12Th Grade English and Language Arts

12th Grade English and Language Arts

D. Martinez

[email protected]

Vision statement

To create a rigorous and highly ambitious academic environment geared towards preparing seniors in high school for the rigors of higher learning here and abroad. The ultimate goal in mind is: college skills readiness for post-secondary studies and beyond. By introducing students to a variety of literary formats in correlation with a demanding, but closely supervised analytical writing framework, the students will be substantially prepared to analyze, decipher and, synthesize texts along with creating insightful compositions on a variety of topics through the course. By utilizing the primary foundations of language arts; listening, speaking, reading, and writing, one will find a young pupil ready for what their future academic endeavors hold.

Mission at hand

Regarding Literature

Students and instructor will all facilitate accountable discourse in which insights and observations are shared and documented. Students will be responsible for annotations and records for their independent studies. A variety of literary elements and skills will be examined for comprehension via a plethora of assessments.

Regarding Synthesis composition

Students will adhere to the common core standard rubrics as prescribed by instructor. Students will utilize the skills provided by instructor in order to create viable literary analysis using academic primary and secondary sources while adhering to MLA format on all formal assignments.

Regarding Oral Communication

Students are to demonstrate a grasp of appropriate academic language via the lexicon of language arts. Debates, Socratic seminars, presentations, teacher-led discussions, and peer discourse are all in (but not limited to) the realm of observable assessment here. General Course Overview

Unit Title Length

Unit 1: Classroom Culture

Literary review- Baseline writing exam – 1 Week Materials – MLA Review

Unit 2: The Oral Tradition of Epics

Beowulf - MLA – Synthesis – Elements of 5 Weeks lit. – M.W.D.S – In/out house Analysis (Primary source) - Archetypes

Unit 3: The Middle Ages

Selected Canterbury Tales –Pilgrimage 5 Weeks project– Presentations – Annotations – Synthesis analysis - Federigo’s Falcon Unit 4: The Shakespearean Sonnet/ Carpe Diem Poetry 4 Weeks The Renaissance –Elements of Poetry – Socratic Seminar – Analysis – FPVASTT- Synthesis analysis – Sonnet Emulation project with presentation

Unit 5: English Modernism

– Front loading historical context – 5 Weeks Academic secondary sources- Synthesis analysis with in house and at home resources– Writing conferencing peer/teacher led- Socratic seminar- Woolf – Orwell – Joyce – Lawrence – Borges – Heaney- Auden (2) - Unit 6: Rhetoric/Reasoning/Argument 5 Weeks A Modest Proposal – Words and Behavior– Argumentative writing (world issues) – Socratic circle and presentation with argument Unit 7: Shakespearean Tragedy- Can one be overly Ambitious? 5 Weeks Macbeth - Elements of a tragedy – soliloquy and aside- Analysis with multiple sources

Unit 8: Social/Self Consciousness in text through English history (short stories and poetry) 4 Weeks One’s sense of self and society – Cavendish – Wollstonecraft- Donne- Blake- Houseman- Yeats- Keats – Owen- Crane- Tolstoy Unit 9: Comprehensive Review – Year at a Glance

Major works data sheets – Gallery walk – 2 Weeks Final exam in two parts – Debriefing discussion (student led) – Writing review: are we college writers?

**All assignments, order of assignments, and times of implementation are subject to change based on Mr. Martinez’s professional discernment **