English Language Arts Course Overview

Literacy Launch Lab

By the end of the unit, students will be able to read and understand increasingly complex texts through a combination of vocabulary acquisition, reading strategy development and extensive practice in range of texts, both literary and informational.  Students will cite text evidence when analyzing a text, provide objective summaries for both informational texts and literature, generate hypotheses on author's theme(s), determine the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies, and analyze the impact of a specific word choice on a meaning and tone.

Weather and Climate Research Lab

By the end of the unit, students will develop expertise in the unit and individual research topics pertaining to Weather and Climate and Weather Phenomenon.  Students will research and build expertise on weather and climate and a self-selected-assigned weather phenomenon.  Students will define their research focus (based on their research topic) and set of Research Questions through scaffolded content architecture of the unit, align questions with key concepts, and learn the grade-level content required of state standards: informational writing and summarizing, central ideas, organizing structures, and analyze informational mentor texts.  Through writing, students will identify central ideas and key details, supporting ideas, chronological/sequential ordering, cause/effect, problem/solution, and compare/contrast.

Mystery and Forensic Science- Literary Genre Study

Students will read, analyze, and write about one grade-level novel in the genre as part of a whole class intellectual community in Mystery and Forensic Science as part of a whole class intellectual community.  In the literary genre study, students will read at least four novels in the mystery genre on his/her own and write four very short essays (constructed responses) and one longer literary essay analyze multiple texts in Mystery and Forensic Science, as well as write and publish a short story/picture book in Mystery and Forensic Science.

Civil Rights Era Research Lab

By the end of the unit, students will be experts in the Civil Rights Era.  Students will research and build expertise on the Civil Rights Era and a pioneer of the Civil Rights Era.  Students will define their research focus (based on their research topic) and set of Research Questions through scaffolded content architecture of the unit, align questions with key concepts, and learn the grade-level content required of state standards: argument writing, central ideas, organizing structures, and analyze argument perspective mentor texts.  Through writing, students will identify argument perspective and purpose, conflicting viewpoints, and Aristotle's Rhetoric, in preparation of a formal debate or mock trial.