This is a class that will prepare students for the skills they will need to be successful in college and in life. When they have completed the class, students will have acquired the reading and critical thinking skills necessary for understanding challenging new material, analyzing that material to deduce meaning, and applying what they have learned to our world. They will have the composition skills needed to communicate their understanding effectively to a variety of audiences. Students will read and analyze classic works of literature because these works contain literary qualities that merit study and provoke thinking, not because of requirement to know a particular work or author. They will also look at modern and contemporary works as they examine all genres: plays, short stories, poetry, essays, and novels. Students will learn to apply critical literary terms as tools for learning, understanding, and communication. Learning activities include close reading, paraphrasing, discussions, essays, short answer exams, research papers, reflective journals, web quests, oral presentations, and others. The unit structure below identifies the main headings of the units only. Most units will include a combination of genres and activities. The structure to the class is not based upon a sequence of chronology, national origin, or genres. It is instead based upon the sequence that best supports the learning needs of the student.
English III
Two semesters
Selected Novels