VHS Course Catalog

English Literacy Skills - The Novel Summer Offering

Syllabus 

Description

This course is written for grades 9-12.
Join us in a four week summer adventure to enhance your English skills using 21st Century tools! Regular activities will revolve around the reading of a self selected novel from a list of authors with various cultural backgrounds. Students will build basic literacy and vocabulary skills using web 2.0 tools. The instruction is culturally relevant and embraces the technology rich world in which we live.

Students will select and read one of the following novels:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey
The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver
Pigs in Heaven, Barbara Kingsolver
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
The Color Purple, Alice Walker
House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros
The Absolute True Diary of a Part-time Indian, Sherman Alexie
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez
Eva Luna, Isabel Allende
In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez
Where the Heart Is, Billie Letts
White Oleander, Janet Fitch
Cannery Row, John Steinbeck
Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger
Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson
Monster, Walter Dean Myers
Breathing Underwater, Alex Flinn
Twilight (or other books in this series), Stephanie Meyer
The Gun (or any other book in the Bluford High series), Paul Langan

Prerequisites

None

Course Objectives

Students will be able to:

  • Become acquainted with peers in online community.
  • Increase understanding of sentence diagrams.
  • Develop skill in use of Microsoft tools for creating diagrams using shapes and lines.
  • Select literature to read, summarize, and discuss with peers.
  • Create a plan for reading a novel over the final half of this course.
  • Read with comprehension.
  • Define appropriate communication for the online forum.
  • Develop and demonstrate understanding of vocabulary words.
  • Use communication skills to write clearly and effectively.
  • Use language to interact effectively and responsibly in a multicultural context.
  • Use skills and strategies to communicate interculturally.
  • Use communication skills and strategies to effectively present ideas and one’s self in a variety of situations.
  • Use knowledge of topic/theme, audience, and purpose to plan presentations.
  • Use media and other resources to support presentations.
  • Develop skill in use of Smart Draw or SenDraw applications for creating diagrams.
  • Learn to use Glogster.
  • Use knowledge of topic/theme, audience, and purpose to plan presentations.
  • Use media and other resources to support presentations.
Details
Return to Catalog
Discipline: Language Arts
Level: High School Standard
Grade: 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13
When Offered: Summer
Duration: 4 weeks
Lab Kit Purchase Required: No
Accredited: Cognia (AdvancED), Middle States Commission on Secondary Schools