The HMH Collections reviewed for Grade 12 meets the criteria that most questions, tasks, and assignments are text dependent/specific, requiring students to engage with the text directly (drawing on textual evidence to support both what is explicit as well as valid inferences from the text; this may include work with mentor texts as well).

The majority of the questions within the textbook require students to support their interpretations with text evidence and build their knowledge from the literal to the inferential. The materials also provide support for planning and implementation by including instructions for the teacher on when to ask the question, how to introduce it, and possible student answers. Within each Collection, each text contains questions to be read during the reading and questions that will be completed after the reading. During the reading, each question has a bold heading that states the purpose, the question, and an example student answer. Examples of questions a teacher asks while reading include, but are not limited to:

• In Collection 1 for "Marita's Bargain:" “Point out that tables often have titles that tell what the numbers refer to. However, Gladwell has chosen not to give titles to his tables. Instead, the text immediately before and after each table explains what is included and why it is significant. Ask students what title they would give the table on this page to describe its contents, and have them point to the evidence that supports their title” (7).
• In Collection 2 for "The Men We Carry in Our Minds:" “Explain that an essay’s title can often suggest its central idea. Have students reread lines 172-181 and identify the reference to the essay’s title in this paragraph. Then ask them to summarize the central idea of the essay” (136).
• In Collection 4 for "Blocking the Transmission of Violence:" “Remind students to combine their own knowledge and experience with the evidence directly stated in the selection to make inferences and draw conclusions. Ask students to reread lines 377-389 and explain why many police officials ‘were grateful for the interrupters’” (389).
• In Collection 6 for "The Hermit's Story:" “Note that Ann’s story is interspersed with the narrator’s reflections on it. These reflections often provide clues to themes. Ask students to reread lines 125-144. Which part of this passage tells the narrator’s thoughts about Ann’s story? What larger idea or theme do these reflections hint at?” (504).

In addition to the questions during the reading, there is a section after the text labeled, “Analyzing the Text.” This section contains the same general instructions in all Collections that say, “Cite Text Evidence: Support your responses with evidence from the selection.” There are three to six questions in this segment. Each question is preceded by a skill in bold followed by the question; possible students answers are found on the left-hand side of the teacher’s edition. Examples of questions at the end of the text from the “Analyzing the Text” Section include, but are not limited to:

• In Collection 1 for "A Walk to the Jetty:" “Draw Conclusions: In the last sentence of the story, Annie compares the ‘lap-lapping’ of the waves to the sound of liquid ‘slowly emptying out’ from a vessel. What does the simile suggest about how leaving home has affected her?” (44).
• In Collection 3 for "Imagine the Angels of Bread:" “Analyze: What words and phrases are repeated in the poem? Explain how this repetition is used to emphasize ideas and emotions” (220).“
• In Collection 5 for "The Mosquito Solution:" "Summarize: Reread lines 243-279, and summarize how the OX513A mosquito was developed. Why might the author have chosen to include such a detailed explanation of this process?” (469).

HMH Collections also comes with a consumable workbook called, The Close Reader. This contains directions before the reading and a short response question at the end. Each question during the reading has the heading “REREAD”; it is preceded by instructions labeled with the “READ” heading. The “READ” label gives the students instructions for what to look for while reading. The “REREAD” section asks students to answer a short answer question based on what they focused on during “READ.” Examples of questions from the Close Reader DURING Reading include, but are not limited to:

