11th Grade - Gateway 2

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 11 meet the criteria that texts are organized around a topic/topics to build students’ knowledge and their ability to read and comprehend complex texts proficiently.

The materials for Grade 11 are organized around topics or themes to build students’ knowledge and their ability to read and comprehend texts proficiently. Each of the six units has an Essential Question that provides a theme for the unit. All of the readings, including Whole-class Learning, Small-group Learning, and Independent Learning, are centered on that topic to assist students with answering the Essential Question. Within the Whole-Class Learning instruction, the anchor texts challenge students to think about the Essential Question. Supporting texts in the Small-Group Learning and the Independent Learning sections provide information relative to the essential topic and anchor texts. Many of the texts represent multiple and sometimes conflicting perspectives about the essential topic, and include a variety of styles, genres, and media. The lessons in each of these learning modalities include activities that further student comprehension of progressively difficult text. Students’ knowledge based on the specific topic/lens is deepened after every text is analyzed, based on supporting questions. Assigned to keep an evidence log along with multiple graphic organizers, students can chart their growth as independent readers. Additionally, students display their knowledge in the completion of Performance Tasks or Performance-based Assessments that usually consist of speaking and listening skills or writing tasks.

Examples of organization of texts by topic to build student knowledge to meet the criteria for this indicator include, but are not limited to:

Unit 1: Writing Freedom

• Essential Questions: What is the meaning of freedom?
• Whole-class Learning:
  • The Declaration of Independence
  • The Bill of Rights
  • Benjamin Franklin’s Speech in the Convention
• Small-group Learning:
  • The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano by Olaudah Equiano
  • Letters between John and Abigail Adams
  • "The Gettysburg Address" by Abraham Lincoln
• Independent Learning
  • “The Pedestrian” by Ray Bradbury
  • Thurgood Marshall's speech “Reflections on the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution”

Unit 6: Ordinary Lives, Extraordinary Tales

• Essential Questions: What do stories reveal about the human condition?
• Whole-class Learning:
  • “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker,
  • “Everything Stuck to Him” by Raymond Carver
  • “The Leap” by Louise Erdrich
• Small-group Learning:
  • “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce
  • “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” by Katherine Anne Porter
  • “A Brief History of the Short Story” by D.F. McCourt.
• Independent Learning
  • “The Man to Send Rainclouds” by Leslie Marmon Silko
  • “The Tell-tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe
  • “Ambush” by Tim O’Brien
  • “Housepainting” by Lan Samantha Chang

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 11 meet the criteria that materials contain sets of coherently sequenced higher order thinking questions and tasks that require students to analyze the language (words/phrases), key ideas, details, craft, and structure of individual texts in order to make meaning and build understanding of texts and topics.

The materials for Grade 11 primarily contain sets of coherently sequenced higher order thinking questions and tasks that require students to analyze the language (words/phrases), key ideas, details, craft, and structure of individual texts in order to make meaning and build understanding of texts and topics. First-read materials direct students to notice, annotate, connect and respond. Close-read materials provide students with more annotation directions and tools, then direct them to question the text and draw conclusions. Students keep a digital notebook to collect their responses to the text. During Whole-class, Small-group, and Independent Learning, students engage in Making Meaning sections with each text which provides sequenced higher-order thinking questions and tasks for a range of purposes through various subsections. For example,

• Comprehension Check provides questions and tasks concerning the key ideas and details of the text.
• Jump Start: Close Read provides questions and tasks concerning the craft and structure of the text.
• Analyze the Text: provides questions and tasks concerning the key ideas and details
• Analyze Craft and Structure provides questions and tasks concerning the craft and structure of the text.
• Language Development section provides sequenced higher order thinking questions and tasks related specifically to language through the Concept Vocabulary, Word Study, Word Network, and Conventions subsections.

Examples of sets of coherently sequenced higher order thinking questions and tasks to meet the criteria for this indicator include, but are not limited to:

Unit 2: The Individual and Society

Text: an excerpt from the Preface of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

Close Read

• Mark details that relate to death and other details that relate to new life or rebirth.
• Why does Whitman include these details? What is dying and what is being born?
• What impression of America do these references create?

Analyze the Text

• Interpret: In the Preface to Leaves of Grass what does Whitman mean when he calls America a “nation of nations”?

Unit 3: The Individual and Society

Text: “Second Inaugural Address” by Abraham Lincoln.

Comprehension Check

• To what event is Lincoln referring when he says, “On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago…”?
• What does Lincoln intend to do to heal the nation, after the war?

