English Department

(a-g) / Graduation Requirement
10 Credits
Grade Level: 12
Grade Level Restrictions: 12th grade only
(Satisfies ENGLISH 12 Graduation Requirement)
Prerequisites: CELDT Intermediate or lower / Teacher Recommendation
The goal of the Expository Reading and Writing Course (ERWC) is to prepare college-bound seniors for the literacy demands of higher education. Through a sequence of eight to ten rigorous instructional modules, students in this yearlong, rhetoric-based course develop advanced proficiency in expository, analytical, and argumentative reading and writing. The cornerstone of the course—the ERWC Assignment Template—presents a scaffold process for helping students read, comprehend, and respond to nonfiction and literary texts. Modules also provide instruction in research methods and documentation conventions. Students will be expected to increase their awareness of the rhetorical strategies employed by authors and to apply those strategies in their own writing. They will read closely to examine the relationship between an author’s argument or theme and his or her audience and purpose; to analyze the impact of structural and rhetorical strategies; and to examine the social, political, and philosophical assumptions that underlie the text. By the end of the course, students will be expected to use this process independently when reading unfamiliar texts and writing in response to them.

(a-g) / Graduation Requirement
10 Credits
Grade Level: 10
Grade Level Restrictions: 10th, 11th, 12th Grade
Prerequisites: English 9
(Satisfies ENGLISH 10 Graduation Requirements)
This class is designed to address all of the California State Standards for English Language Arts as directed in the SCUSD Standards Map issued in August of 2009, as well as the California Common Core Standards adopted in October of 2010. In addition to covering the standards in conjunction with our textbook, credits will include
autobiographical narrative writing, fictional narratives and short stories, persuasive writing and speaking, indepth analysis of literary works, functional document analysis, grammar and a unit on poetry. Students will be working with progress toward the California Standardized Testing in mind and will complete credits in the Holt
Literature and Language Arts textbook in addition to enrichment activities designed to give depth to their understanding of the material. Sophomore students will spend a considerable amount of time preparing for the California High School Exit Exam administered in March.

(a-g) / Graduation Requirement
10 Credits
Grade Level: 12
Grade Level Restrictions: 12th grade only
Prerequisites: CELDT Intermediate or lower / Teacher Recommendation
(Satisfies ENGLISH 12 Graduation Requirement)
As the last English course students will take in high school, this course is designed to prepare students for the rigorous reading and writing that will be required of them in college and in the workplace. Students will learn a variety of methods and techniques designed to make them more insightful and independent readers and writers. As a class comprised of English Language Learners this course will help students become more
sensitive to language and communication skills with a strong emphasis on speaking, since many of these students are reticent to make mistakes in public speaking. With the course content comprised of many selections from world literature, the units are designed to assist students to understand culture, history and human experience throughout time and place.