• In Collection 1 students read a nonfiction text by Paul Tough, “Kewauna’s Ambition” from How Children Succeed.
  • READ asks the students to read lines 1-30 and begin to collect and cite text evidence.
    • “Underline Kewauna’s challenges” (18c).
    • “Circle key elements of Kewauna’s strategy for success” (18c).
    • “In the margin, use your own words to describe each part of her strategy” (18c).
  • In the REREAD section, students are asked:
    • “ Reread lines 5-12. Why do you think Kewauna is disappointed that the other African American girls sat in the back? Support your answer with explicit evidence from the text” (18d).
• In Collection 6, students read from the epic poem Beowulf by the Beowulf Poet, translated by Burton Raffel.
  • READ asks students to read lines 28-81 and continue to cite and collect text evidence by doing the following:
    • “Underline the text that describes the setting” (428d).
    • “Circle the text that shows the turning point in the battle” (428d).
    • “In the margin, explain how the details of the setting create tension (lines 36-55)” (428d).
  • In the REREAD feature students are asked the following:
    • “Reread lines 45-58. How does the poet show that the dragon is similar to Beowulf? What are those similarities? Support your answer with explicit textual evidence” (428d).

There are short answer questions at the end of the reading have the heading, “SHORT RESPONSE” and the instructions, “Cite Text Evidence.” Examples of questions from the Close Reader AFTER Reading include, but are not limited to:

• In Collection 2 for Pink Think: "SHORT RESPONSE: Review your reading notes to identify elements of Peril’s style. What words and phrases best suggest her perspective, or point of view, on pink think? Cite textual evidence in your response” (140e).
• In Collection 3 for "Elsewhere:" "SHORT RESPONSE: Analyze the impact of specific word choices, including figurative and connotative meanings of words, on the meaning and tone of the poem” (220e).
• In Collection 5 for "Blackheart:" "SHORT RESPONSE: Identify the central theme of the story. What is the author saying about relationships? Review your reading notes, and be sure to cite text evidence in your response” (425h).

The instructional materials include questions, tasks, and assignments that are text-dependent/specific and consistently support students’ literacy growth over the course of the school year. The teacher materials provide complete support for planning and implementation of text-dependent questions, tasks, and assignments by including information to share before the question and possible student answers.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 12 meet the criteria for materials containing sets of high-quality sequences of text-dependent and text-specific questions with activities that build to a culminating task which integrates skills to demonstrate understanding.

The materials contain varied culminating tasks of quality across a year’s worth of material, for students to demonstrate what they know and are able to do in speaking and/or writing. Over the course of the year, students present a speech, create a group multimedia presentation, participate in a panel discussion, and write three analytical essays, two arguments, and a fictional narrative throughout the six collections. There are text-dependent questions and tasks throughout the unit that connect to the culminating tasks.

The culminating tasks are found at the end of each collection. These tasks are rich and require students to demonstrate what they know in speaking and/or writing. Below is a representative list of the performance tasks found in the 12th grade edition:

Collection 1 - Debate an issue, Write a compare-contrast essay
Collection 2 - Write an informative essay, Deliver a reflective narrative
Collection 3 - Participate in a group discussion, Write a satire
Collection 4 - Write an analytical essay, Write an argument
Collection 5 - Present a speech
Collection 6 - Present a Personal Narrative

The text-dependent questions throughout the different texts adequately support students in completing the task.

An example of a performance task that uses the unit’s text-dependent and text-specific questions to build to a culminating task which integrates skills to demonstrate understanding can be found in Collection 1: Chasing Success. The performance task states, “At the end of this collection, you will have the opportunity to complete two tasks: Debate with classmates the merits of extending the school year to provide more time for learning, citing evidence from texts in the collection. Write an essay in which you compare and contrast the experiences of two characters or people from the texts, focusing on the sacrifices they make to succeed” (2).

• Collection 1’s Performance Task A is, “This collection focuses on the sacrifices people make to achieve success. In the anchor text, “Marita’s Bargain,” the author describes a school in which the days are longer, summer vacation is shorter, and students are very successful. With a group of classmates, conduct a debate on whether all students should have longer school days and shorter vacations” (67). Students are then told that an effective debate will do all of the following:
  • "Takes a clear position, either for or against the idea of students spending more time in school
  • Selects relevant evidence from “Marita’s Bargain” and one or more other texts in the collection to support the claims
  • Follows an orderly format in which speakers from each team take turns presenting their claims, counterclaims, reasons, and evidence
  • Communicates ideas formally and objectively, using precise language
  • Engages in an exchange of ideas in which participants respond to diverse perspectives, build on ideas, and evaluate others’ reasoning" (67).

