The 12th grade learning experience consists of 7 mostly month-long units aligned to the Common Core State Standards, with available course material for teachers and students easily accessible online. Over the course of the year there is a steady progression in text complexity levels, sophistication of writing tasks, speaking and listening activities, and increased opportunities for independent and collaborative work. Rubrics and student models accompany many writing assignments.Throughout the 12th grade year, in addition to the Common Read texts that the whole class reads together, students each select an Independent Reading book and engage with peers in group Book Talks. Language study is embedded in every 12th grade unit as students use annotation to closely review aspects of each text. Teacher resources provide additional materials to support each unit.

Who decides who among us is civilized? What rules should govern immigration into the United States? Whom should we let in? Keep out? What should we do about political refugees or children without papers? What if they would be a drain on our economy?

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Students read William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest and write a short argument about who in the play is truly civilized.
Students participate in a mock trial in which they argue for or against granting asylum to a teenage refugee, and then they write arguments in favor of granting asylum to one refugee and against granting it to another.
Students read an Independent Reading text and write an informational essay about a global issue and how that relates to their book.

GUIDING QUESTIONS

These questions are a guide to stimulate thinking, discussion, and writing on the themes and ideas in the unit. For complete and thoughtful answers and for meaningful discussions, students must use evidence based on careful reading of the texts.

What role do national identity, custom, religion, and other locally held beliefs play in a world increasingly characterized by globalization?
How does Shakespeare’s view of human rights compare with that in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
Who is civilized? Who decides what civilization is or how it’s defined?
How do we behave toward and acknowledge those whose culture is different from our own?

How does Prospero plan to avenge the wrongs done to him? In this lesson, students will discuss responses to the reading. In groups, they will continue to read, annotate, and discuss the play. At the end of the period, students will quiz themselves on vocabulary from the play.

In our lives, we are constantly telling stories to ourselves and to others in an attempt to both understand our experiences and present our best selves to others.  But how do we tell a story about ourselves that is both true and positive? How do we hold ourselves up in the best possible light, while still being honest about our struggles and our flaws? Students will explore ways of interpreting and portraying personal experiences.  They'll read Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart , analyzing the text through the eyes of one character. They'll get to know that character's flaws and strengths, and they'll tell part of the story from that character's perspective, doing their best to tell an honest tale that presents their character's best side. Then they'll explore their own stories, crafting a personal narrative about an important moment of learning in his or her life.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Students read and analyze Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart , viewing the events and conflicts of the novel through the eyes of one of the central characters.
Students write a two-part narrative project: one narrative told through their character’s perspective and one personal narrative about an incident in their own life.

GUIDING QUESTIONS

These questions are a guide to stimulate thinking, discussion, and writing on the themes and ideas in the unit. For complete and thoughtful answers and for meaningful discussions, students must use evidence based on careful reading of the texts.

How do our conflicts shape and show our character?
How can we tell a story about ourselves that’s both honest and positive?
How do definitions of justice change depending on the culture you live in?
What are ways individuals can react to a changing world? To a community that doesn’t accept us?

BENCHMARK ASSESSMENT: Cold Read

During this unit, on a day of your choosing, we recommend you administer a Cold Read to assess students’ reading comprehension. For this assessment, students read a text they have never seen before and then respond to multiple-choice and constructed-response questions. The assessment is not included in this course materials.

Why do we tell painful stories? In this lesson, students read an article about Chinua Achebe, the writer of Things Fall Apart, in order to figure out his motivation for writing this novel and to learn about the issues facing Nigeria in the late 1800s.

Exploring Movie Construction & Production contains eight chapters of the major areas of film construction and production. The discussion covers theme, genre, narrative structure, character portrayal, story, plot, directing style, cinematography, and editing. Important terminology is defined and types of analysis are discussed and demonstrated. An extended example of how a movie description reflects the setting, narrative structure, or directing style is used throughout the book to illustrate building blocks of each theme. This approach to film instruction and analysis has proved beneficial to increasing students’ learning, while enhancing the creativity and critical thinking of the student.

Once upon a time are four words most children are familiar with when reading a fairy tales. They are a great way to learn the literary elements of reading and writing. In this lesson, students will create their own fairy tale character using materials they will collect around the outdoor learning lab. This lesson supports all types of fairy tales and can be used with a variety of learners and readers.

