Tag: choosing wisely

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English 11 Menu

  By 23–24 Posts

More on menus, cooking, and other metaphors: Green Eggs and Deconstructed Ham.

Main English 11 page: 2023–2024: English 11

Note: Each set of dates below refers to a grade abatement panel, which is one-third of the triptych of grades earned each quarter.

Q1A: 9/5/23–9/26/23

English 11 Syllabus

Course Overview

Introductory Letter

English 11 Opening-Day Exercise

English 11: Introductory Form

GAP Explication

Daily Checkpoint

Weekend Writing

Q1B: 9/27/23–10/26/23

Jan. ’23 Regents: Part 1

Jan. ’23 Regents: Part 3

What Is Literature For?

Elements of Gothic Fiction

Gothic Fiction: Annotations and Analysis

Q1C: 10/19/23–11/9/23

Gothic Literature: Essential Questions

“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”

Unit Test: Owl Creek Bridge

Q2A: 11/13/23–12/1/23

Unit Test Revision and Reflection

ELA Exam Practice: Part 3 — Fiction

ELA Exam Practice: Part 3 — Nonfiction

A Raisin in the Sun: Background

A Raisin in the Sun: Silent Conversation

Q2B: 12/4/23–12/22/23

A Raisin in the Sun: Introduction Analysis

Langston Hughes, “Harlem”

Argument Background

A Raisin in the Sun: Act I

A Raisin in the Sun: Act II

A Raisin in the Sun: Act III

Q2C: 1/3/24–1/19/24

A Raisin in the Sun: Quizzes and Quick Writes

A Raisin in the Sun: Short Essays

A Raisin in the Sun: Creative RAFT Project

Q3A: 1/22/24–2/9/24

Classwork Rubicon Grades

Weekly Writing Grades: Guided Reflections

Regents Exam: Part 2 Prompt Decoding

Regents Exam: Part 2 Timed Writing

Regents Exam: Part 2 Model Annotations

Q3B: 2/26/24–3/8/24

Argument Essay: Topic Selection

Argument Essay: Claims and Thesis-Writing

Argument Essay: Evidence

Research Project: Topic Selection

Weekly Regents Exam Prep: Part 1 Multiple-Choice

Q3C: 3/11/24–4/12/24

Weekly Regents Exam Prep: Part 1 Multiple-Choice

Argument Essay: Final Draft

Research Project: Infographic

Make-Up Essays: Classwork Rubicon

Make-Up Essays: Weekly Writing

The Great Gatsby: Background Notes

The Great Gatsby: Movie

Q4A: 4/15/24–5/3/24

“The Ways We Lie” Nonfiction Analysis

The Great Gatsby: Graphic Novel

The Great Gatsby: Close Reading

The Great Gatsby: Guided Analysis

Q4B: 5/6/24–5/23/24

The Great Gatsby: Final Assessments

Personal Narratives: First Drafts

Q4C: 5/29/24–6/14/24

Personal Narratives: Final Drafts

Regents Exam Prep: Targeted Practice

English 12 Menu

  By 23–24 Posts

More on menus, cooking, and other metaphors: Green Eggs and Deconstructed Ham.

Main English 12 page: 2023–2024: English 12

Note: Each set of dates below refers to a grade abatement panel, which is one-third of the triptych of grades earned each quarter.

English 12: 2024 Project Post

Q1A: 9/5/23–9/26/23

English 12 Syllabus

Course Overview

Introductory Letter

English 12 Opening-Day Writing

English 12: Introductory Form

Daily Checkpoints

Weekend Writing

GAP Overview

Q1B: 9/27/23–10/26/23

Close Reading: The Age of the Essay

Guided Analysis: The Age of the Essay

Narrative Brainstorming

First Draft of Personal Narrative

Q1C: 10/19/23–11/9/23

What Is Literature For?

Limon: Selected Poems

Foppa: Selected Poems

Reintroduction Writing

1984 Resource Page

Q2A: 11/13/23–12/1/23

Narrative Showcase

ePortfolio Introduction

Q2 Essential Questions

1984: Part One

Classwork Rubicon Grades

Q2B: 12/4/23–12/22/23

“The Ways We Lie”: Emulative Analysis

Classification Essay: Overview

1984: Part Two + Part Three

Q2C: 1/3/24–1/19/24

1984: Essential Question Exam

Classification & Division (C&D) Essay: Brainstorming

C&D Essay: Prescriptive Paragraphing

C&D Essay: First Draft

Q3A: 1/22/24–2/9/24

C&D Essay: Revisions

C&D Essay: Final Copies

Weekly Writing Grades: Guided Reflection

Self-Exploration Unit: Descriptive Writing

Self-Exploration Unit: Storytelling

Q3B: 2/26/24–3/8/24

Self-Exploration Unit: SWOT Analysis

Senior Projects: Brainstorming

Frankenstein: Preface to Chapter 8

Frankenstein: Reader-Response Analysis

Q3C: 3/11/24–4/12/24

Frankenstein: Chapters 9–24

Frankenstein: Reader-Response Analysis

Make-Up Essays: Classwork Rubicon

Make-Up Essays: Weekly Writing

Senior Projects: Guided Project Analysis

English 12: 2024 Project Post

Q4A: 4/15/24–5/3/24

Empathy and the Collective Good Unit: The Bean Trees

Senior Projects: Student-Selected Literature

Senior Projects: Senior Success Project (Senior Talk)

Q4B: 5/6/24–5/23/24

Senior Projects: Student-Selected Literature

Senior Projects: Addressing an Audience

Senior Projects: Senior Success Project (Senior Talk)

Q4C: 5/29/24–6/7/24

Senior Projects: Senior Success Project (Senior Talk)

Final Reflections

2021–2022 Archived Menu of Choices

2022–2023 Archived Menu of Choices

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Choosing to Read [2018]

  By Space Explainers

Note: This protocol is for longer works of fiction and nonfiction. Essays, poems, and short fiction and nonfiction are required to be read in full.

The Invitation

In his essay, “How Teachers Make Children Hate Reading,” John Holt explains his approach to reading as follows:

I don’t want you to feel that just because you start a book, you have to finish it. Give an author thirty or forty pages or so to get his story going. Then if you don’t like the characters and don’t care what happens to them, close the book, put it away, and get another. I don’t care whether the books are easy or hard, short or long, as long as you enjoy them.

We can use aspects of this idea to navigate the first 30-40 pages of any novel or longer work we read in our makerspace. Each time, we can use a specific protocol to learn more about how you read, what that means for your learning, and where the threshold lies between forcing and inviting you to read.

Ultimately, you will decide to continue any longer text that is assigned to you, or you will decide to choose another work of equal literary merit. You must read, but what you read will be your choice.

Making an Informed Choice

After the first 30-40 pages of an assigned text, you must answer these three questions, which will posed to you most often through discussion and writing prompts:

  1. What does it mean “to get [a] story going,” and how has that happened here?
  2. What does it mean to care about what happens to a character, and which character(s) do you care about so far?
  3. What does it mean to enjoy a story, and to what extent are you enjoying this one?

These questions center you, the reader, and invite us to discuss the assigned text as a group. You can see an example of how this looks in the 2018 unit for A Long Way Gone in English 10.

After answering these questions, you must then carefully consider how the assigned text meets the criteria of a work of literary merit. To do this, you must work or have worked your way through the following post in its entirety:

As You Read: Works of Literary Merit

Any assigned text will meet these criteria in full. That is why it is assigned: It will do all of these things for you, and it has been vetted by teachers and students repeatedly. An assigned text will be a good text.

That does not mean it is the right text for you. This is the choice you have been given.

To make that determination takes tremendous self-awareness and careful thinking, however, starting with a clear sense of why we read. Your choice must be deliberate, either way. You must study or have studied this:

The Reading Process

Then you can begin to go through the criteria for literary merit. You can load the post or use this printable, two-sided PDF:

In brief, your choice must

  1. teach you something about how you read;
  2. serve as “a tool to help us live and die with a little more wisdom, goodness, and sanity,” using most or all of the ideas under that aegis; and
  3. be well-written enough to teach you how to write.

If you are able to find, through your own search or with the help of your teachers and peers, a suitable and more interesting alternative to the assigned text, you should read it.

You will always be required to justify your choice in the kind of reflective and metacognitive writing that supports the best decisions, and you will always have the freedom to change your mind, if the first 30-40 pages of your choice don’t pan out as you expected.

This is about choice. It’s also about assiduousness — about persevering to read something that takes time, takes focus, and rewards both.