10th Grade - Gateway 2

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 10 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 10 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 2: Outsiders and Outcasts

• Essential Question: Do people need to belong?
• Whole-class Learning:
  • “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka (translated by Ian Johnston)
  • “Franz Kafka and Metamorphosis” (media: video) BBC
• Small-group:
  • “The Doll’s House” by Katherine Mansfield
  • “Sonnet, With Bird” by Sherman Alexie
  • “Elliptical” by Harryette Mullen
  • “Fences” by Pat Mora
  • “Revenge of the Geeks” by Alexandra Robbins
  • “Encountering the Other: The Challenge of the 21st Century” by Ryszard Kapuscski
• Independent Learning
  • "The Orphan Boy and the Elk Dogs" as retold by Richard Ordoes and Alfonso Ortiz
  • “By Any Other Name” from Gifts of Passage by Santha Rama Rau
  • “Outsider’s Art is Aluted at Columbia, Then Lost Anew” by Vivian Yee

Unit 4: All That Glitters

• Essential Question: What do our possessions reveal about us?
• Whole-class Learning:
  • “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant
  • “Civil Peace” by Chinua Achebe
  • “Fit for a King: Treasures of Tutankhamun” (Photo Essay)
• Small-group Learning:
  • “In La Rinconada, Peru, Searching for Beauty in Ugliness” by Marie Arana
  • “Avarice” by Yusef Komunyakaa
  • “The Good Life” by Tracy K. Smith
  • “Money” by Reginald Gibbons
  • “The Golden Touch” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Independent Learning
  • “The Gold Series: A History of Gold” an informational graphic in Visual Capitalist
  • “Ads May Spur Unhappy Kids to Embrace Materialism” by Amy Norton
  • “My Possessions, Myself” by Russell W. Belk

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 10 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 10 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: Outsiders and Outcasts

Text: “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka

Comprehension Check

• How do the family’s activities change to accommodate Gregor’s new condition?
• Confirm your understanding of the story by writing a summary.

Analyze the Text

• Compare and Contrast: Describe how Gregor’s insect like body changes from the opening of the story to the ending.
• Interpret: How do these physical changes reflect Gregor’s evolving emotional state?

Unit 4: All that Glitters

Text: “The Golden Touch” by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Comprehension Check

• What type of person visits King Midas in his treasure room?
• What wish does the stranger grant?
• What happens to the king’s daughter when she hugs her father?
• How does Midas help the stranger reverse the curse of the golden touch?

Analyze the Text

• With your group, reread paragraph 2 of the text. What words or phrases would you use to describe King Midas, based on the details the author gives in this paragraph? Is the narrator’s attitude toward the king positive of negative? How do you know?

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 10 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 10 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 contain 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: Inside the Nightmare

Essential Question: What is the allure of fear?

• Analyze the Text: After reading “Fall of the House of Usher,” students are assigned to respond to the questions below and cite textual evidence to support their answer:
  • Interpret: Which descriptive details of the interior of the house suggest that the narrator has entered a realm that is very different from the ordinary world?
  • Making Inferences: In what ways is the appearance of the interior of the house related to Usher’s appearance and the condition of his mind?
• Performance Task: Writing Focus: Use your knowledge of these texts and your own experiences and observations to write an explanatory essay that answers this question: How and when does imagination overcome reason?

Unit 3: Extending Freedom’s Reach

Essential Question: What is the relationship between power and freedom?

• Comparing Text to Media: In this part of the lesson, you will view Diane Sawyer’s video, "Malala Yousafzai." As you watch the interview, think back to Yousafzai’s United Nation speech. Consider ways in which the two texts connect with one another.
• Performance Task: Speaking and Listening Focus: You have read many selections and viewed an interview that deals with issues of power and freedom. Work with your group to develop, refine, and deliver a multimedia presentation that answers this question: When, if ever are limits on freedom necessary?

Unit 6: Blindness and Sight

Essential Question: What does it mean to see?

• Analyze the Text: After reading Oedipus, the King, students complete multiple text-dependent questions such as: Compare and Contrast: At the end of Part I, In what different ways are Oedipus and Teiresias both blind? In what ways can both see?
• Performance Task: Writing Focus: Write a nonfiction narrative when one person’s self-perception was unclear or incomplete, but someone else saw him or her very clearly. Tell a true story that suggests an answer to the following question: Can we see ourselves as clearly as others see us?

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 10 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 10 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 1: Inside the Nightmare

Essential Question: What is the allure of fear?

• Performance Task: After reading “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “House Taken Over,” students complete use the texts and their own experience to write an explanatory essay on the following question: How and when does imagination overcome reason?
  • Peer review: Exchange papers with a classmate. Use the checklist to evaluate your classmate’s argument and provide supportive feedback.
• Performance-based Assessment: Write an explanatory essay on the following topic: In what way does transformation play a role in the stories meant to scare us? Use evidence from at least three of the selections you read and researched in this unit to support your perspective. Include a narrative dimension in the form of an anecdote, a brief story from your own experience or that of someone you know.

Unit 3: Extending Freedom’s Reach

Essential Question: What is the relationship between power and freedom?

• Performance Task: Use the knowledge you have gained from reading Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” speech and from reading and listening to Kennedy’s inaugural address to write about the power of the individual. Write a brief informative essay in which you focus on answering this question: What can one person do to defend the human rights of all people?
• Performance-based Assessment: Students complete a final draft of an informative essay that answers, “What does it mean to be free?” Then they use it as foundation for a five- to ten-minute multimedia presentation.

Unit 6: Blindness and Sight

Essential Question: What does it mean to see?

