11th Grade - Gateway 1

The materials reviewed for Grade 11 meet the criteria for anchor texts being of publishable quality and worthy of especially careful reading.

Texts within the units provide interesting and engaging subject matter that enable students to make personal and universal connections. The majority of texts are previously published and written by well-known authors. Texts range from historical to modern-day literature and represent a variety of text genres and multicultural and socially relevant themes across units. The units are designed to provide students a variety of text types centered on a topic, genre, or analytical skill; therefore, many units do not have an identifiable anchor text.

Some examples are as follows:

• Unit 1 includes the poem “America” by highly published author and poet Walt Whitman. The text contains rich vocabulary, the timeless theme of America and the “common man,” and Whitman’s unique writing style.
• Unit 1 also features an excerpt from the Common Core exemplar text A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. This award winning play, set in the 1950s, examines the American Dream through the perspective of an African American family, and how the American Dream is a complicated concept.
• Unit 2 features the “2nd Inaugural Address of President Abraham Lincoln Speech” given Saturday, March 4, 1865. The historical context and universal themes, including slavery, war, and a divided country, are age-appropriate and provide context for political and social issues throughout time.
• Unit 2 also includes the 1953 Tony Award winning play The Crucible, as well as the essay “Why I Wrote The Crucible: An Artist’s Answer to Politics,” both by Pulitzer Prize winner Arthur Miller. The play is a dramatized story of the Salem witch trials as a statement against government persecution. The article, written in 1996 and published in The New Yorker, shares Miller’s motivations writing the play and what happened after he wrote it.
• Unit 3 features multiple media publications such as op-eds, editorials, and articles. For example, “Letters: The NYC Subway is not ‘Beyond Repair’” by Peter Zerr was published in the Atlantic and offers arguments and rebuttals about mass transit issues. The unit also includes the article “Facebook Photos Sting Minnesota High School Students” published by The Associated Press that explores privacy and the use of social media through one school’s use of Facebook posts as part of an investigation.
• Unit 3 also features “The Role of the Media in a Democracy” by former head of the Associated Press George A. Krimsky. This informational text contains rich figurative and academic language to discuss important historical topics of the First Amendment and the issue of a free press.
• Unit 4 includes classics from the Harlem Renaissance such as poems by Langston Hughes and the introduction to the 1925 anthology The New Negro by Alain Locke. These works provide background on the movement as a context for the featured text of the unit, Their Eyes Were Watching God by award-winning author Zora Neale Hurston. This Common Core exemplar text is rich with language, description, and imagery and explores the complexities of human relationships and power.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 11 meet the criteria for texts having the appropriate level of complexity for the grade according to quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis.

Publishers provide a Text Complexity Measures document that indicates the quantitative data, qualitative analysis, and task considerations for the significant texts in each unit. The analysis uses Lexile and qualitative measures based on CCSS Appendix A (pages 5–6). Poetry and canonical or Common Core exemplar texts are not included in this document

While some texts fall above and below the College and Career Expectations for Lexile Ranges in the grades 11–12 stretch band (1185–1385L), the publishers provide a rationale based on the complexity of the qualitative features or the student task associated with the text. Most texts below the grade band are accompanied by a more rigorous task or require more student independence

Some examples are as follows:

