QUARTER TWO
QUARTER ONE
Grade 10 Honors: English
Year-at-a-Glance
Unit 1: Do You Speak My Language? Critical Literacy Terms and Ideas
In this unit, students will begin their investigation of comparative world
literature with a focus on mastering key critical terminology. This unit focuses
upon prose fiction and key literary terms related to its analysis. It is an
essential beginning for students’ development of critical reasoning and
literary analysis skills. The unit will also reinforce students’ work with
informational and persuasive writing as a counterpoint to the analytical
essay. Students will have an opportunity to analyze ways in which “the
medium is the message,” i.e., the ways in which form follows and influences
function in written and multi-media literature. Core texts include “The Sniper”
(Liam O’Flaherty), “The Pedestrian” (Ray Bradbury), “The Lady or the Tiger”
(Frank Stockton), “The World Was Silent” (Eli Wiesel) and “Ozymandias”
(Percy Bysshe Shelley).
Standards of Learning:
10.1, 10.3, 10.4c,
10.5d
Unit 2: Can We Have a Perfect Society? Is Perfection Possible in Human Life?
Exploring Concepts of Utopia and Dystopia
In this unit, students will investigate the theme of utopia—and dystopia. To
what extent are human beings capable of creating a perfect society?
Engaging in debates, seminars, and analysis of fiction and non-fiction
literature addressing this theme, students will articulate their own vision for a
perfect society—and its possibility—or impossibility. Once again, students
will have opportunities to develop writings involving literary analysis,
informational, and persuasive text. Core texts include “Analects” (Confucius),
“The Apology” (Plato), “The World is Too Much with Us” (William
Wordsworth), Utopia by Thomas Moore, Don Quixote (Miguel de Cervantes),
“The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World” (Gabriel García Márquez),
1348) and representative Shakespearean sonnets.
Standards of Learning:
10.4, 10.6, and 10.7
Unit 3: Who’s Got the Power? Who Rules? Power and Authority in Society
and World Literature
In this unit, students will investigate literature that emphasizes the theme of
power and authority, including the impact of these forces upon interpersonal
and social conflict. From where does power originate? How do individuals
who possess it interact with others who do not? A variety of impromptu and
formalized writing assignments will extend and refine students’ use of various
rhetorical domains, including informational text, literary analysis, and
persuasive writing. This unit will also emphasize the Virginia SOL domain of
Media Literacy, with students examining the power and influence exerted by
electronic media upon contemporary United States and world civilization.
Core texts include: “Dead Man’s Path” (Chinua Achebe), Persepolis (Marjane
Satrapi), “From Paula” ( Isabel Allende), “The Diameter of the Bomb”
(Yehuda Amichai), “The Freedom to Breathe” (Alexandr Solzhenitsyn) and
A Doll’s House (Henrik Ibsen).
Standards of Learning:
10.1; 10.2; 10.3; 10.7
\Suggested Time
Frame:
3-4 weeks; may begin
in Quarter One if time
permits
ACPS 2014-2015
GRADE 10 ENGLISH HONORS
Suggested Time Frame:
2-3 weeks
Suggested Time Frame:
5-6 Weeks
1
QUARTER THREE
Unit 4: Who Are We and How Can We Grow and Understand Ourselves? The
Inner and Outer Landscape in Literature
In this unit, students will read and analyze literature that juxtaposes
psychological insights (the internal human landscape) against environmental
factors in which a setting is in great transition or turmoil. Students will read
Othello (or other examples of a Shakespearean tragedy) as well as
informational, fiction, and persuasive literature that treats this theme. A major
focus of the unit will involve student investigation, discussion, and debate
about ways in which literature (of varying genres and eras) can express
universal insights into what it means to be human—including the foibles,
conflicts, and challenges confronted in one way or another by all human
beings. Core texts include “A Piece of String” (Guy de Maupassant), “The
Artist” (Rabindranath Tagore), “The End and the Beginning” (Wislawa
Szymborska), “The River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter” by Li Po and Othello
(William Shakespeare).
