaluating the other various nonfiction modes of discourse, specifically argumentation, and determining what creates an effective argument. Students will be constantly challenged to answer the question, “How can I use my learning and skills to serve and to lead?” In an attempt to answer this question, we will examine various motifs in literature, including but not limited to the following: justice, identity, sacrifice, societal expectations, responsibility, and integrity.
Course Objectives
In correlation with all levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy, Webb’s DOK, the South Carolina College and Career Ready ELA Standards and the idea that students will develop skills as readers, writers, listeners, speakers, and researchers
The students will be able to:
The students will be able to:
- determine the central ideas in a work of fiction and informational texts.
- analyze informational texts and fiction
- write informative/explanatory and argumentative/persuasive writing
- analyze drama and argument and become familiar with identifying rhetorical devices in literature and informational texts
- analyze the development of a character or central figure in works of both fiction and nonfiction
- research through an historical and/or biographical lens
- improve oral and written communication skills through studying vocabulary, grammar, literary techniques, and research options
- develop an in-depth understanding of important issues and events that focus on the past, present, and future
- gain an understanding of similarities and differences of human experiences through literature
- recognize patterns of interdependence in local, national, and international settings in order to prepare to make informed choices in the future
- incorporate the broader elements of humanities into the focused study of literature
- analyze different literary genres from various perspectives with ample opportunities for reading, writing, publishing, listening, speaking, and research
- become aware of the intentional use of rhetorical and literary devices in a variety of genres
- examine recurrent motifs and themes in order to become responsible servants and leaders of society.