Analyze Craft and Structure

• What does the content of the speech tell you about Lincoln’s intended policy for his second term?
• What national issue does Lincoln discuss in paragraph 3?
• Explain what might have been the effect of the speech if Lincoln had developed it to discuss only this issue.
• How does Lincoln’s use of chronological structure contribute to the effectiveness of the speech?

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 11 meet the criteria that materials contain a coherently sequenced set of text-dependent and text-specific questions and tasks that require students to build knowledge and integrate ideas across both individual and multiple texts.

The materials reviewed for Grade 11 meet the criteria that materials contain a coherently sequenced set of text-dependent and text-specific questions and tasks that require students to build knowledge and integrate ideas across both individual and multiple texts. This structure begins with an essential question for each unit. Each text is accompanied by Whole-class, Small-group, and Independent Learning sections. Each of these learning constructs contains text-dependent and text-specific questions and tasks that guide students in building knowledge and integrating ideas across both individual and multiple texts. These sequences of text-dependent questions prepare students to complete the Performance Tasks, Unit Reflections, and Performance-based Assessments that require students to specifically integrate knowledge across multiple texts.

Examples of coherently sequenced, text-dependent questions that require students to build knowledge and integrate ideas to meet the criteria for this indicator include, but are not limited to:

Unit 1: Writing Freedom

Essential Question: What is the meaning of freedom?

• Analyze the Text: Declaration of Independence
  • Why does Jefferson begin with points about human rights before discussing the colonists’ specific grievances?
  • What does Jefferson mean by saying that people do not change governments for “light reasons”?
  • Relative to the essential question, how does Jefferson connect the meaning of freedom to the main idea of human rights?
• Analyze the Text: Preamble to the Constitution
  • How can you tell from the Preamble that the Constitution is meant to do more than merely resolve the country’s issues at the time?
  • How does Amendment II of the Bill of Rights reinforce Amendment I?
  • Why is “RESOLVED” used to begin the second paragraph of the Preamble?
• Performance Task: What statement do you find most compelling for American today: the Preamble to the Constitution or the first sentence of paragraph three of the Declaration of Independence?

Unit 3: Power, Protest, and Change

Essential Question: In what ways does the struggle for freedom change with history?

• Analyze the Text: Students read an excerpt from What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? by Frederick Douglass and answer a series of questions that include the following:
  • How does Douglass’s opening reference to the Declaration of Independence reinforce his message?
  • Douglass presented his speech to an anti-slavery society--an audience that was already on his side. Why, then, did Douglass speak as harshly as he did? Whom was he trying to reach?
• Analyze the Text: Students read the "Second Inaugural Address" by Abraham Lincoln and answer a series of questions that include the following:
  • Think about the irony in paragraph 3. In what way does Lincoln see irony in the abolition of slavery in the United States? Interpret what Lincoln finds ironic about the prayers of both sides.
  • What does Lincoln say about the nature of the speech he made when he first took office four years earlier? How does he contrast that information with the speech that he is making in the present, at his second inauguration?
• Performance Task: Did the nation achieve the goals that Douglass and Lincoln desired?

Unit 5: Facing Our Fears

Essential Question: How do we respond when challenged by fear? Teacher edition, page 181

• Analyze the Text: Students read The Crucible, Act 1 and answer questions that include the following:
  • Who is Reverend Hale? Do you think he is fair and impartial in his actions so far? Explain.
  • What evidence suggests that sharp divisions exist among the people of Salem? Name two other characters who may be accused of witchcraft by the end of the play. Explain your choices.
• Students read The Crucible, Act III and answer:
  • What term does Danforth use to describe Abigail and the girls? What does his use of this term show about his views of the accusers?
  • Identify two examples of direct characterization of Giles Corey in state directions. Identify two examples of indirect characterization-in dialogue-that amplify the examples of direct characterization. Explain your choices.
• Performance task: Could any of the characters in The Crucible have done more to end the hysteria in Salem?

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 11 meet the criteria that the questions and tasks support students’ ability to complete culminating tasks in which they demonstrate their knowledge of a topic through integrated skills (e.g. combination of reading, writing, speaking, and listening).

The materials reviewed for Grade 11 meet the criteria that the questions and tasks support students’ ability to complete culminating tasks in which they demonstrated their knowledge of a topic through integrated skills, including a combination of reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Each unit is focused on a topic that is driven by an essential question. Each unit is divided into three learning modalities: Whole-class Learning, Small-group Learning, and Independent Learning. Students engage with multiple texts and tasks during each learning modality. As they progress through the unit, students have the opportunity to practice reading, writing, speaking, and listening independently; but the performance tasks for each modality generally require a combination of these skills as students compose synthesis essays, share their own work, hold structures discussions, and perform peer reviews. The Performance-based Assessments for each unit also require that students integrate multiple skills and give oral presentations of their work.