• In Unit 1, the publisher provides complexity information for 12 texts. Lexile levels range from 760 to 1930. The extreme range is due to the inclusion of historical founding documents such as the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States that carries a quantitative measure of 1930L. Text types include articles, speeches, essays, historical documents, and poetry.
• Activity 1.12 text “Growing Up Asian in America” by Kesaya E. Noda: Quantitative, 890L: Qualitative: Moderate Difficulty, Task: Moderate–Analyze
• Activity 1.23 excerpt from “Keynote Address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention” by Barak Obama: Quantitative, 1110L: Qualitative, Moderate Difficulty: Task, Moderate–Analyze
• Activity 1.23 text “The Right to Fail” by William Zinsser: Quantitative, 1250L: Qualitative, Moderate Difficulty: Task, Challenging–Evaluate
• In Unit 2, the publisher provides complexity information for 10 texts that supplement the central text The Crucible by Arthur Miller (Lexile 1320). Lexile levels range from 960L to 1520L and qualitative measurements from moderate to very complex. Text types include sermons, seminal historical documents, essays, legal documents, and a speech.
• Activity 2.2 text, historical account, “The Trial of Martha Carrier” by Cotton Mather. Quantitative,1420L: Qualitative, Moderate Difficulty: Task, Moderate–Analyze
• Activity 2.3 text “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God:” Quantitative, 1360L: Qualitative: High Difficulty: Task, Moderate–Analyze
• Activity 2.3 text “The Lessons of Salem” by Laura Shapiro: Quantitative: 1210L: Qualitative, Moderate Difficulty: Task, Moderate–Analyze
• In Unit 3, publishers provide a text complexity analysis for 18 texts from the unit. These range from 1010L to 1570L with a balance of accessible, complex, and very complex texts. Text types include editorials, legislation, satire, editorial cartoons, and letters to the editor.
• Activity 3.7 text “Abolish High School Football” by Raymond Schroth: Quantitative 1570L: Qualitative, Moderate Difficulty: Task, Challenging–Evaluate
• Activity 3.17 text “Girl Moved to Tears by Of Mice and Men Cliff Notes” by The Onion: Quantitative 1480L: Qualitative, High Difficulty: Task, Moderate–Analyze
• Activity 3.19 text “Advice to Youth” by Mark Twain: Quantitative, 1050L: Qualitative, Moderate: Task, Moderate–Analyze
• In Unit 4, five texts are accompanied by a text complexity analysis with Lexile levels ranging from 920L-1630L. Texts in the unit include poetry, essays, short story excerpts, and the central novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.
• Activity 4.2 text “The Harlem Renaissance,” adapted from The 1920s by Kathleen Drowne and Patrick Huber: Quantitative,1630: Qualitative, High Difficulty: Task, Moderate–Analyze
• Activity 4.3 excerpt from “On the Dark Tower” by Eugenia W. Collier: Quantitative, 1170L: Qualitative, Moderate Difficulty: Task, Moderate–Analyze
• Activity 4.8 A Unity of Opposites, “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston 990L: Qualitative, Moderate Difficulty: Task, Moderate–Analyze

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 11 meet the criteria for materials supporting students’ literacy skills (understanding and comprehension) over the course of the school year through increasingly complex text to develop independence of grade-level skills (Series of texts should be at a variety of complexity levels).

Throughout the four units of study, students encounter challenging, rigorous texts and accompanying lessons, tasks, and assessments. Text selections fall within a range of accessible to very complex and low to high difficulty, with most texts falling within the moderately difficult range. Skills and knowledge build as students analyze a variety of texts and grapple with literary elements to complete two embedded assessments per unit. Thus, students work toward independence of grade-level skills within each unit and continue to grow their skills and knowledge of content and topics across the school year. The task demands and expected level of independence also increase across the year.

The complexity of anchor texts support students’ proficiency in reading independently at grade level at the end of the school year. (for 11-12: materials should be supporting students’ toward reading materials in credit-bearing college coursework and/or authentic career documents) Series of texts include a variety of complexity levels. Some examples are as follows:

