English I
Curriculum Guide

Course Description

Additional instruction in the Writing Center is required

Ninth grade students take the following course:

Students read, explore, and study writing including literary works, drama, and short prose selections. They develop their own writing through composition. Communication competencies, including vocabulary, listen ing, speaking, and group work, are developed through activities involving writing, reading, literature study, and computer use. Students confer about their writing in the Writing Center and the High School Computer Center as well as in class.

Course Overview

English I is a full year course that serves as the introductory high school English course for all ninth grade students at Mt. Ararat High School. Students are heterogeneously grouped in small classes, reflecting a desire to respond to the individual learner with multi-level explorations of English in this often difficult transition period between middle level and high school. The common thread that binds the fabric of this course is the search to recognize the underlying metaphoric implications that are inherent in all forms of written expres sion.

The English I curriculum is designed to guide students to an understanding of the varied meanings of language through a wide variety of texts including: short stories, novels, audiotapes, films, poetry, plays and the visual arts. Instructors begin the year by utilizing these varied texts to illustrate the allegorical nature of all great art and its implications for the lives of individual students. Students expand on their understanding of these concepts throughout the year as they read, discuss, explore and write within four larger thematic units: teaching tolerance through the study of minority cultures and literature; Shakespeare's plays, theater and the Elizabethan society; library research/historical fiction; various expository and narrative writing assignments.

This curriculum has evolved as a result of many forces in and out of the classroom. The core of the curricu lum is writing and reading. Writing is the ideal tool for students to explore their world, while reading in ninth grade reaches for an understanding of multiple and diverse meanings that lie behind all written work. As society grows more complex and diverse, it is appropriate to mirror that diversity in the classroom.

Course Components

1. Research: Historical Fiction

The research component of the English I program is the Historical Fiction Unit, during which students research a particular historical period and compose a story that takes place within that time period (see appendix for actual assignment). In preparation for this assignment, students work in the library, where they learn:

1) to locate material through such current technology as

NewsBank
*MaineCat
SIRS
Readers Guide
Bibliographic and reference material
Microfilm and microfiche

2) to make appropriate and effective choices of material for researching theirchosen time period

3) to gather pertinent information by taking notes on notecards

4) to document their sources properly, using the Mt. Ararat Style Sheet

Additional preparation for writing historical fiction pieces involves learning to distinguish between factual reporting and fiction through assigned readings and class discussions. Some students may also need to learn interview techniques for oral research.

Throughout this unit, students follow a calendar of specific steps and due dates as they collect their notes, plot their stories, prepare early drafts, confer in the Writing Center, and revise their work. The final product is completed in the Computer Center; students are required to have their own Mt. Ararat computer disks. Besides bridging students' reading and writing experiences, this historical fiction assignment also introduces students to research skills they will need throughout high school.

2. Reading

Reading at the ninth grade level develops students' interpretive skills through a variety of texts, classic and contemporary, including film as well as literature. The goal is to encourage students to think beyond the text in order to extract deeper meaning and to answer the question: What is this text trying to say? The study of metaphors serves as a vehicle to get into such texts as The Pearl, The Old Man and the Sea, or Call of the Wild to begin the process of understanding multiple and diverse meanings. In addition, strategies in the reading process are examined while students are encouraged to become critical readers. Students show they have acquired these skills through various responses to literature as well as to other texts.

Reading at the ninth grade level places additional emphasis on individual selection of texts, urging students to become aware of their own personal reading process. In addition, the value of making connections from a text to students' life experiences or from one text to another is encouraged and pursued through various writing activities and discussions.

Reading of literature focuses on elements of fiction and nonfiction, including plot, setting, characterization, conflict, point of view, theme, special uses of language, and vocabulary. Such elements will be explored through novels, short stories, essays, film, audio tapes, poetry, drama, and multicultural texts assigned in class as well as through self-selection of outside reading. Students are encouraged to develop a broad aware ness of what is written, who is writing, and why writers write.