Examples of integrated skills in questions and tasks to meet the criteria for this indicator include, but are not limited to:

Unit 2: The Individual and Society

Essential Question: What role does individualism play in American society?

• Whole-class Performance Task: Write a personal narrative. Address this question: how has my personal experience shaped my view of individualism? Do I see it as a guiding principle, something to be avoided, or a combination of both?
• Small-group Performance Task: Plan and deliver a group speech that responds to the following prompt: When is it difficult to march to the beat of a “different drummer” and stand on your own as an individual? What are the risks and rewards of nonconformity?
• Performance-based Assessment: Write a personal narrative that answers the question “What significant incident helped me realize that I am a unique individual?” Use the personal narrative as the basis for an oral storytelling session.

Unit 4: Grit and Grandeur

Essential Question: What is the relationship between literature and place?

• Whole-class Performance Task: Write an explanatory essay that addresses the prompt: How do American authors use regional details to make the events and themes of a narrative come to life for readers?
• Small-group Performance Task: Give an explanatory talk that explains an understanding of the sense of place demonstrated in each of the texts in this section.
• Performance-based Assessment: Write an essay explaining what makes certain places live on in our memory? Use the final draft of the explanation to present an oral presentation.

Unit 6: Ordinary Lives, Extraordinary Tales

Essential Question: What do stories reveal about the human condition?

• Whole-class Performance Task: Write a fictional narrative that addresses the question: How do stressful situations often reveal the best and worst in people?
• Small-group Performance Task: In the group, plan, present, and video-record a stream-of-consciousness narrative that responds to this statement: The day felt as if it would never end.
• Performance-based Assessment: Write a short story using third-person point of view to show a fictional character or characters responding to life-changing news. Deliver the story extemporaneously in a storytelling session. Use digital audio components to add interest and enhance the mood.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 11 meet the criteria that materials include a cohesive, year-long plan for students to interact and build key academic vocabulary words in and across texts. Materials include a consistent approach for students to regularly interact with word relationships and build academic and figurative language in context.

The materials for Grade 11 include a cohesive, year-long plan for students to interact and build key academic vocabulary words in and across texts. Most materials include a consistent approach for students to regularly interact with word relationships and build academic vocabulary and figurative language in context. Each text within the Whole-group and Small-group Learning sections include a “Language Development” section with: “Concept Vocabulary,” “Word Study,” “Word Network,” “Conventions and Style,” “Text Features,” etc. All units follow the same expectation that students are interacting and building academic vocabulary per individual text. To complete the Performance-based Assessment at the end of the unit, students demonstrate “Academic Vocabulary” by incorporating their culminating “Word Network” per individual unit. Students are regularly interacting with words and building relationships with the language of the multiple texts as each unit is modeled exactly the same. By the time students have completed all units, students will have mastered formative language in context for individual texts and across texts multiple times. Additionally, the materials include text-specific evidence logs and selection tests that support and assess students as they interact with academic and figurative language in context.

Examples of building key academic vocabulary words in and across texts to meet the criteria for this indicator include, but are not limited to:

Unit 3: Power, Protest, and Change

Text: excerpt from "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" By Frederick Douglass

Language Development

• Concept Vocabulary:
  • Vocabulary: obdurate, stolid, disparity, denounce, equivocate, conceded
  • How does the concept vocabulary sharpen the reader’s understanding of the debate over slavery?
  • What other words in the selection connect to this concept?
  • How would you expect obdurate people to respond to advertisements?
• Word Study
  • The Latin prefix ob- often means “against.” It combines with the root dur-, which means “hard,” to form obdurate, which means “hardened against.” The word suggests a lack of sympathy toward someone else’s difficulty or need and is a good synonym for hard-hearted.
• Word Network
  • Add words related to struggle from the text to your Word Network.
• Evidence Log
  • Before moving on to a new selection, go to your evidence log and record what you learned from “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”
• Writing from Sources
  • In this speech, Douglass mentions Southern laws that made it a criminal offense to teach a slave to read and write. Briefly research how some slaves, including Douglass himself, learned to read. Then write an informative paragraph in which you draw connections between your research and Douglass’s speech.
    • Consider using several of the concept vocabulary words in your informative essay.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 11 meet the criteria that materials contain a year-long, cohesive plan of writing instruction and tasks which support students in building and communicating substantive understanding of topics and texts.

