COMMON CORE CURRICULUM
SOUTH KINGSTOWN HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
GRADE 9
ESSENTIAL QUESTION: WHO AM I?
COMMON TASK: 5-PARAGRAPH LITERARY ANALYSIS using MLA Format (Night by Elie Wiesel)
_____Poetry unit (Suggestions are The Daybook and Robert Frost’s Poetry)
_____Shakespearean drama: Romeo and Juliet
_____Modern drama: either The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-and-the-Moon Marigolds or The Member of the Wedding
_____Novel: either Fahrenheit 451 or A Separate Peace
_____Novel: The Old Man and the Sea
_____Short stories: Selections from Characters in Conflict (including multicultural content)
_____Vocabulary enrichment from the novels, plays, and poetry
_____Analysis of literature using the expanded five-paragraph essay including elements of MLA format (headers, heading, and citations)
_____Grammar: subject, predicate, action verb, helping verb, state-of-being verbs, prepositions, prepositional phrases, conjunctions, adjectives, adverbs, direct and indirect objects, predicate nouns and adjectives
_____Punctuation/Grammar Concepts: introductory words, adverb clauses, and participial phrases; comma in a compound sentence; semicolon; appositive; possessives; comma in a series; pronoun agreement with its antecedent; parenthetical expression
_____Spelling rules: forming plurals, homonyms
_____Capitalization rules
_____Interview speech
_____Elements of fiction: plot, points of view, setting, conflict, characterization, theme
_____Literary devices: symbolism, foreshadowing, flashback, allusion (literary and historical), voice, tone, irony, satire, hyperbole, and understatement
_____Figurative language: simile, metaphor, personification, alliteration, imagery, and onomatopoeia
GRADE 10
ESSENTIAL QUESTION: WHAT IS AN AMERICAN?
COMMON TASK = 3-5 PAGE PERSUASIVE ESSAY WITH MLA FORMAT
_____Native American literature unit
_____Expanded, five-paragraph, literary analysis essay
_____Shakespearean drama: either Julius Caesar or A Midsummer Night’s Dream
_____Modern narrative: either Into the Wild or To Kill a Mockingbird
_____Short fiction: a minimum of ten short stories from the American Short Stories anthology
_____Modern novel: Of Mice and Men
_____Modern drama: At least one of the following: Death of a Salesman, The Glass Menagerie, A Raisin in the Sun, The Crucible
_____Vocabulary enrichment from the novels/Word Wealth
_____Speech unit: Two MLA-formatted research papers (one informative speech, one persuasive speech), including use of note cards; outline; Works Cited; etc.
_____Speech unit: Oral delivery of informative and persuasive speeches
_____Review of spelling, punctuation, grammar and capitalization rules found in the purple Grammar for Writing: entire chapters or portions of 6, 7, 9, 10, 12,13, 14, and 15.
_____Review of elements of fiction: plot, setting, theme, conflict, characterization, antagonist, protagonist, points of view
_____Review of literary devices: voice, tone, symbolism, flashback, foreshadowing, satire, irony, allusion (historical and literary), hyperbole, and understatement
_____Figurative language: simile, metaphor, personification, alliteration, imagery, and onomatopoeia
GRADE 11
ESSENTIAL QUESTION: WHAT IS CULTURE?
COMMON TASK = 3-5 PAGE RESEARCH PAPER (MLA FORMAT)
Motif = The Journey
_____Research paper using MLA format: note cards, outline, in-text citations, Works Cited, submission to turnitin.com, etc.
_____Vocabulary enrichment from the reading materials
_____Greek: Theme = Order and Balance
_____The Odyssey (or excerpts/abridgements)
_____"Ithaka" (C.P. Cavafy)
_____Either Oedipus the King or Antigone
_____"The Allegory of the Cave" from The Republic, and Crito
_____Personal narrative
_____Ancient Greek art and architecture
_____Roman: Theme = Order and Authority
_____Excerpts from The Aeneid
_____Excerpts from The Metamorphoses ("Pyramus and Thisbe," "Daedalus and Icarus")
_____Ancient Roman art and architecture
_____Medieval: Theme = Faith
_____Beowulf Parts I and II (Part III is optional)
_____Inferno (Cantos 1, 3, 5, and 34) from The Divine Comedy
_____The Decameron: "Federigo's Falcon" and "One-Legged Crane"
_____The Canterbury Tales: General Prologue
_____The Canterbury Tales: "The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale" and/or "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale"
_____Medieval art and architecture (Gothic and Romanesque)
_____Medieval music (Gregorian chant)
_____Renaissance: Theme = Humanism
_____Excerpts from The Prince
_____Excerpts from Utopia
_____Elizabethan sonnets
_____Renaissance art and architecture
_____Renaissance music (madrigals, motets)
_____Baroque: Theme = Passion
_____Macbeth
_____Metaphysical poetry: “To His Coy Mistress,” "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," and/or “Holy Sonnet 10”
_____Baroque art
_____Baroque music (Handel, Bach)
_____Neoclassical: Theme = Reason
_____"A Modest Proposal"
_____Excerpts from "An Essay on Man" or "The Rape of the Lock"
_____Neoclassical art and architecture
_____Neoclassical music (Mozart)
_____Romantic: Themes = Nature and Revolution
_____Selected poetry (two or more of the following: "The Tyger," "My Heart Leaps Up," "...Tintern Abbey," "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," "Kublai Khan," "Ozymandias," "Ode on a Grecian Urn," "La Belle Dame Sans Merci," "The Lady of Shalott," "The Lorelei," "The Elf-King," etc.)
_____Excerpts from Walden
_____Romantic art and architecture
_____Romantic music (Beethoven, Tchaikovsky)
_____Realism/Modern: Theme = Change
_____Short fiction by one or more of the following: Chekhov, Maupassant, Colette, Lawrence, Woolf, Joyce, Borges
_____Modern novel: either Catcher in the Rye, Nineteen Eighty-Four, or Animal Farm
_____Selected poetry by one or more of the following: Browning, Hardy, Yeats, Eliot, Auden
_____Modern art and architecture
_____Modern music (Debussy, Stravinsky, Copland)
GRADE 12
ESSENTIAL QUESTION: WHAT WILL I BECOME?
COMMON TASK = 3-5 PAGE RESEARCH PAPER (MLA FORMAT)
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