Representative examples of questions throughout the text selections are written to help students gather information that will help them build their case in their debate are below:

• For example, one of the support questions from the teacher's edition in “Marita’s Bargain" states, “Ask students to state the main idea of these two paragraphs.” The answer provided by the teacher’s edition is “The 19th-century belief that students needed long periods of rest influenced the development of the American system of education” (5).Questions such as the one found in the same selection require students to look carefully at data that will support their stance on their debate topic: “Have students identify the disparities that this choice of table format enables readers to see” (6).
• Questions in other texts also guide students in this type of evaluation of evidence in a text to enable them to perform in the debate, such as question D in the text “The Secret to Raising Smart Kids”: “Ask students how this structure, exemplified in lines 48-77, affects readers’ perception of the author as well as of her argument.” The answer provided states, “Her detailed explanation of both views gives readers the information they need to assess the logic of her argument and form their own judgments. It shows the author’s objectivity and desire to inform” (27). Both the question and the skills necessary to complete the question work to build students towards the debate in the final Performance Task.

Another example of a Collection’s Performance Task utilizing text questions to build to the culminating Performance Task is in Collection 3:

• Performance Task A is “Look back at the anchor text ‘Speech on the Vietnam War, 1967’ and at the other texts in the collection. What connections do you see between the examples of injustice explored in each text? Have a group discussion on the topic, and then write a summary of the discussion” (HMH, 12th Grade, Collection 3 221). Students are then told that a successful group discussion will do all of the following:
  • Present quotations or examples from “Speech on the Vietnam War, 1967” and other collection texts to illustrate ideas about injustice
  • Make clear, logical, and well-developed connections among the texts’ views of injustice
  • Pose and respond to questions to keep the conversation going
  • Respond to the ideas of others in the group, adapting, or expanding upon their own ideas or politely challenging others’ assertions
  • Use appropriate eye contact, adequate volume, and clear pronunciation
  • Write an accurate an objective summary of the discussion

Questions throughout the text selections are written to support students in developing ideas about injustice and collecting evidence to support those ideas for the discussion. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• While reading the anchor text in Collection 3, “Speech on the Vietnam War, 1967,” one of the questions says, “Ask students why King chooses to use 'crippled' rather than the words 'hurt' or 'held back'” (152). The answer suggested to the teacher focuses on the idea that what is being done to the troops is permanently damaging them in some way. This supports the larger idea of injustice.
• While reading the selection “from The Crises,” the text suggests “Have students reread lines 37-47. Ask them to identify the words and reasoning that Paine uses in his ethical appeal. What does he imply?” (171). This questions drives directly into Paine’s opinion of the injustices he sees from the Tories.

Consistently, across texts there are questions suggested in the teacher’s edition that will support students in building understanding and evidence towards the final Performance Task.

The HMH Collections reviewed for Grade 12 meets the criteria for materials including a mix of on-demand and process writing (e.g. multiple drafts, revisions over time) and short, focused projects, incorporating digital resources where appropriate. The materials provide a mix of both on-demand and process writing, and shorter and longer tasks and projects.

Representative examples of the writing tasks and projects are below. These represent both shorter and longer works as well as on-demand and process that are aligned to the writing standards.