The materials reviewed for Grade 11 meet the criteria as they provide a year-long, cohesive plan of writing instruction and tasks. In each unit, writing instruction and tasks are aligned to specific texts. The texts are often used as models for future writing tasks so that students are writing with mentor texts in mind. Writing instruction takes a scaffolded approach to process writing providing students with the opportunity to practice and prepare before writing for performance-tasks or performance-based assessments. This instruction across the six units includes development of various grade-level- appropriate modes of writing to explore and reflect learning relative to the essential question in each unit. The cohesiveness of the writing instruction is also aligned to language standards which support development of increasingly complex writing skills. Text sets in each unit of study provide model/mentor texts such that students can analyze author’s craft demonstrating the language goal relative to writing instruction prior to attempting to demonstrate achievement in a writing task. Across the year, students keep a digital notebook which provides a snapshot of coherence as well as a record of growth across the various tasks.

Examples of a cohesive plan of writing instruction and tasks to meet the criteria for this indicator include, but are not limited to:

Unit 1: Writing Freedom

• Performance Tasks:
  • Write an editorial for a local school or newspaper in which you argue your side of an issue that affects your school or community. Use modern syntax and usage, but apply some of Jefferson's persuasive techniques.
  • Write an extended definition of a key word or concept presented in one amendment (of your choosing) from the Bill of Rights. Your extended definition should explain both the dictionary meaning of the word or concept and any shades of meaning reflected in the amendment. Use at least two techniques to clarify information and engage readers.
• Performance-based Assessment
  • Write an argumentative essay in which you respond to this question: What are the most effective tools for establishing and preserving freedom? Use the anchor texts to identify some of the most successful tools that the Founders established. Use other texts from the unit to demonstrate how well those tools have stood the test of time. Supplement your ideas with examples from your own research that confirm your argument.

Unit 4: Grit and Grandeur

• Performance Tasks
  • Write an explanatory essay in which you explore whether Twain follows his own rules for telling a funny story in Life on the Mississippi and “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” Consider similarities and differences in the humor displayed in the two narratives.
  • Write a critical analysis of the poem. Analyze ways in which Jewett structures events and uses dialogue and description to keep readers uncertain about Sylvia’s intentions until the end of the story.
  • Write an explanatory essay to address the question, “How do American authors use regional details to make the events and themes of a narrative come to life for readers?” Use examples for each text [in the set] to explain how authors use setting to create a desired impact on readers.
• Performance-based Assessment
  • Write an explanatory essay using examples from texts in the unit to explain what makes certain places live on in our memory. Analyze at least three texts to show how their authors address the question. Determine how and why a setting becomes essential rather than trivial to the meaning of a literary work. Then, integrate one or more anecdotes from your own life into the essay.

Unit 6: Ordinary Lives, Extraordinary Tales

• Performance Tasks
  • Write a short narrative in which you retell an event from “Everyday Use” from the perspective of a character other than Mama. Make sure your narrative is consistent with the characters and setting created by Walker.
  • Write a realistic narrative scene that shows how the boy and the girl in the story might have reacted if they had known what colic is and whether or not their baby had it.
  • “The Leap” Write a short, entertaining anecdote about an event in your or your family’s past. Tell about a time when a parent, teacher, or coach intervened in a situation in a way that made you feel grateful. Include an opinion that highlights an important lesson. Conclude your anecdote with a paragraph that explains how your experience compares to that of the narrator in “The Leap.”
• Performance-based Assessment
  • Write a short story from the third-person point of view that shows how a fictional character or characters respond to life-changing news. Bring your character’s story to a resolution or epiphany that demonstrates a truth about the human condition.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 11 meet the criteria that materials include a progression of focused, shared research and writing projects to encourage students to synthesize knowledge and understanding of a topic using texts and other source materials.

For the Grade 10 textbook, most materials include a progression of focused, shared research and writing projects to encourage students to synthesize knowledge and understanding of a topic using texts and other source materials. Each unit includes a research goal that students will conduct research projects of various lengths to explore a topic and clarify meaning. Most of these research projects are brief, and students are given an option to explore topics of their own choosing. An included resource toolkit includes a section on research which addresses topics like narrowing a topic, consulting sources, and avoiding plagiarism. While the research directions in the student text are always the same, the teacher edition offers varied suggestions for specific topics in case some students don’t develop one of their own. This instructional approach provides student an opportunity to practice their research skills through mini-inquiry projects. Many questions can be answered by consulting a single source beyond the assigned sources and sharing either the process of finding information or synthesizing with other students.

