Poster showing head-and-shoulders portrait of Woodrow Wilson and a quote from him. No. 8.
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?
Who is free at the end of the play? In this lesson, students will share their responses to that question and their ideas about the ending of the play. Students will have class time to draft an essay about civilized behavior in The Tempest. For homework, students will complete an initial draft of their essay.
Photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jharris0221/3229873359In this lesson, students will learn about and practice various ways to integrate quotations into their writing.
The Process of Research Writing is a web-based research writing textbook (or is that textweb?) suitable for teachers and students in research oriented composition and rhetoric classes.
This module presents a series of quotations about thinking. Students are asked to consider whether or not they believe the ideas about thinking are valid ones. After reviewing the quotations, students are asked to select one quotation they believe is true and has a valid point about the thinking process, and a second quote that they believe is not true or valid and explain these in two short essays. These quotes are presented in a slide format for class presentation and in a document form for review after the presentation or if the teacher does not want to make the quotes a group presentation. The slide format can also be used for class discussion of the quotes without a followup assignment. Both the slide presentation and the document handout have the suggested assignment details.