• In the beginning of the year, students write a definition essay based on the theme “what it means to be an American.” In Unit 1: The American Dream, students reflect on what has formed their own ideas of the concept as well as perspectives presented in texts throughout the unit in order to develop the essay. For example, students read, analyze, and compare the poems “I, Too” by Langston Hughes and “I, Too, Sing America” by Julie Alvarez. Students also develop an argumentative essay, using multiple sources, to “defend, challenge or qualify the statement that America still provides access to the American dream.”
• In the middle of the year, students build knowledge to write an analytical essay. In Unit 2, The Power of Persuasion, students read a speech by Alfred M. Green. Then they write a timed analytical essay to “explain how Alfred M. Green builds an argument to persuade his audience that they, African Americans, should fight for the United States even though they do not yet have equal rights.” The essay must include a thesis; evidence and examples; reasoning; stylistic or persuasive elements; and purpose-driven organization. These demands are similar and build upon those found in Activity 1.11.
• By the end of year, students focus on analysis of various works from the Harlem Renaissance in Unit 4, An American Journey. This includes watching a film segment and evaluating art by artists such as Augusta Savage, Lois Mailou Jones, and Aaron Douglas. The year culminates with Zora Neal Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God (1250L) in order to make predictions, discuss meaning, analyze the author's use of characterization, and evaluate the use of foreshadowing. For the Embedded Assessment 2, students write an analytical essay to discuss how Hurston's writing is both a reflection of and a departure from the ideas of the Harlem Renaissance. The essay must include a convincing argument with analysis; clear and effective examples, clear organization and transitions; stylistic choices and mastery of conventions. These demands are similar to and build upon those encountered in activities in Unit 1 and 2.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 11 meet the criteria that anchor texts and series of texts connected to them are accompanied by a text complexity analysis and rationale for purpose and placement in the grade level. 

The publisher provides a text complexity document for each grade level which includes a summary or rationale of the placement of the text and the overall, quantitative, qualitative, and task complexity measures. This document also includes qualitative considerations for levels of meaning, structure, language, and knowledge demands. The task considerations explain the assessments associated with the text and how they fit into the overall assessment picture, and reader considerations that help the teacher think about how individual students might understand and engage with the text. The Teacher Wrap and Teacher Edition instructional notes provide a framework with text-specific guidance and purpose for the text. Most tasks, such as close reading, independent reading, text-dependent questions, and writing assignments are addressed within the framework and are identified in the Teacher Wrap and Teacher Edition with a rationale for text placement and how the tasks relate to lesson goals and learning targets.

Some examples are as follows:

• In Unit 1, The American Dream, Activity 1.12, A Hyphenated American, students read “Growing Up Asian in America” by Kesaya E. Noda. The Text Complexity document provides a Lexile score of 890L with an overall score of accessible. The Summary section provides this rationale for text placement: “This text is accessible for an eleventh grade reader, which is appropriate given its use as a model text leading to the Embedded Assessment. The 890 Lexile measure places the text below the 11–12 grade band, but the qualitative measures indicate a moderate challenge with some unfamiliar vocabulary and the use of figurative language. The task demands are also moderate, resulting in an overall accessible rating.” 

• In Unit 2, The Power of Persuasion, Activity 2.3, The Lessons of Salem, students read the article “The Lessons of Salem” by Laura Shapiro. The Text Complexity document provides a Lexile score of 1210L with an overall rating of complex. The Summary section provides this rationale for text placement: “This text is complex for an eleventh grade reader, and it builds important background knowledge about the Salem witch trials. The 1210 Lexile measure places the text in the Grade 11–12 band, and the qualitative measures indicate a moderate difficulty level due to the text’s structure. The task demands are also moderate, resulting in an overall complex text.” 

• In Unit 3, American Forums, The Marketplace of Ideas, Activity 3.7, The Bias of Rhetoric, students read the editorial “Abolish High School Football!” by Raymond A. Schroth. The Text Complexity document provides a Lexile score of 1570 with an overall rating of complex. The Summary section provides this rationale for text placement: “This text is very complex for an eleventh grade reader, which is appropriate given its placement in Unit 3. The 1570 Lexile measure places the text above the 11–12 grade level band, and the qualitative measures indicate a moderate difficulty due to its structure and use of slanted language and rhetorical devices. The task demands are challenging, resulting in an overall very complex rating.” 

