Academic/Business English is designed as a practical course to develop an authentic understanding of how to use concepts of writing and discourse to communicate in the workforce. Students will have the ability to express their thoughts, feelings, and opinions in using real-life situations and learning scenarios. All new concepts will be introduced in context while incorporating various writing, speaking and listening activities.

This lesson extends over several class periods. Students analyze the claim, grounds, warrants, qualifiers and counterclaims in three articles about the American Dream. Students conduct research and find two additional articles about the American Dream. Students then analyze the argument in those articles. Finally, students write their own argument essay about the current state of the American Dream.

This resource is designed to walk students through the process of completing a research project in any field of study. It covers the earliest stages of brainstorming and discussing, continues through researching and compiling sources; writing, documenting, revising, and polishing a paper; and finally presenting the research topic to a wider audience in a professional manner. The focus is on MLA format, though the course could be modified for other formats.

The first unit is an introduction to the project. It asks students to draw on knowledge of issues affecting their own community and world to help generate discussion that could eventually lead to a research topic.

This set of lessons extends over several weeks and incorporates all acts of Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible. Students will closely read The Crucible. Students will cite textual evidence and make interpretations about character development. Students will combine the textual evidence with their interpretations and write interpretive statements. In the culminating activity, students will write a character analysis.

This set of lessons extends over several days and focuses on "The Crisis, No. 1" by Thomas Paine. Students closely read and annotate the text. Students identify and evaluate claims and evidence in the text. Students present their findings to the class. Finally, students collaboratively write short arguments identifying claims and evidence in "The Crisis, No. 1." Students present their arguments to the class, and the class discusses and assesses the arguments.

The 11th 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 11th 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. Students move from learning the class rituals and routines and genre features of argument writing in Unit 11.1 to learning about narrative and informational genres in Unit 11.2: The American Short Story. Teacher resources provide additional materials to support each unit.

In this unit, students will take a look at the historical vision of the American Dream as put together by our Founding Fathers. They will be asked: How, if at all, has this dream changed? Is this dream your dream? First students will participate in an American Dream Convention, acting as a particular historical figure arguing for his or her vision of the American Dream, and then they will write an argument laying out and defending their personal view of what the American Dream should be.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Students read and annotate closely one of the documents that they feel expresses the American Dream.
Students participate in an American Dream Convention, acting as a particular historical figure arguing his or her vision of the American Dream.
Students write a paper, taking into consideration the different points of view in the documents read, answering the question “What is the American Dream now?”
Students write their own argument describing and defending their vision of what the American Dream should be.

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 has been the historical vision of the American Dream?
What should the American Dream be? (What should we as individuals and as a nation aspire to?)
How would women, former slaves, and other disenfranchised groups living during the time these documents were written respond to them?

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.

This unit uses William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing as a vehicle to help students consider how a person is powerless in the face of rumor and how reputations can alter lives, both for good and for ill. They will consider comedy and what makes us laugh. They will see how the standards of beauty and societal views toward women have changed since the Elizabethan Age and reflect on reasons for those changes. As students consider the play, they will write on the passages that inspire and plague them and on topics relating to one of the themes in the play. Finally, they will bring Shakespeare’s words to life in individual performances and in group scene presentations.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Students read Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing .
Students read two Shakespearean sonnets and excerpts from an Elizabethan morality handbook dealing with types of women, and they respond to them from several different perspectives.
For each work of literature, students do some writing. They learn to write a sonnet; create a Prompt Book; complete a Dialectical Journal; and write an analytical essay about a topic relating to a theme in the play.
Students see Shakespeare’s play as it was intended to be seen: in a performance. They memorize 15 or more lines from the play and perform them for the class. Students take part in a short scene as either a director or an actor.

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 are society’s expectations with regard to gender roles?
Does humor transcend time? Do we share the same sense of humor as our ancestors?
How do we judge people?
How important is reputation?

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.

CLASSROOM FILMS

The Branagh version of Much Ado About Nothing is available on DVD through Netflix and for streaming through Amazon. Other versions are also available on both sites.

In this unit, students will produce two major pieces of work.  The first piece is an argument essay that grapples with one of the core questions of the unit: who are we, and who have we become because of the ways we connect? Students will read, annotate, and discuss several texts together as they consider the issues surrounding this question, and they will also research and annotate independently as they search for more evidence and perspectives to help deepen their ideas.  They will also create a museum exhibit as part of a team.  The exhibit project will help students identify what's worth preserving about their unique place in history.

PROJECT UNITS

This project unit continues to meet the English Language Arts standards as it also utilizes the learning principles established by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. It is designed to support deep content knowledge and perseverance through long-term project planning and implementation. In addition, it will help students to recognize, develop, and apply the planning, teamwork, communication, and presentation skills they will use while presenting a final product to their class and/or the greater community. This real-world project-based activity will give students an opportunity to apply the skills they have been learning all year and will guide them to develop the motivation, knowledge, and skills they need in order to be college and career ready.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Students write an argument paper where they develop a claim about current culture as it has been influenced by digital connectivity.
Students participate in a group project to create a museum exhibit that captures a unique place, time, and relationship to technology. Students acknowledge the differing perspectives of each group member and use those perspectives to synthesize one cohesive visual argument together.

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 does it mean to be digitally connected?
What are the implications of living in a world where everyone is digitally connected?
How does the availability of instant connectivity shape our relationships?
What does our Internet use reveal about people's needs as humans?

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.

In Module 11.3, students engage in an inquiry-based, iterative process for research. Building on work with evidence-based analysis in Modules 11.1 and 12.2, students explore topics that have multiple positions and perspectives by gathering and analyzing research based on vetted sources to establish a position of their own. Students first generate a written evidence-based perspective, which will serve as the early foundation of what will ultimately become a written research-based argument paper. The research-based argument paper synthesizes and articulates several claims using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence to support the claims. Students read and analyze sources to surface potential problem-based questions for research, and develop and strengthen their writing by revising and editing.

Find the rest of the EngageNY ELA resources at https://archive.org/details/engageny-ela-archive .

In this 12th grade module, students read, discuss, and analyze four literary texts, focusing on the development of interrelated central ideas within and across the texts. |The mains texts in this module include|A Streetcar Named Desire|by Tennessee Williams, “A Daily Joy to Be Alive” by Jimmy Santiago Baca, “The Overcoat” by Nikolai Gogol, and|The Namesake|by Jhumpa Lahiri. As students discuss these texts, they will analyze complex characters who struggle to define and shape their own identities. The characters’ struggles for identity revolve around various internal and external forces including: class, gender, politics, intersecting cultures, and family expectations.|

Find the rest of the EngageNY ELA resources at https://archive.org/details/engageny-ela-archive .

This is a Google doc with multiple steps and resources to walk students through the writing process for an Evaluation Essay