Language Arts 11 (1.0 Credit)

English for grade 11 is an American Literature course, with units organized chronologically according to periods in literary history. As students read foundation works of literature and other historical documents written between 1600 and 1900, they’ll review and extend skills in five domains: analyzing literature, analyzing informational text, writing, speaking and listening, and language study, which includes word knowledge and grammar skills. Each module or unit begins with a lesson that provides historical context for the era and introduces themes that emerged in the literature of that era. Each lesson provides students with an opportunity to review basic analysis skills before applying those skills to works of literature or key historical documents. Lessons focused on more difficult historical documents include activities that help students comprehend the complex ideas in these works. Writing modes include narrative, reflective, persuasive, and analytical modes. Assignments emphasize the use of details, evidence, and reasoning to support ideas; writing lessons include model essays that demonstrate key features of each mode. The speaking and listening lessons cover rhetoric, the peer review or writing workshop process, and performance skills. Vocabulary development instruction is integrated into literature and informational text lessons. Each unit ends with an authentic assessment that presents students with a real-world scenario requiring some of the skills they learned in the unit. Units focused on historical eras and literary movements of the 20th and 21st century, such as Naturalism, Imagism, the Harlem Renaissance, and Post-Modernism. Literature analysis lessons focus on the forms of literature that were most commonly written during the Twentieth Century and how the forms, styles, and techniques of that century inform literature written today. Students will also evaluate various modes and forms of language expression, including single media and multimedia messages. Writing and informational text lessons guide students through the stages of a rigorous research process and demonstrate how to evaluate, integrate, and share the information gathered during research. Students are required to share their ideas and analysis using several different modes, including oral and multimedia presentations.

Required Novels:

• The Scarlet Letter (Semester A)
• The Great Gatsby (Semester B)

Optional Novels (Choose 1 per Semester):

• Death of a Salesman
• A Farewell to Arms
• My Antonia
• A Lesson Before Dying
• Black Boy
• The Island
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn