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Language Arts - Secondary Curriculum English Language Arts Grade 11-12
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Reading: Literature Standard 4

Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including words with multiple meanings or language that is particularly fresh, engaging, or beautiful. (Include Shakespeare as well as other authors.)
  • Grade Band 11-12 Performance Assessment
    This sample English Language Arts performance assessment for Grade Band 11-12 covers three texts: 1) Theodore Roosevelt, The Man with the Muckraker 2) Upton Sinclair, The Jungle and 3) Jacob Riis. How the Other Half Lives.
  • Introduction to Modernist Poetry
    Modernist poetry often is difficult for students to analyze and understand. A primary reason students feel a bit disoriented when reading a modernist poem is that the speaker himself is uncertain about his or her own ontological bearings. The rise of cities; profound technological changes in transportation, architecture, and engineering; a rising population that engendered crowds and chaos in public spaces; and a growing sense of mass markets often made individuals feel less individual and more alienated, fragmented, and at a loss in their daily worlds. This lesson has three parts: 1) Understanding the Context of Modernist Poetry 2) Thirteen Ways of Reading a Modernist Poem, 3)Navigating Modernism with J. Alfred Prufrock
  • Live From Antiquity!
    Ancient languages are the deepest root of the humanities, drawing life from that distant time when the study of history, philosophy, literature, and of language itself began. The goals of this lesson plan are to gain an appreciation for Greek drama through study of a play by Sophocles; to explore the cultural and historical context of Greek drama and its role in Greek society; to reconstruct the experience of seeing a Greek drama performed and share that experience in an imaginative report.
  • Sample Student Performance Assessment for Grade Band 11-12
    This sample English Language Arts performance assessment for Grade Band 11-12 covers three texts: 1) Henry David Thoreau. Walden 2) Thornton Wilder. Our Town and 3) Emily Dickinson. VII. ALMOST!
  • Shakespeare's Macbeth:Fear and the Motives of Evil
    This resource contains an EDSITEment lesson in which students will study Shakespeare's Macbeth. Students will use an Internet search engine to collect instances in the play of specific key words. Students will then organize and analyze the passages in which these key words appear for what they reveal about Macbeth's state of mind and the motives behind his increasing evil.
  • Text Analysis: Questions and Symbols
    This Teaching Channel video demonstrates how to analyze literature through questions, discussion, and symbols. (5 minutes)
  • Walt Whitman's Notebooks and Poetry: the Sweep of the Universe
    Clues to Walt Whitman's effort to create a new and distinctly American form of verse may be found in his Notebooks, now available online from the American Memory Collection. In an entry to be examined in this lesson, Whitman indicated that he wanted his poetry to explore important ideas of a universal scope (as in the European tradition), but in authentic American situations and settings using specific details with direct appeal to the senses.
  • You Kiss by the Book: Romeo & Juliet
    The goals of this lesson plan are: (1) To learn about Shakespeare's use of poetic conventions as a principle of dramatic structure in Romeo and Juliet; (2) To examine the first meeting between Romeo and Juliet as an enactment of figurative language in a context of competing poetic styles; (3) To explore the use of poetic forms to impart perspective in later episodes of the play; (4) To gain experience in close reading and the interpretation of verse structure and imagery.


UEN logo http://www.uen.org - in partnership with Utah State Board of Education (USBE) and Utah System of Higher Education (USHE).  Send questions or comments to USBE Specialist - Naomi  Watkins and see the Language Arts - Secondary website. For general questions about Utah's Core Standards contact the Director - Jennifer  Throndsen.

These materials have been produced by and for the teachers of the State of Utah. Copies of these materials may be freely reproduced for teacher and classroom use. When distributing these materials, credit should be given to Utah State Board of Education. These materials may not be published, in whole or part, or in any other format, without the written permission of the Utah State Board of Education, 250 East 500 South, PO Box 144200, Salt Lake City, Utah 84114-4200.