Teacher: Mr. Eure
Contact: meure@brewsterschools.org
Drop-In Office Hours
• Mondays — P2, English Office
• Fridays — P6, Room 210
Appointments: Google Calendar Sign-Up
• Tue–Thu P2, English Office
• Tue–Thu P6, Room 210
English 11 Overview
• English 11 Grading Guide & Categories
• English Department Submission Policies
• Bell-to-Bell Device Ban
Question: What are we doing here and why?
Answer: Designed for students who have completed English 10, this course builds upon the skills introduced and cultivated in the previous two years with an emphasis on a close reading of a variety of texts, plus the skills of listening, speaking, and writing. Student writing portfolios will contain examples of the four modes of discourse. English 11R students will work towards a mastery of the elements of argument and rhetorical appeals. In June, the students will write the NYS Regents Examination, which they must pass in order to graduate. The curriculum is aligned with the Common Core Standards.
Note that there is a special focus on argument and rhetoric, with students completing several research-based projects and papers. Part of this process will include nuanced debate and structured collaboration:
In this digital age, when vast amounts of data are as close as the nearest touchscreen, it is all the more crucial that schools focus on helping students make articulate arguments out of the information they can so easily access. Now more than ever before, schools need to help students do more than acquire data. They must learn how to explain that data, apply it, promote their interpretations of it, and modify those interpretations through respectful debate and discussion.
Our major texts will be A Raisin in the Sun and The Great Gatsby, with nonfiction and short fiction included throughout the year.
Syllabus: Calendar Units
• English 11 2025–2026 Calendar
Unit 1: Four Modes Review
The first month of school will review the four basic modes of discourse through engaging nonfiction texts and collaborative emulation writing exercises. Students will primarily focus on short nonfiction and short writing responses.
Unit 2: The Anthropocene Reviewed
The major English 11 focus on argument and rhetoric kicks off here with a close reading of John Green’s The Anthropocene Reviewed. Students will analyze and emulate how Green blends the modes of discourse into argumentative writing, and they will learn how to support an argument through research and logic.
Unit 3: Gothic Fiction & Short Story Analysis
During this unit, students will read stories by Poe and other seminal Gothic writers. We will complete literary analysis in writing and through Regents-styled multiple-choice practice.
Unit 4: Source-Based Synthesis Essay Writing
This writing-centric unit will require students to write source-based essays styled after the Regents exam. After practicing the handwritten, test-specific argument, they will conduct original research in order to write their own authentic essays.
Unit 5: The Great Gatsby
This unit, split formally into two parts, will bring students through a careful reading of The Great Gatsby.
Unit 6: A Raisin in the Sun
Our second major fiction unit will center on A Raisin in the Sun as a continuation of Unit 5’s consideration of the American Dream and collective empathy. The final project will be a creative writing project called a RAFT Project that invites students to approach literature from a different perspective.
Unit 7: Regents Exam Prep & Personal Narratives
The final weeks of the year will be spent preparing for the Regents Exam through targeted small-group and individual activities. In addition, students will begin brainstorming and drafting personal narratives, which they will bring with them into English 12.