ENGLISH 2
Overview
Students will discover how the human experience is the foundation of the best stories, plays, poems, films, speeches, and articles by evaluating its presence across genres and throughout history. With a strong focus on the art of writing and speaking, students will engage with a number of rich texts to uncover how authors and speakers use their words to reflect their thoughts on the world. Through writing about literature and research-based topics, students will further develop their voices to create compositions of excellence.
Major Topics and Concepts
Segment One:
Reading Comprehension/Expository & Narrative Writing
- Evaluating tone through connotation and denotation
- Exploring poetic devices and their impact on meaning
- Determining how figurative language enhances mood
- Analyzing how authors create layers of meaning in ambiguous poetry
- Examining the ways literary elements interact
- Analyzing plot structure
- Identifying and tracking universal themes in literary texts
- Determining the point of view’s effect on plot, character, and conflict
- Using narrative techniques to enhance creative writing
- Composing a narrative essay
- Discovering ways authors adapt classical, mythical, or religious texts
- Writing effective summaries
- Utilizing parallel structure in writing
- Editing and revising with purpose
- Explaining the influence of historical context on a literary text
- Evaluating the development of literary elements in a novel
- Connecting real-world issues with literary texts
- Identifying authors’ perspectives on historical, social, or cultural issues
- Synthesizing information from multiple sources in an informational essay
Segment One Honors:
- Composing a poem with ambiguous meaning
- Interpreting purpose and theme in an allegorical text
- Paraphrasing rigorous literary texts
- Connecting historical context and setting to literary texts
- Illuminating a human rights issue through fiction
Segment Two:
- Evaluating how rhetorical appeals and devices support an argument
- Planning and organizing an effective argument
- Identifying elements of an effective claim, counterclaim, and rebuttal
- Effectively supporting a claim with well-researched evidence
- Utilizing academic language and formal tone in writing
- Incorporating elaborative details to communicate and clarify knowledge to an audience
- Writing a polished final draft
- Analyzing historical speeches
- Using digital media to enhance an audience’s understanding of a topic
- Determining the central idea of a text
- Examining informational text structures and features
- Uncovering word meanings through context clues
- Recognizing etymology’s role in the development of language over time
- Using knowledge of affixes and roots to determine the meaning of unknown words
- Interpreting rigorous texts through the use of etymology, word parts, and context clues
- Analyzing characterization in drama
- Evaluating traits of tragedy, including the tragic hero
- Discovering how plot connects to drama
- Determining how plot elements add layers of meaning to drama
- Recognizing universal themes
- Tracking conflicting perspectives in literature
- Locating credible sources based on bias, origin, and purpose
- Avoiding plagiarism
- Citing sources correctly
- Formatting the Works Cited page
- Using signal phrases and transitions in academic writing
- Writing effective informational introductions, body paragraphs, and conclusions
- Formulating thesis statements for academic writing
- Using precise language and domain-specific vocabulary
- Publishing a final draft
Segment Two Honors:
- Composing a rhetorically-charged closing argument for a fictional character
- Comparing and contrasting elements of leadership in non-fiction and fiction
- Creating a fictional text based on a well-researched universal theme
Fee Details
Honors : R 9666.66
Grade 10
Annual
Students will need to obtain one of the following novels for the Obstacles Unit:
Enrique’s Journey by Sonia Nazario
Hiroshima by John Hersey
Of Mice and Men*** by John Steinbeck
Ender’s Game*** by Orson Scott Card
Their Eyes Were Watching God***by Zora Neale Hurston
Honors students will need to obtain either the novel Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier or Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë for the Fear Unit.
None
