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English 12
COURSE DESCRIPTION
English 12 is a survey of World literature, ancient to modern. An attempt is made throughout the course to
bring all four years of literature study into focus and to provide students with an overview of our literary
heritage. There is intensive skill practice in the close reading of texts. Students will be encouraged to
synthesize a wide range of possible literary viewpoints within a single issue in order to stimulate critical
reflection. Students are expected to use the Internet as a research tool. The course includes a heavy
concentration on skills-based expository writing; especially the kinds of essay strategies that students will
be expected to employ in a four year college or in an associate’s degree or transfer program at a junior
college. Students’ grades are based overwhelmingly on their compositions; grammar and usage skills are
developed within the context of the writing assignments. Study skills and time management training are
essential as preparation for the New SAT as well as post-secondary study. An intensive three -week SAT
preparation class before the October test date is also a component of the course. This SAT course is a
continuation of the preparation course begun at the end of the junior year.
In keeping with the Massachusetts English Language Arts Frameworks, approved videos will be shown in
grade 12 as further application of standards 26 and 27. Students will be expected to identify, analyze,
synthesize and evaluate the portrayal of literary themes in these videos. The English department criteria for
selection of films to be viewed during this unit are included in this curriculum after the description of the
media strand.
RECOMMENDED PREREQUISITES:
Successful completion of English 11 with a grade of C or above
NUMBER OF CREDITS AND COURSE LEVEL:
Five credits
Levels One or Two
COURSE GOALS:
To address the standards in the Massachusetts English Language Arts Framework; to improve close
reading skills by teaching students to recognize archetypal patterns and mythic antecedents in prominent
Western literary works; to provide an aesthetic framework for the study of literature; to encourage students
to consider the perennial and fundamental concerns posed by existence and addressed by great literary
works; to examine how literary form functions to articulate these perennial and fundamental concerns; and
to train students to write clear, coherent, and critically reflective prose.
CURRICULUM OBJECTIVES STATED IN TERMS OF JOSEPH CASE HIGH SCHOOL’S
ACADEMIC EXPECTATIONS FOR STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT AS LISTED IN THE
SCHOOL’S MISSION STATEMENT:
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Fulfill core course and state MCAS requirements;
Communicate effectively through writing, and speech;
Read pragmatically;
Attain mastery of higher order thinking skills;
Employ available technology to enhance learning.
LANGUAGE STRAND
Learning Standard #1*: Students will use agreed-upon rules for informal and formal discussions in
small and large groups.
1.6 Drawing on one of the widely used professional evaluation forms for group discussion, evaluate
how well participants engage in discussions at a local meeting.
Joseph Case High School
English Grade 12
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Learning Standard #2*: Students will pose questions, listen to the ideas of others, and contribute
their own information or ideas in group discussions or interviews in order to acquire new knowledge.
2.6 Analyze differences in responses to focused group discussion in an organized and systematic
way.
Learning Standard #3*: Students will make oral presentations that demonstrate appropriate
consideration of audience, purpose, and the information to be conveyed.
3.17-3.18 Deliver formal presentations for particular audiences using clear enunciation and
appropriate organization, gestures, tone, and vocabulary and create an appropriate scoring
guide to evaluate final presentations.
Learning Standard #4: Students will understand and acquire new vocabulary and use it correctly in
reading and writing.
4.26 Identify and use correctly new words acquired through study of their different
relationships to new words.
4.27 Use general dictionaries, specialized dictionaries, thesauruses,
histories of language, books of quotations, and other related references as needed.
Learning Standard #5: Students will analyze standard English grammar and usage and recognize
how its vocabulary has developed and been influenced by other languages.
5.30 Identify, describe, and apply all conventions of standard English.
5.31 Describe historical changes in conventions for usage and grammar.
5.32 Explain and evaluate the influence of the English language on world literature and world
cultures.
5.33 Analyze and explain how the English language has developed and been influenced by other
languages.
Learning Standard #6: Students will describe, analyze, and use appropriately formal and informal
English.
6.10 Analyze the role and place of standard American English in speech, writing and literature.
6.11 Analyze how dialect can be a source of negative or positive stereotypes among social groups.
READING AND LITERATURE STRAND
Learning Standard #7: Students will understand the nature of written English and the relationship of
letters and spelling patterns to the sounds of speech.
The majority of students will have met this
Learning Standard #8: Students will identify the basic facts and main ideas in a text and use them as
the basis for interpretation.
For imaginative /literary texts*:
8.32 identify and analyze the point(s) of view in a literary work.