• In Collection 3, after reading “Speech on the Vietnam War, 1967,” students write an article about Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech from the perspective of a journalist There are multiple steps to this piece:
  • "Identify the purpose of the argument
  • Evaluate the evidence presented and the logic of the conclusion
  • Discuss King’s style and devices in the article" (166)
• In Collection 2, Performance Task A has students write an informative essay about the “ability of people to understand someone of the opposite sex” (141). This task is clearly an example of a longer process writing as students reread and gather evidence from three texts in the collection, organize their essay in an outline, draft, review with partners, revise, and create a finished copy of their writing. In this task, students must do the following:
  • "Include an introduction with a thesis
  • Present information and reasoning logically
  • Use transitions
  • Write a conclusion that summarizes the main points"
• Each Collection also contains smaller writing tasks like letters and journal entries. Examples include, but are not limited to:
  • In Collection 1, after reading “Marita’s Bargain,” students write a diary entry from the perspective of Marita “in which she reflects on the change in [her] friendships” (16).
  • Also in Collection 1 after reading “A Walk to the Jetty,” students write a letter “from Annie to her parents after she arrives in England. In the letter, have her reflect on what she has given up and whether she feels the sacrifice was worthwhile” (44).
• The Performance Assessment Practice booklet contains four units of on-demand writing - argumentative, informative, literary analysis, and mixed practice. Within each unit, students complete the following:
  • Analyze the Model - students read two texts and analyze a student model essay.
  • Practice the Task - students read two to four texts, complete prewriting activities and write the essay.
  • Perform the Task - students read two to four texts, complete prewriting activities and write the essay.

The HMH Collections for Grade 12 meets the criteria for materials providing opportunities for students to address different text types of writing that reflect the distribution required by the standards. Materials provide multiple opportunities across the school year for students to write in different genres that reflect the distribution required by the standards. The students write arguments, informative texts, and narratives. Writing opportunities occur within collections in which students write shorter process pieces following each text, and a larger process piece in the Performance Tasks at the end of each collection. The Performance Assessment Practice booklet adds formally to this by providing students with multiple opportunities to both observe students samples of and write their own examples of two of the three modes of writing, argument and informative. There is ample opportunity for practice over the course of the year and all the writing is clearly connected to text(s), even within the Performance Assessment Practice booklet.

Examples of different writing opportunities in the materials include, but are not limited to:

• Arguments
• Analytical Essays
• Comparison Essays
• Reflections
• Editorials
• Research Essays
• Analyses
• Letters
• Journals
• Narratives

While the program does provide opportunities for the students to write to the requirements of the standards, the only support for teachers or students to monitor their progress is if teachers use the myWriteSource digital resource. Within the textbook, neither teachers nor students are provided with rubrics, checklists, exemplars, or model texts for the smaller performance tasks at the end of each text. The culminating Performance Tasks offer a little more support by adding a brief excerpt of a mentor text from the collection, a student checklist, and a rubric. However, the only way to truly monitor progress in writing skills is using the myWriteSource resource. With writing assignments in this database, students can ask questions with the “Raise Hand’ feature at any time. They can also request that their teacher look over their work before the final submission. Teachers can send items back with comments to be revised if they did not meet the expectations.

The instructional materials do give students ample opportunity to practice writing in multiple genres. The support materials in the textbook are lacking, but, if the digital myWriteSource is used, teachers can support and monitor students through the writing process.

The HMH Collections reviewed for Grade 12 meets the criteria for materials including frequent opportunities for research-based and evidence-based writing to support analysis, argument, synthesis, and/or evaluation of information, supports, claims.

The materials reviewed for Grade 12 meet the criteria for materials including frequent opportunities for research-based and evidence-based writing to support analysis, argument, synthesis, and/or evaluation of information, supports, claims. Throughout the collections there are a number of opportunities for students to write requiring them to either go back into the text to pull evidence or to conduct research to find evidence to support their analysis, claim, or other points within their writing, including referencing text as a basis for narrative writing. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• The Close Reader Selections require students to go back into the text numerous times to respond to the questions and they all end with a short writing response, one to two paragraphs asking students to cite text evidence to support their answer.
  • In Collection 3 in response to “People and Peace, not Profits and War”, students are asked: “Evaluate Chisholm’s speech against the Vietnam War. Did she convince you that the money being spent on the Vietnam War could be better spent on social programs, such as education? Review your reading notes and cite text evidence in your response” (168f).
• Performance tasks found at the end of Collections ask students to go back into the text and to specifically use the anchor text and at least two other texts in the collection to answer the prompt provided.
  • In Collection 1 the performance task has students write a compare-contrast essay. “In the anchor text, “A Walk to the Jetty,” the narrator goes abroad so she can get ahead in life, despite her painfully conflicted feelings about leaving behind her family and home. Write an essay in which you compare and contrast Annie John’s experience with that of another character or person profiled in the collection. Discuss the sacrifices these individuals make and whether they are worth it” (71).
• The Performance Tasks at the end of the selections within each collection require students to either go back into the selection itself or to do some outside research for the writing assignment.
  • In Collection 3, the performance task asks students to write a report explaining how “later activists, such as Martin Luther King Jr., or Mohandas Gandhi, interpret the principles set forth by Thoreau in “Civil Disobedience?” (184).
  • In Collection 6 the performance task for “Dwellings” asks students to write a comparison between Hogan’s and Dillard’s essays by including “direct quotations as well as original analysis of each author’s work” (499).