Examples of focused, shared research and writing projects to meet the criteria for this indicator include, but are not limited to:

Unit 1: Writing Freedom

• Text: excerpt from Common Sense by Thomas Paine
  
  • Research to Clarify: Choose at least one unfamiliar detail from the text. Briefly research that detail. In what way does the information you learned shed light on an aspect of the text?
  • Research to Explore: Choose something from the text that interests you and formulate a research question.

Unit 3: Power, Protest, and Change

• Text: “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin
  • Research to Explore: This story may spark your curiosity to learn more. Briefly research a relevant topic that interests you. You may want to share what you discover with your group.
  • Research to Clarify: Ask students to research and read more of Kate Chopin’s writing about women in the late nineteenth century and their changing roles and relationships as mothers and wives. Ask them to write a short essay detailing what they have learned.

Unit 5: Facing our Fears

• Text: “Antohos” by Julia Alvarez
  • Research to Clarify: Choose at least one unfamiliar detail from the text. Briefly research that detail. In In what way does the information you learned shed light on an aspect of the text?
  • Research to Explore: Conduct research on an aspect of the text you find interesting. For example, you may want to learn about the history and culture of the Dominican Republic.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 11 meet the criteria that materials provide a design, including accountability, for how students will regularly engage in a volume of independent reading either in or outside of class.

Each of the six units within Grade 11 is organized into Whole-class Learning, Small-group Learning, and Independent learning segments. In the Independent Learning section, students are given a list of works to select from as their personal reading. The section begins with Independent Learning Strategies that require students to be accountable for their work. The section states, “Throughout your life, in school, in your community, and in your career, you will need to rely on yourself to learn and work on your own.” Highlighting the purpose behind independent reading while providing guidelines for accountability (create a schedule, practice what you learned, and take notes) allows regular engagement for independent learning in each chapter. There is a student video for them to watch and learn more about what they must do during their Independent Learning days, which are typically Days 27 and 28 of each unit pacing plan.

Accountability for independent reading includes a selection test for each independent title which consists of selected response items addressing comprehension, vocabulary, and analysis. There are clear directions and consistent expectations for recording entries in the student’s digital notebook to connect and extend analysis of the text as well. Students are also consistently expected to share what they learned independently with their group/class.

Another opportunity to increase volume of reading and support or encourage independent reading is with the information for teachers to use trade books in each unit. Titles in each unit provide opportunities for teachers to swap titles within a unit, supplement with additional reading, or direct students for further reading on their own. While the possibility of independent reading in the form of reading and completing a task outside of a group does exist in each unit, accountability within each unit does not require a volume of independent reading.

Below is an example from a single unit of how students regularly engage in a volume of independent reading to meet the criteria for this indicator include, but are not limited to:

Unit 1: Writing Freedom

• Teaching with trade books:
  • Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
  • The Federalist Papers by James Madison
  • The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories by Washington Irving

• Independent Learning texts:
  • From “Democracy is not a Spectator Sport” by Arthur Blaustein with Helen Matatov - essay
  • "Reflections on the Bicentennial of the Unit State Constitution" by Thurgood Marshall - speech
  • Poetry by Gwendolyn Brooks and Elizabeth Bishop
  • “The Pedestrian” by Ray Bradbury - short story
  • Excerpt from the Iroquois Constitution - political document
  • Excerpt from “Common Sense” by Thomas Paine - essay

Unit 1: Sample Independent Reading Tasks

• First Read: Students complete the First Read Guide (graphic organizer). They complete the following information:
  • Notice: Who the story is about, what happens, when and where it happens, and why those involved react the way they do.
  • Annotate: Mark vocabulary and key passages you want to revisit.
  • Connect: Connect ideas within the selection to what you already know and what you already have read.
  • Respond: Complete the Comprehension Check and by writing a brief summary of the selection.
• Comprehension Check
  • Students answer the following questions:
    • What activity does Leonard Mead engage in during the evening?
    • What do the other people in the city do during the evening?
    • What is unusual about the police car that stops Mead?
    • Where does the voice say that the police car will be taking Mead?
  • Confirm your understanding of the selection by writing a three-sentence summary of the text.
• Share Your Independent Learning: Students are asked to share their learning with their classmates. An example from the student textbook:
  • Prepare to Share: What is the meaning of freedom? Reflect on the text you explored independently and write notes about its connection to the unit. In your notes, consider why this text belongs in the unit.