8.33 Analyze patterns of imagery or symbolism and connect them to themes and/or tone and mood.
For informational/expository texts:
8.34 Analyze and evaluate the logic and use of evidence in an author’s argument.
Learning Standard #9: Students will deepen their understanding of a literary or non-literary work
by relating it to its contemporary context or historical background.
9.7 Relate a literary work to the seminal ideas of its time.
Learning Standard #10: Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the characteristics of
different genres.
10.6 Identify and analyze Characteristics of genres (satire, parody, allegory, pastoral) that
overlap or cut across the lines of genre classifications such as poetry, prose, drama,
short story, essay, and editorial.
Joseph Case High School
English Grade 12
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Learning Standard #11: Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of theme in a literary
work and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding.
11.6 Apply knowledge of the concept that a text can contain more than one theme.
11.7 Analyze and compare texts that express a universal theme, and locate support in the text for the
identified theme.
Learning Standard #12: Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the structure and
elements of fiction and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding.
12.6 Analyze, evaluate, and apply knowledge of how authors use techniques and elements in fiction
for rhetorical and aesthetic purposes.
Learning Standard #13: Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of purpose, structure,
and elements of nonfiction or informational materials and provide evidence from the text to support
their understanding.
13.26 Analyze and evaluate the logic and use of evidence in an author’s argument.
13.27 Analyze, explain, and evaluate how authors use the elements of nonfiction to achieve their
purpose.
Learning Standard #14: Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the theme, structure,
and elements of poetry and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding.
14.6 Analyze and evaluate the appropriateness of diction and imagery (controlling images, figurative
language, understatement, overstatement, irony, paradox.)
Learning Standard #15: Students will identify and analyze how an author’s words appeal to the
senses, create imagery, suggest mood, and set tone and provide evidence from the text to support
their understanding.
15.9 Identify, analyze, and evaluate an author’s use of rhetorical devices in persuasive argument.
15.10 Analyze and compare style and language across significant cross-cultural literary works.
Learning Standard #16 Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the themes,
structure, and elements of myths, traditional narratives, and classical literature and provide evidence
from the text to support their understanding.
16.12 Analyze the influence of mythic, traditional, or classical literature on later literature and films.
Learning Standard #17: Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the themes,
structure, and elements of drama and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding.
17.8 Identify and analyze types of dramatic literature.
17.9 Identify and analyze dramatic conventions (monologue, soliloquy, chorus, aside, dramatic
irony).
Learning Standard #18*: Students will plan and present dramatic readings, recitations, and
performances that demonstrate appropriate consideration of audience and purpose.
18.6 Demonstrate understanding of the functions of playwright, director, technical designer, and
actor by writing, directing, designing, and/or acting in an original play.
COMPOSITION STRAND
Learning Standard #19: Students will write with a clear focus, coherent organization, and sufficient
detail.
For imaginative/literary writing:*
19.28 Write well-organized stories or scripts with an explicit or implicit theme, using a variety of
literary techniques.
19.29 Write poems using a range of forms and techniques.
For informational/expository writing:
19.20 Write coherent compositions with clear focus, objective presentation of alternate views, rich
detail, well-developed paragraphs, and logical argumentation.
Joseph Case High School
English Grade 12
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Learning Standard #20: Students will write for different audiences and purposes.
20.6 Use effective rhetorical techniques and demonstrate understanding of purpose, speaker,
audience, and form when completing expressive, persuasive, or literary writing assignments.
Learning Standard #21: Students will demonstrate improvement in organization, content, paragraph
development, level of detail, style, tone, and word choice (diction) in their compositions after writing
them.
21.9 Revise writing to improve style, word choice, sentence variety, and subtlety of meaning after
rethinking how well questions of purpose, audience, and genre have been addressed.
Learning Standard #22: Students will use knowledge of standard English conventions in their
writing, revising, and editing.
22.10 Use all conventions of standard English when writing and editing.
Learning Standard #23: Students will organize ideas in writing in a way that makes sense for their
purpose.
23.14 Organize ideas for emphasis in a way that makes sense for their purpose.
23.15 Craft sentences in a way that supports the underlying logic of the ideas.
Learning Standard #24: Students will gather information from a variety of sources, analyze and
evaluate the quality of the information they obtain and use it to answer their own question
24.6 Formulate original, open-ended questions to explore a topic of interest, design and carry out
research, and evaluate the quality of the research paper in terms of the adequacy of its
questions, materials, approach, and documentation of sources.
Learning Standard #25: Students will develop and use appropriate rhetorical, logical, and stylistic
criteria for assessing final versions of their compositions or research projects before presenting them
to varied audiences.
25.6 Individually develop and use criteria for assessing work across the curriculum, explaining
why the criteria are appropriate before applying them.