• In Unit 4, An American Journey, Activity, 4.8, A Unity of Opposites” students read “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston to better understand the historical context of Hurston’s work. The text complexity analysis provides a Lexile level of 990 with an overall rating of moderate difficulty. The Summary section states, “This text is overall accessible to the reader, which is appropriate given that it is the first of three works by Hurston that students read in the unit and introduces students to the writer’s perspective. The 990 Lexile measure places the text below the grade level band, but the qualitative measures indicate a moderate difficulty due to the fairly complex language and historical and cultural references. The task demands are also moderate.” Task considerations include, “Students analyze how Hurston’s diction and syntax contribute to the voice of the text. They integrate ideas from multiple sources, make inferences, and use evidence to write an analysis of ways in which the Harlem Renaissance shaped Hurston’s philosophy and beliefs, and the ways in which Hurston followed her own path.”

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 11 meet the criteria for anchor and supporting texts provide opportunities for students to engage in a range and volume of reading to achieve grade-level reading proficiency.

Students read and analyze a wide variety of text genres and topics across a broad range of high-quality, increasingly challenging literary and informational texts of varying length. All units come with an overview that includes a table of contents with a list of texts, authors, and genres for each activity. Each unit includes a wide range of text types addressing multiple learning styles of students-including but not limited to visuals, texts with audio, and printed texts. Additionally, students experience a volume of reading as they engage in independent reading tasks that are embedded within specific activities and directly aligned to concepts and themes within the unit.

Some examples are as follows:

• In Unit 1: The American Dream, students study the American Dream through texts including “America and I” by Anzia Yezierska (short story), “The Two Clashing Meanings of ‘Free Speech’” by Teresa M. Bejan (definition essay), The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States and The Bill of Rights (historical documents), “What Is an American?” from Letters from an American Farmer by J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur (letter), “Is the American Dream Still Possible?” by David Wallechinsky (article), “An Ocean Steamer Passing the Statue of Liberty (illustration), and an excerpt from A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry.
• Unit 2: The Power of Persuasion, presents students with multiple text types including “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards (sermon), “The New England Primer (historical document); “The Trial of Martha Carrier” by Cotton Mather (historical account), “Sorcerer Exchanging Gospels for a Book of Black Magic” (illustration), the “Deposition of Joseph Hutchinson” by Joseph Hutchinson (legal document), and the central text The Crucible by Arthur Miller (play).
• Unit 3, American Forums: The Marketplace of Ideas, exposes students to the power of voice and satire through a variety of texts including “Let's Hear It for the Cheerleaders” by David Bouchier (satire). First Amendment to the United States Constitution (historical document), “Separate and Unequal: Indian Schools, a Nation’s Neglect” by Jill Burcum from the Star Tribune (editorial), “The Role of the Media in a Democracy,” by George A. Krimsky (informational), “How the Rise of the Daily Me Threatens Democracy,” by Cass Sunstein (editorial), “The Newspaper Is Dying—Hooray for Democracy,” by Andrew Potter (editorial) “Letters: The NYC Subway Is Not ‘Beyond Repair,’” fromThe Atlantic (letter to the editor), and “Advice to Youth,” by Mark Twain (satire).
• In Unit 4, An American Journey, students encounter a variety of texts including a visual prompt of Duke Ellington, “The Harlem Renaissance” adapted from The 1920s by Kathleen Drowne and Patrick Huber, “Introduction to the New Negro” by Alain Locke; “The Judgement Day” by Aaron Douglas (painting), a film segment on the Harlem Renaissance, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” by Augusta Savage (scultpute), “To Usward” by Gwendolyn B. Bennett (poem); “Lift Every Voice and Sing” by James Weldon Johnson (poem/song), an excerpt from “On ‘From the Dark Tower’” by Eugenia W. Collier (literary criticism), and the featured text Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston (novel).

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 11 meet 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).