Standards of Learning:
10.3; 10.4; 10.6
Unit 5: What Does It Mean to Grow Up? The Maturity and Development of
Countries and the Individual
In this unit, students will explore the theme of personal growth juxtaposed
against the growth of societies and nations. Students will investigate the
genre of the bildungsroman, i.e., narratives that focus upon coming of age
and the growth of self-awareness within the individual. These stories are
juxtaposed against the struggles of nation building and the impact of a
country or land upon the youth who live there. A recurrent theme involves
varying concepts of maturity—and how human beings achieve that status—
or fail to achieve it. Once again, media literacy and opportunities for writing
in a variety of domains will weave through the unit. Core texts include A Tale
of Two Cities (Charles Dickens), “A Problem” (Anton Chekhov), Of Beetles and
Angels (Mawi Asegdon), To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee) and Milkweed
(Jerry Spinelli).
Standards of Learning:
10.1, 10.4 and 10.6
Unit 6: Who Dropped the Bomb? What Happens When Good People Do
Nothing?
This unit emphasizes the theme of human responsibility and global
interconnectedness. To what extent do our individual choices and actions
affect others? What is our responsibility to act in response to emerging social
and political conflicts? Unit 7 offers a wide range of opportunities for
students to engage in the analysis and critique of informational text, including
debating the objectivity of news and historical accounts. How, for example,
might we view events and historical circumstances differently within and
across cultural eras and cultures? The unit also provides an ideal context for
students to refine their debating skills as well as their capacity for analyzing
and critiquing alternative perspectives about events and trends. Core texts
include Night (Elie Wiesel), “Diameter of the Bomb” (Yehuda Amichai), One
Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and Freedom to Breathe” (Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn),“ “The Spy” (Bertolt Brecht), The World Was Silent (Elie Wiesel),
“The Guest” (Albert Camus), “After the Deluge” (Wole Soyinka), “The End
and the Beginning” (Wilslawa Szymborska) and“Russia 1812” (Victor Hugo).
Standards of Learning:
10.2, 10.4, 10.5, and
10.6
ACPS 2014-2015
GRADE 10 ENGLISH HONORS
Suggested Time Frame:
3-4 weeks
Suggested Time Frame:
4-5 weeks
Suggested Time Frame:
4-5 weeks
2
QUARTER FOUR
Unit 7: Teach Me a Lesson—Literature as a Reflection of Moral Reasoning
In this unit, students will investigate ways in which literature can teach lessons
about the human experience and authors’ commentary about ways in which
human beings should—or should not—interact. They will also debate
conflicting perspectives about how literature reflects varying ethical and
moral perspectives. Their exploration of literature as a reflection of moral
reasoning will allow students to debate the purpose of literature itself. For
example, is all literature (fiction and non-fiction) a form of moral
commentary—or can some literature be objective and free of the author’s
values, perspectives, and points of view? Once again, students will refine
their media literacy skills by applying unit themes to the analysis and critique
of technology-based narrative and informational text. Core texts include
“How Much Land Does a Man Need?” by Leo Tolstoy), Of Beetles and Angels
(Mawi Asgedom), Things Fall Apart and Civil Peace (Chinua Achebe,) and
“The Artist” (Rabindranath Tagore).
Standards of Learning:
10.4, 10.6, and 10.7
Unit 8: Seek and You Shall Find: Investigating a Key Theme in Literature
In this unit, students will continue to reinforce their growing research skills,
focusing upon framing a controlling research question and using it as a
catalyst for collecting, analyzing, and presenting evidence to support a
controlling thesis. This project will also allow for students to demonstrate
creativity and independence by allowing students choice in topic and focus as
well as culminating performances and products extending from the research
process. Ideally, students will incorporate one or more of the major themes
explored during this academic year as a focus for their research question
and process. Students will search, read and synthesize texts related to their
personal research project.
Standards of Learning:
10.5, 10.6, 10.7, and
10.8
ACPS 2014-2015
GRADE 10 ENGLISH HONORS
Suggested Time Frame:
4-5 weeks
Suggested Time Frame:
3-4 weeks
3