MEDIA STRAND
The English department of Joseph Case High School has elected not to formally address the media strand
in a formal fashion except in the final quarter of Grade 12. The department’s video policy is included in
this curriculum.
Learning Standard #26*: Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of the conventions,
elements, and techniques of film, radio, video, television, multimedia productions, the Internet, and
emerging technologies, and provide evidence from the works to support their understanding.
26.6 Identify the aesthetic effects of a media presentation and identify and evaluate the techniques
used to create them.
Learning Standard #27*: Students will design and create coherent media productions (audio, video,
television, multimedia, Internet, emerging technologies) with a clear controlling idea, adequate detail,
and appropriate consideration of audience, purpose, and medium.
27.8 Create coherent media productions that synthesize information from several sources.
*This standard to be addressed at the local level
Joseph Case High School
English Grade 12
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Video Log
All teachers will keep a log of videos shown in his/her classroom. This form is required by the
administration and is available in the teachers’ handbook.
GRADING
Teachers will reduce to writing, a detailed grading policy for each class. This handout will be given to
students the first day of school and reviewed comprehensively with them. Grades will be determined by
each individual teacher, using, for example, proportional combinations of tests, essays, quizzes,
presentations, group work and class participation.
REQUIRED TEXTS:
Barrons SAT I, 21st Edition
Vocabulary For Achievement, Fourth Course
Themes in World Literature, Elliott et al, 1982
The Language of Literature: World Literature (Applebee et al), 2002
Literature and the Language Arts—World Literature, EMC Masterpiece Series, Skiba et al, 2001.
REQUIRED READINGS: *
Genesis from the Hebrew Bible
The Parable of the Prodigal Son
Epic:
The Odyssey –Homer
*The Epic of Gilgamesh
Drama:
Oedipus the King – Sophocles
*Hamlet—Shakespeare
Othello-Shakespeare
King Lear--Shakespeare
Julius Caesar—Shakespeare
A Streetcar Named Desire—Tennessee Williams
Myth:
The Myth of Sisyphus -- Camus
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Du Lu Wang
Nonfiction:
On Heroes and Hero Worship – Carlyle
Anatomy of Criticism; Four Essays—Northrup Frye
Essays on Man—Alexander Pope
sermons of John Donne
Ain’t I a Woman—Sojourner Truth
I Have a Dream—Martin Luther King, Jr.
No Name Woman—Maxine Hong Kingston
The Butchering at Wounded Knee—Black Elk
Blue Winds Dancing—Thomas S. Whitecloud
The Woman Warrior—Maxine Hong Kingston
Persepolis
A Long Way Gone
Poems:
Joseph Case High School
English Grade 12
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Ithaka – Kavafy
Ulysses – Tennyson
The Angels –Updike
*The Hollow Men – T.S. Eliot
Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone—Baldwin
Short Stories:
The Black Cat –Edgar Allan Poe
*The Garden Party – Mansfield
*The Jilting of Granny Weatherall –Katherine Anne Porter
My Oedipus Complex—O’Connor
The Leader of the People—Steinbeck
The Kugelmass Episode – Woody Allen
The Bet-Anton Chekhov
Novels:
*Cannery Row – John Steinbeck
A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway
As I Lay Dying—William Faulkner
The Assistant—Bernard Malamud
The Count of Monte Cristo—Alexander Dumas
The Sun Also Rises—Ernest Hemingway
One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest –Ken Kesey
Therese Raquine—Emile Zola
Siddartha
Catcher in the Rye—J.D. Salinger
Crime and Punishment
The Natural- Bernard Malamud
Brave New World
Their Eyes Were Watching God
The Bluest Eye
*required reading in Grade 12
The following are film versions of texts that are part of the grade 12 curriculum and therefore are
approved for showing in the classroom:
Kazan, Elia, dir. A Streetcar Named Desire. With Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando. Warner Bros.
Pictures, 19___. (PG)
Zeffirelli, Franco, dir. Hamlet. With Mel Gibson and Glenn Close. Warner Bros. And Nelson
Entertainment, 19___. (PG)
DeSylva, B.G., dir. For Whom the Bell Tolls. With Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman. Paramount
Pictures, 19___. (NR)
Summer Reading List
Hossseini, The Kite Runner
Hemingway, A Moveable Feast
Obama, Lessons From my Father
Joseph Case High School
English Grade 12
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Sebold, The Lovely Bones
Tan, A Hundred Secret Senses
Hosseini, The Kite Runner
Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns
Gruen, Water for Elephants
Sebold, The Lovely Bones
Hemingway, A Moveable Feast
Obama, Dreams From My Father
AP students have a separate reading list.
Joseph Case High School
English Grade 12