The materials provide frequent opportunities for students to interact with texts by answering questions and completing tasks and assessments that require them to provide textual evidence to demonstrate their knowledge and support their thinking. The lessons are organized into recurrent sections that require students to draw on texts directly multiple times over the course of a lesson. The questions in each section build towards the Embedded Assessments in the unit. As students read, they complete several standard task sections: Making Observations, Focus on the Sentence, Returning to the Text, and Working from the Text. Students work from initial thoughts about key details in a text, to focusing on specific sentences in the text. Then, students answer a series of text-dependent/specific questions about the text and then finish the lesson with attention to specific quotes and how the text connects to the overall unit topic. In many lessons, there is also a Writing to Sources section for students to practice various writing types using the texts they read.

Students also complete text-dependent questions and tasks within the embedded unit assessments, informal and formal discussions, and quizzes. The Embedded Assessments require students to use the skills developed throughout the unit to interact with fresh texts and use textual evidence.

Instructional materials include questions, tasks, and assignments that are text-dependent/specific over the course of a school year. Text-dependent/specific questions, tasks and assignments consistently support students’ literacy growth over the course of the school year. Some examples include:

• In Unit 1, Activity 1.3, students read the short story, “America and I” by Anzia Yezierska. After reading, students answer a series of text-dependent questions such as, “Name five examples of images or diction that evoke the American Dream in the first three paragraphs of ‘America and I.’”
• In Unit 3, Activity 3.15, after reading “Let’s Hear It for the Cheerleaders” by David Bouchier, students answer the following questions: “In paragraph 1, what information does the reader understand that Bouchier’s persona does not? What is the effect on the tone of the text?” and “In paragraph 5, what rhetorical devices does the author use to shape the readers’ perception of cheerleading? What effects do these rhetorical devices have?”
• In Unit 4, Activity 4.3, students read the introduction to The New Negro by Alain Locke, and asnwer questions including, “What metaphor does Locke use in paragraph 4 to describe the movement that led to the Harlem Renaissance? How does the metaphor help explain the concept of a community at this time in history?”

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 11 meet the criteria for materials contain sets of sequences of text-dependent/text-specific questions with activities that build to a culminating task which integrates skills to demonstrate understanding.

The materials include several types of culminating activities for each unit of study throughout the year including assessments, frequent writing prompts, and collaborative tasks. The two Embedded Assessments per unit are directly aligned with the units’ topic and/or genre. The “Planning the Unit” section gives teachers a preview of the skills and knowledge that will be assessed in the Embedded Assessments. The beginning of the unit also unpacks the Embedded Assessments for students to keep the end products in mind as they progress through the unit. All lessons and writing prompts scaffold the required learning for the Embedded Assessments. The activities within each lesson include sequences of text-dependent questions that guide students’ understanding of the selections in the unit and build to daily and end of unit culminating tasks. Formative assessments along the way give students the opportunity to practice skills they are learning and allow teachers to assess student progress toward learning goals. The products that result from the Embedded Assessments vary in nature over the course of the year: writing a definition essay, synthesizing the American Dream, creating and performing a dramatic scene, writing and presenting a persuasive speech, creating an op-ed news project, writing a satirical piece, presenting a literary movement, and writing an analytical essay.

Some examples are as follows:

• In Unit 2: The Power of Persuasion, students spend the first half of the unit reading the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller to deepen their understanding of social conflicts. In Activity 2.15, students also read the essay “Why I Wrote The Crucible: An Artist’s Answer to Politics” by Arthur Miller. Students answer Returning to the Text questions while working in small groups. Examples of questions are: “What does the text of paragraph 2 suggest about the purpose of MIller’s essay?”; “How does Miller develop the meaning of the word magic in paragraphs 5 and 11?”; and “In your own words, summarize the fallacious reasoning that Miller describes in paragraph 18. What is its effect on the way the text is read and understood?” Tasks like these prepare students to complete Embedded Assessment 1, in which they work in a small group to choose a current social conflict to “write and perform a dramatic scene set in a different historical time period that makes a statement about the conflict.” In the second part of the unit, students read various speeches to study rhetoric and persuasive speaking. Before writing their own persuasive speech for Embedded Assessment 2, students complete tasks such as Activity 2.20 in which they read the “Second Inaugural Address” by Abraham Lincoln and respond to prompts such as “The use of parallel structure has a powerful effect on a written and spoken message. Identify the examples of parallelism at work in the speech.” In Activity 2.21, students read Patrick Henry’s “Speech to the Virginia Convention and respond to the prompt, “Read and analyze a speech for its rhetorical appeals and create an outline for your own argument that incorporates rhetorical appeals.”
• In Unit 4: An American Journey, Activity 4.3: The Historical Context of the Harlem Renaissance, students conduct guided research about the Harlem Renaissance. In this unit, the Embedded Assessments are research-based tasks. After watching a documentary, students answer the Essential Question, “How do cultural movements such as the Harlem Renaissance reflect and create people’s attitudes and beliefs?” Students then look at several works of art from the Harlem Renaissance while looking for textual evidence from the art that tells them about the time period. Finally, after reading the informational text, “Introduction to The New Negro by Alain Locke, students answer Returning to the Text questions including, “What metaphor does Locke use in paragrah 4 to describe the movement that led to the Harlem Renaissance? How does the metaphor help explain the concept of community at this time in history?” and “Review both “The Harlem Renaissance” in Activity 4.2 and Locke’s piece. How does each piece explain the reasons for the Great Migration? How do these reasons support each piece’s theme?” After compiling research on the Harlem Renaissance, students read Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God for the second part of the unit. While reading students complete tasks such as Activity 4.12: “Review Chapters 2 and 3. Think about Nanny’s desires for Janie to have a life far different from her own and Leafy’s as well as Nanny’s belief “that freedom is symbolized by achieving the position on high.” Write a paragraph explaining how these ideas are contrary to Hurston’s own ideas.” This and other similar tasks prepare students for Embedded Assessment Two in which they write an analytical essay to “discuss how Zora Neale Hurston’s writing is both a reflection of and a departure from the ideas of the Harlem Renaissance.”

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 11 meet the criteria for materials providing frequent opportunities and protocols to engage students in speaking and listening activities and discussions (small group, peer-to-peer, whole class) which encourage the modeling and use of academic vocabulary and syntax.

Teacher materials provide support and direction for teachers to fully implement grade level standards and grow students’ speaking and listening skills. At the end of each grade level, a Speaking and Reading Strategies document lists the strategies used throughout the units, and indicates whether each is a strategy for teachers or students or both. The definition and purpose of each strategy is listed for strategies including choral reading, debate, drama games, fishbowl, note-taking, oral reading, rehearsal, role-playing, and Socratic seminar. There are also a series of graphic organizers that provide structures and protocol activities such as active listening feedback, active listening notes, audience notes and feedback, collaborative dialogue, conversation for quickwrite, discourse starters, and round table discussion. In the Planning the Unit section at the beginning of each grade level, the Activities Features at a Glance section includes icons that indicate which activities include listening, speaking, and discussion tasks. The Teacher Wrap also provides detailed instructions for teachers on engaging students in a variety of speaking and listening activities and groupings. For some activities, the Teacher to Teacher notes offer more detail on best practices with the strategy, and scaffolding suggestions for both students who need additional support and students who need extension activities.

Materials provide multiple opportunities, protocols, and questions for discussions across the whole year’s scope of instructional materials. Some examples are as follows:

• In Unit 1, The American Dream, Activity 1.6, students analyze the text from the previous activity in preparation for writing a rhetorical analysis. In Activity 1.5: Questioning the Text, students read the essay “The Two Clashing Meanings of ‘Free Speech’” by Teresa M. Bejan. In Activity 1.6, they analyze the author’s use of definition strategies as a rhetorical device. The materials suggest that students use the Round Table Discussion graphic organizer to help them organize their developing ideas. Teachers are prompted: “Help students organize their observations by using the Round Table Discussion graphic organizer to revisit their answers in the Working from the Text section. Have them draw from those answers to write examples of topic sentences, text containing rhetorical devices, and ideas about the effects of those devices.”
• In Unit 3: American Forums: The Marketplace of Ideas, Activity 3.9: Sharing and Responding, includes the strategy of small-group reading as a first read of a text. While reading together, students stop to underline text that indicates the writer’s position and reason for that position. They also discuss and highlight words that create tone or are unknown. Students then come together for a large group discussion of two general “Making Observations” questions. Students then move into pairs to pair-read and answer text-dependent questions. This is followed by independent work culminating with an argumentative paragraph. The final part of the activity has students return to their pairs to review their brief editorials.
• In Unit 4, An American Journey, Activity 4.2, students will be working in groups for their final multimedia presentation. The Teacher Wrap prompts teachers: “Divide the class into groups of three or four students. Read aloud the introduction for the Participating Collaboratively section. Then have volunteers from the different groups take turns reading aloud and then paraphrasing the bulleted points in the Collaboration Guidelines box. Guide the activity, soliciting and answering questions and clarifying the guidelines as necessary.” The Participating Collaboratively section includes criteria such as
• Be prepared for collaborative discussions by reading your assigned sources and taking notes ahead of time.
• Speak up so that the other group members can hear.
• Take turns speaking and listening; everyone should have the opportunity to share ideas.
• Ask relevant and insightful questions that build on other students’ ideas and help the
• discussion.
• Offer ideas or judgments that are purposeful in moving the group toward your goals.
• Paraphrase comments from other group members to ensure understanding.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 11 meet the criteria for materials supporting students’ listening and speaking (and discussions) about what they are reading and researching (shared projects) with relevant follow-up questions and supports.

As noted in the teacher planning documents for each unit, speaking and listening skills are included throughout the unit. The majority of activities include at least one opportunity for students to speak and listen in academic discussions as they relate to reading selections and lines of inquiry. Materials provide directions for implementation and when appropriate for scaffolding the activity in the teacher edition. The Teacher Wrap offers additional support for teachers to facilitate discussions and prompt students with guiding and follow-up questions and activities. Discussions generally require students to provide textual evidence and use learned academic and literary vocabulary. Throughout the year students also have multiple opportunities to present in groups and as individuals. For each activity, teachers receive directions for implementation and when appropriate for scaffolding the activity in the teacher edition. The Teacher Wrap provides support for teachers to facilitate discussions and prompt students with guiding and follow-up questions and activities. The frequency and structure of the activities create the conditions for students to improve their skills over time.

Students have multiple opportunities over the school year to demonstrate what they are reading and researching through varied grade-level-appropriate speaking and listening opportunities.

Some examples are as follows:

• In Unit 2, The Power of Persuasion, Activity 2.8, the Teacher Wrap prompts teachers: “Have students work in groups to discuss and complete the Gaining Perspectives activity. Then ask a volunteer from each group to share key ideas from the group's discussion.” The student instructions for the group discussion read, “In The Crucible, the townspeople accuse each other of being witches or of being possessed by the devil based on what they have seen or been told. As you have learned, clinical hysteria can present itself in many physical ways; however, the Puritans did not always investigate people's behavior fully before passing judgment. With a partner, discuss what it would be like to be accused of wrongdoing based on your actions related to a health problem. How could you effectively communicate your health issues to others? What types of communication skills might not be effective and cause people not to believe you? When you are done, summarize your discussion in your Reader/Writer Notebook.”
• In Unit 3, American Forums: The Marketplace of Ideas, Activity 3.8, students read the editorial “Separate and Unequal: Indian Schools, a Nation’s Neglect” by Jill Burcum. The Teacher Wrap includes directions and questions for the teacher to conduct speaking and listening activities, such as “Tell students to pause after paragraph 28. Invite a volunteer to summarize the relationship between the BIE and Congress as it is being presented by the author” and “After reading the text for the first time, guide the class in a discussion by asking the Making Observations questions. Check students’ overall general comprehension of the text based on their observations, asking follow-up questions as needed.”
• In Unit 4, An American Journey, Activity 4.3, students read the Introduction to The New Negro by Alain Locke. The Teacher Wrap includes follow-up questions for conducting a classroom discussion of the text in a Scaffolding the Text-Dependent Questions box: “What metaphor does Locke use in paragraph 4 to describe the movement that led to the Harlem Renaissance? How does the metaphor help explain the concept of a community at this time in history? A metaphor states a similarity between two unlike things, using words to create a visual image. To what does the author compare the movement of people to the North? What similarity does he find between those two things?”

