English 1

English 1 builds upon the skills developed in middle school. Students read from a wide variety of informational texts and analyze the organizational patterns, arguments, and positions advanced. They conduct in depth analyses of recurrent patterns and themes in historically and culturally significant literary texts. As they read, students apply their knowledge of word origins to determine the meaning of new words encountered in reading materials and use those words accurately. Students combine the rhetorical strategies of narration, exposition, persuasion, and description to produce texts of at least 1,500 words each, and write coherent and focused essays that convey a well-defined perspective and tightly reasoned argument. Students deliver polished formal and extemporaneous presentations that combine the traditional rhetorical strategies of narration, exposition, persuasion, and description.