This course comprises a broad survey of texts, literary and philosophical, which trace the development of the modern world from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century. Intrinsic to this development is the growth of individualism in a world no longer understood to be at the center of the universe. The texts chosen for study exemplify the emergence of a new humanism, at once troubled and dynamic in comparison to the old. The leading theme of this course is thus the question of the difference between the ancient and the modern world. Students who have taken Foundations of Western Culture I will obviously have an advantage in dealing with this question. Classroom discussion approaches this question mainly through consideration of action and characters, voice and form.

This lesson is to foster an understanding of how screenplay ideas are written, developed and supported with events, characters, dialogue, and other elements.

Note: Original .01 Ideas Lesson Plan created by Albion Movie, Inc.; this version modified for Adult Learners with their permission.

____________________________________________________________________________From Albion Movie, Inc.:  "BROUGHT TO YOU BY OUR SPONSOR:Our lesson plans are available at no cost to educators, thanks to the generosity of our education sponsor. Please visit the Bradenton Gulf Islands on Florida’s Gulf Coast". ____________________________________________________________________________This lesson is to foster an understanding of how screenplay ideas are written, developed and supported with events, characters, dialogue, and other elements.Note: Original .01 Ideas Lesson Plan created by Albion Movie, Inc.; this version modified for Adult Learners with their permission.  Learner Audience / Primary UsersAdult, 9th-12th grade reading level , non-traditional student working towards achieving a high school diploma Addresses: College & Career Readiness Standards (CCRS) AlignmentLevel: Adult EducationGrade Level: CCRS Grade Level E (9-12 grade reading level)Subject: CCRS English Language Arts Strand: CCRS Writing StrandSub-strand: Writing of Literature, History/Social Studies, or Technical subjectsStandard Description: CCRS description(s) for the specific standard(s) and supporting standard(s) that align with your lesson:CCR Anchor 3: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details and well-structured event sequences.Prior Knowledge Students must read and write at the 9th grade level; have the ability to navigate the Internet, and type into a Word processor.Lesson Author & License Lesson Author: Suzanne Ensmann (Modified for Adult Ed students; original .01 Ideas Lesson Plan created by  Albion Movie, Inc.: "BROUGHT TO YOU BY OUR SPONSOROur lesson plans are available at no cost to educators, thanks to the generosity of our education sponsor. Please visit the Bradenton Gulf Islands on Florida’s Gulf Coast"). License for .01 Ideas Lesson Plan: Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license 

This lesson is to foster an understanding of how screenplay ideas are written, developed and supported with events, characters, dialogue, and other elements within a mobile learning format. Tools and software used in conjunction with this lesson are available on mobile app platforms. 

This class introduces the craft of writing for the theater. Through weekly assignments, in class writing exercises, and work on a sustained piece, students explore scene structure, action, events, voice, and dialogue. We examine produced playscripts and discuss student work. This class’s emphasis is on process, risk-taking, and finding one’s own voice and vision.

Students will describe the plot and study traits, motivations and feelings using Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens.

In this seminar, you will be learning the difference between retelling and summarizing a fictional story. You will be given questions to ask yourself to help you pick out the most important details in a fictional story. It will introduce the Somebody Wanted But So Then strategy to help you summarize stories you have read. You will be applying past knowledge to new situations. Some activities you will be doing include creating a comic strip summary of story, as well as, creating a project of your choosing to summarize a story you have read.StandardsCC.1.3.4.ADetermine a theme of a text from details in the text; summarize the text.

Students analyze dramatic works using graph theory. They gather data, record it in Microsoft Excel and use Cytoscape (a free, downloadable application) to generate graphs that visually illustrate the key characters (nodes) and connections between them (edges). The nodes in the Cytoscape graphs are color-coded and sized according to the importance of the node (in this activity nodes represent characters in the work and their relative importance to the story). After the analysis, the graphs are further examined to see what the visual depiction of the story in the form of a graph tells readers about the inner workings of the dramatic work. Students gain practice with graph theory vocabulary, including node, edge, betweeness centrality and degree on interaction, and learn about a range of engineering applications of graph theory.

Students will practice using descriptive language via a Head’s Up game. Each student will then assume the role of a popular Halloween character and push their ability to question and answer by playing 20 questions.