• Performance Task: Use the information you have gathered through reading and your own life experiences to consider the differences between how people see themselves and how they are perceived by others. Write a nonfiction narrative about a time when one person’s self-perception was unclear or incomplete but someone else saw him or her clearly. Tell a true story that suggests an answer to the following question: Can we see ourselves as clearly as others see us?
• Performance-based Assessment: Write a nonfiction narrative in which you tell a true story related to the following question: Is there a difference between seeing and knowing? In your narrative present both clearly-delineated characters - the people who are involved in the action of the story - and settings.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 10 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 10 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 4: All that Glitters

Text: “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant, translated by Andrew MacAndrew

Language Development

• Concept Vocabulary:
  • Vocabulary: refinement, suppleness, exquisite, gallantries, resplendent, homage
  • How does the concept vocabulary sharpen the reader’s understanding of Mathilde Loisel’s character?
  • What other words in the selection connect to this concept?
  • Use each concept word in a sentence in which sensory details reveal the word’s meaning.
• Word Study
  • Write the meanings of these words formed from the root -splend-: splendor, splendid, splendiferous. Consult a print or online dictionary if needed.
  • Use each of these three words in a sentence. Include context clues that reveal shades of meaning among the words.
• Word Network
  • Add words related to materialism from the text to your Word Network.
• Writing to Sources
  • Adopt the perspective of Mathilde Loisel, and write a diary entry in which you explain how your life changed after the party. Include several of the concept vocabulary words in your diary entry.
• Evidence Log
  • Before moving on to a new selection, go to your evidence log and record what you learned from “The Necklace.”
• Performance Task
  • Think about how the characters or real people featured in the section and decide what is valuable to them. Consider different reasons that objects either have or lack value. Then write an informative essay in which you answer these questions: What makes something valuable? What makes something a treasure?

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 10 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 10 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 2: Outsiders and Outcasts

• Performance Task
  • Use the following outline to plan your response to “The Doll’s House.” Find quotations and other details from the story to support your ideas, and write the sources (page or paragraph numbers) for those supporting details.
• Performance-based Assessment:
  • Write an argumentative essay in which to state and defend a claim about the following question: Is the experience about being an outsider universal? Use credible evidence from at least three of the selections you read and researched in this unit to support your claim.

Unit 4: All that Glitters

• Writing to Sources:
  • Choose a character from one of your favorite books or short stories. Compose a diary entry written by that character. In your diary entry, include a description of an event that happens in the book or short story, and write the character’s thoughts and feelings about the experience. Remember to write from the character’s point of view.
• Performance Task:
  • Think about how the characters or real people featured in this section and decide what is valuable to them. Consider different reasons that objects either have or lack value. Then, write an informative essay in which you answer these questions: What makes something valuable? What makes something a treasure?

Unit 6: Blindness and Sight

• Performance Task
  • Using information you have gathered through reading and your own life experiences, consider the differences between how people see themselves and how they are perceived by others. Write a nonfiction narrative about a time when one person’s self-perception was unclear or incomplete. Tell a true story that suggest an answer to the following question: Can we see ourselves as clearly as others see us?
• Performance-based Assessment
  • Write a nonfiction narrative in which you tell a true story related to the following question: Is there a difference between seeing and knowing? In your narrative present both clearly delineated characters - the people who are involved in the action of the story - and settings.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 10 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: Inside the Nightmare

• Text: “House Taken Over” by Julio Cortazar
  • Research to Clarify: If students struggle to come up with a detail to research, suggest that they focus on the following topics: Buenos Aires, the architecture, or the currency (money used in the country).
  • Research to Explore: Research the origin of the story. Discover information about the home in Buenos Aires Province that inspired it.

Unit 3: Extending Freedom’s Reach

• Text: “The Censors” by Luisa Valenzuela, translated by David Unger
  • Research Challenge: Encourage interested students to learn more about current or past censorships in one or two other countries. During the research, have students consider the following questions: How is censorship enforced? What kinds of materials are censored? How does censorship affect the daily life of that country? How have citizens responded to the censorship? Students can write a one-page, magazine-style article to present their findings.

Unit 5: Virtue and Vengeance

• Text: Act III of The Tempest by William Shakespeare
  • 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 play?
  • Research to Explore: Choose something from the text that interests you and formulate your research question. Write your question here.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 10 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 10 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: Inside the Nightmare

• Teaching with Trade Books
  • The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells
  • Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
  • Dracula by Bram Stoker

• Independent Learning Selections
  • “How Maurice Sendak’s Wild things Moved Children’s Books Toward Realism” by Gloria Goodale
  • “Sleep Paralysis: a Waking Nightmare”
  • “The Feather Pillow” by Horacio Quiroga, translated by Margaret Sayers Peden
  • “Stone Age Man’s Terrors Still Stalk Modern Nightmares” by Robin McKie

Unit 1: Sample Independent Reading Tasks

• Text: “The Feather Pillow”
  • First Read: Students complete the First Read Guide (graphic organizer). They complete the following information:
    • Notice: Who the is story 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 write a brief summary of the selection.
  • Comprehension Check Questions
    • At the beginning of the story, what have Alicia and Jordan recently done?
    • Initially, why is it not surprising that Alicia begins to lose weight?
    • What happens when Jordan helps Alicia go into the garden?
    • What causes the servant to call for Jordan when she comes in to strip Alicia’s bed?
    • To confirm your understanding, write a summary of “The Feather Pillow.”
  • Share Your Independent Learning: Students are asked to share their learning with their classmates.
    • Prepare to Share: What is the allure of fear? 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.