The materials reviewed for Grade 12 meet the criteria for materials including frequent opportunities for research-based and evidence-based writing. The writing requires students to gather evidence from the texts to support a claim, and it meets the grade level demands of the Common Core State Standards.

The HMH Collections reviewed for Grade 12 meets the criterion that materials include instruction of the grammar and conventions/language standards for grade level as applied in increasingly sophisticated contexts, with opportunities for application context.

Conventions and grammar are taught in two places: before the readings on the Plan pages under the “Language Conventionality and Clarity” section in the qualitative text complexity rubric and after the readings in a feature called Language Conventions. The “Language Conventionality and Clarity” section defines the grammatical term and then states a group of lines from within the reading. The “Language and Style” section after the text again defines the grammatical term and references specific lines that illustrate the term. Within this feature, there is a brief opportunity for students to learn and practice the function of language defined by the grammatical term under the “Practice and Apply” heading. Here they either look back at the performance task they wrote to find examples of the function of language in their own writing or they need to revise their writing to include the function of language. Occasionally in this section, students have to write a new paragraph in which they use the function of language.

Below are examples of targeted grammar and conventions from each collection:

• Collection 1: subject-verb agreement, participles and participial phrases, dashes, dialect
• Collection 2: inverted sentences, adjectives and adverbs, alliteration and consonance, sentence structure, syntax
• Collection 3: imperative mood, combining sentences, gerunds and gerund phrases, active and passive voice
• Collection 4: paradox, vary syntax for effect, direct and indirect quotations, repetition and parallelism
• Collection 5: mood, tone
• Collection 6: use precise details, appositives and appositive phrases

Below are representative examples of grammar instruction in the “Language Conventionality and Clarity” and “Language and Style” sections:

• In Collection 4 on the Plan page for “Tell Them Not to Kill Me!,” the “Language Conventionality and Clarity” section focuses on syntax. The teacher tells students that “syntax . . . helps writers capture the attention of their readers, create certain moods, or reinforce key ideas.” Then the teacher displays lines 185-190 in the text and asks students “what the two long sentences in the middle express. How does the syntax reinforce what the colonel is saying?” (368C). The teacher then has the students talk about the effect of the shorter sentences.
• In Collection 3 after the text “The Clan of One-Breasted Women,” the “Language and Style” section focuses on gerunds and gerund phrases. The first section defines gerunds and gerund phrases. Then, it includes a chart that lists in what part of the sentence the gerund or gerund phrase on the left and an example from the text on the right. Other examples from the text are then shared and the effect of the gerund or gerund phrase is described, “Notice that the use of a gerund makes the sentence livelier.” After the examples, students are expected to complete the “Practice and Apply,” which states: “Return to the multimedia report that you created in response to this selection’s Performance Task. Identify places where you could replace a noun with a gerund or gerund phrase to make your speaking more lively” (198).

The instructional materials for 12th grade include instruction of grammar and conventions in context throughout all six collections. All conventions and language standards required by the Common Core State Standards are covered, and students apply them to the texts and their own writing.