Grade 11
11th grade Curriculum Guide
Reading comprehension:
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Use reading strategies for comprehension: monitor, visualize, predict, connect,
evaluate, question, clarify
Understand and remember reading (literal comprehension)
Interpret and analyze reading (inferential comprehension)
Draw conclusions about the author’s purpose (evaluative comprehension)
Connect reading to personal experience and to universal themes (evaluative
comprehension)
Deepen ability to recognize and describe the connection between an author’s use of
language and the meaning of the work
Read independently a wide variety of genres, time periods, styles, and authors
Read closely and paraphrase dense text
Focus on literary analysis of reading
Focus on independent reading with regular comprehension assessment
Writing:
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Solid knowledge of expository 5-paraphraph, 3-chunk literary analysis paper
Write expository introductions that include a hook and a thesis statement
Write expository conclusions that restate the thesis and main points and answer the
“so what” of the essay, leaving the reader with something to think about
Solid knowledge of integrating quotations using “TLQ” and works cited
Experience with research, works cited, source analysis, annotated bibliography
Focus on timed writing
Write in all 4 modes: expository, persuasive, narrative, imaginative
Use literary devices and style techniques studied
Use the writing process to revise
Speaking:
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Present one Unrehearsed (“limited prep”) Speech
Vocabulary:
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Study vocabulary words within context of readings
Use context clues to figure out the meaning of unfamiliar words
Learn common SAT vocabulary words (approximately 100 words)
Literary devices:
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Define common literary devices
Identify literary devices while reading
Use literary devices in writing
Analyze how writers express their ideas through the devices they choose to use
Grade 11
Grammar:
Review 10th grade concepts
Complex sentence
Semi-colon
List w/colon
Colon
Dependent clause
Compound sentence w/coordinating
conjunctions
Simple sentence w/initial, mid-sentence, &
terminal modifiers
Required Texts:
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Selections from McDougal Littell The Language of Literature 11th-grade anthology, with an
emphasis on earlier American works
Selections from The Bedford Reader nonfiction anthology
At least one in-depth poetry analysis unit
Black Boy (Lexile 950)
The Crucible
At least one additional novel or drama from the following list:
o Fences
o A Raisin in the Sun
o Fahrenheit 451 (Lexile 890)
o Of Mice and Men (Lexile 630)
o The Great Gatsby (Lexile 1070)
o The Things They Carried (Lexile 880)
o Their Eyes Were Watching God (Lexile 1080)
o The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Lexile 990)
o The Color Purple (Lexile 670)
o The Grapes of Wrath (Lexile 680)
-- may be paired with Out of the Dust
o Twelve Years a Slave
o The Death of a Salesman
Nonfiction selections from The Bedford Reader:
“Indian Education,” by Sherman Alexie
“The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson
“Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain,” by Jessica Mitford
“Shooting an Elephant,” by George Orwell
“The Death of the Moth,” by Virginia Woolf
“Homeless,” by Anna Quindlen
“A Modest Proposal,” by Jonathan Swift
“Drugs,” by Gore Vidal
“Why Don’t We Complain?” by William F. Buckley, Jr.
“The World of Doublespeak,” by William Lutz
“The Ways We Lie,” by Stephanie Ericsson
“Too Much Pressure,” by Colleen Wenke
“Girl,” by Jamaica Kincaid
“The Meaning of a Word,” by Gloria Naylor
“Being a Chink,” by Christine Leong
Grade 11
“Needs,” by Thomas Sowell
“Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts,” by Bruce Catton
“The Crisis of National Identity,” by Samuel P. Huntington
“Clashing Civilizations?” by Edward Said
‘What’s Wrong with Gay Marriage?” by Katha Pollitt
“Gay ‘Marriage’: Societal Suicide,” by Charles Colson
“Grade A: The Market for a Yale Woman’s Eggs,” by Jessica Cohen
“A Biological Homage to Mickey Mouse,” by Stephen Jay Gould
“Safe-Sex Lies,” by Meghan Daum
Honors:
AP Language coursework
Grade 11