*Among literary works used:

Black Boy, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Outlooks Through Literature, Les Miserables, Great Expectations, Never Cry Wolf, Call of the Wild, The Old Man and the Sea, The Pearl, A Day No Pigs Would Die, Romeo & Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Our Town, and selected poetry by diverse writers including Nikki Giovanni, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, and Langston Hughes.

3. Other Writing Activities

Writing assignments in English I encompass a variety of activities and completed papers. Since English I places an emphasis on understanding the metaphor in texts and other literary forms, initial writing assign ments focus on the exploration of literal and metaphorical meanings in a piece. This writing is tied to films the students view, as well as texts they read.

In addition to the historical fiction paper, students in English I produce three to five core pieces complete with several drafts, allowing students to focus on the writing process. Actual assignments may vary from class to class, but all have similar goals and expect certain responses from students. The students are asked to look at their own lives in two major paperson place and influence; they also write in response to themes in minority literature and complete critical book reviews.

The creative writing component of English I may involve poetry, short fiction, and fable writing. Other smaller assignments will be more common and will relate to the readings or will be compositions on original or creative topics. Assignments may include a short story or narrative, a character sketch, a personal essay, an in-class essay, a comparison/contrast essay, an opinion/defense essay, and a parody. Students also may write an in-class academic journal in which they informally react to something they've read or to something the class has discussed.

Compositions will follow the writing process, placing as much emphasis on how students proceed with their writing as is placed on the end product. The writing process will be discussed and examined, as writing assignments undergo draft revisions. Grammar, usage and punctuation will be studied, especially during individual writing conferences, but will be addressed with students in the class as well; students tend to become more invested in grammar when it affects their own writing.

For the more complex assignments, classes will generally have time for work in the Computer Center which will include initial introduction to Computer Center policies and procedures. Conferences are held while those pieces are in process. The Writing Center teacher may assist in the Computer Center. Students also may be assigned to the Writing Center for conferences; this allows them to gain an additional perspective on their writing.

Course Materials

Books:

Armstrong Sounder
Buck The Good Earth
Burnford The Incredible Journey
Burns Cold Sassy Tree
Craven I Heard the Owl Call My Name
Dickens Great Expectations
Douglass Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Farrell Outlooks Through Literature
Gaines Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
Gaines A Lesson Before Dying
Gallo Visions
Greene Summer of my German Soldier
Haley The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Hemingway The Old Man and the Sea
Hinton The Outsiders
Hugo Les Miserables
Levine Vocabulary and Composition
Lipsyte The Contender
London Call of the Wild /White Fang
Molloy One Hundred Plus American Poems
Mowat Never Cry Wolf
Odell Island of the Blue Dolphins
Peck A Day No Pigs Would Die
Price 18 Best Stories of Edgar Allen Poe
Richter A Light in the Forest
Shakespeare Romeo & Juliet A Midsummer Night's Dream
Speare The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Steinbeck The Pearl
Swarthout Bless the Beasts and Children
Taggard Twenty Grand American Short Stories
Taylor, T. The Cay
Taylor, M. The Road to Memphis
Wasserman Man of La Mancha
Wilder Our Town
Wright Black Boy
Zindel The Pigman

Films:

The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
Conrack
Les Miserables
Man of La Mancha
Metaphorical films: Balabloc, Of Holes and Corks, The Fable of He and She, Learning to Walk, Neighbors, Resistance, The Wall
A Midsummer Night's Dream (Reinhardt '35; Hall '68; Papp '88)
Never Cry Wolf
Northeast Folk Archives: Woodsmen and River Drivers
The Old Man and the Sea (Sturges '58; Taylor '90)
Our Town (Hal Holbrook; Sterling Gray)
Romeo & Juliet (1968 Zefferelli)
Shakespeare and His Theater: The Globe
Sounder

Other materials:

Audio tapes for selected books used in classes
Literary Cavalcade (magazine, 1983 to the present)
selected song lyrics and poems
Strong Sentence Combining Volumes I and II

Note: As in all English courses, new materials routinely enter and exit this curriculum as teachers find relevant and appropriate supplemental texts in newspapers, national magazines, professional journals, and books.

www.mta75.org/curriculum/english/eng1.html

English ICurriculum Guide