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 11 meet 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.

Throughout the units and over the course of the school year, the instructional materials require students to produce a mixture of standards aligned, on-demand, short, informal, focused writing projects and longer independent writing process tasks and essays that require multiple drafts and revisions over time with the use of digital resources where appropriate. The materials follow a scaffolded approach to writing within units and across the year. Students study authors’ craft and practice applying what they learned to their own writing. Students frequently practice the writing process of pre-write, plan, draft, review, revise and edit, which includes opportunities to collaborate with peers. Students engage in on-demand writing daily throughout the lessons and process-writing tasks in the unit embedded assessments, unit prompts, and supplemental workshops. The majority of writing tasks are evidence-based and text-based. There are two embedded assessments per unit which both include process writing tasks. These are outlined in the Teacher Edition, and the Teacher Wrap offers guidance to the teacher for revision and editing. Each assessment also includes a scoring rubric and questions to help students in planning, drafting, and revising throughout the writing process.

For on-demand writing, materials include Focus on the Sentence activities, in which students practice writing at the sentence level and then move into paragraphs and then essay-length writing pieces. The Gaining Perspectives section of the lesson uses an on-demand writing task for students to summarize the classroom discussion on a given topic. Knowledge Quests include on-demand writing-to-source prompts. Independent Reading Checkpoint sections also include informal writing assignments where students reflect on and/or synthesize independent reading.

The supplemental materials include ten Writing Workshops per grade level that provide direct instruction on the writing process for argumentative, explanatory, narrative, literary, research, narrative nonfiction, poetry, script, and procedural writing; however, it is critical to note that these are not part of the core materials and are used at the teacher’s discretion.

Examples of on-demand writing include, but are not limited to:

• In Unit 1, The American Dream, Activity 1.4, students complete a timed, on-demand writing prompt that requires them to respond to the following: “The tone of ‘America and I’ changes and develops over the course of the narrative as Anzia Yezierska has new experiences. Draft an essay evaluating how Yezierska's use of diction and syntax affects the evolution of tone in the narrative.” Students practice incorporating textual evidence in their writing as they complete similar tasks throughout the unit.
• In Unit 2, The Power of Persuasion, Activity 2.13, students do a collaborative group writing activity for a literary writing prompt. The prompt reads: “Work with a small group to develop a short scene and then write a script based on one of the following scenarios, or a different scenario. Consider the role that various forms of evidence, including confession, might play in the scene.”
• In Unit 3, American Forums: The Marketplace of Ideas, Activity 3.11, students evaluate the effectiveness of several letters to the editor and learn how to write their own letter. At the end of the lesson, in the Opening Writing Prompt section, students “Write a letter to the editor in response to one of the editorials you have read in this unit. Use the steps outlined in the How to Write a Letter to the Editor section to guide your writing.” Students are then given several guidelines for organization structure, rhetorical techniques, and a conclusion.

Opportunities for process writing tasks and focused projects include, but are not limited to:

• In Unit 1, The American Dream, Embedded Assessment 1, students write a definition essay that responds to this prompt: “Write a multi-paragraph essay that defines your interpretation of what it means to be an American. This essay should use the strategies of definition and different perspectives from the unit to help you develop a complex and thoughtful definition. If possible, incorporate an iconic image into your essay.” This assessment takes students through the entire writing process: planning and prewriting, drafting and revising, editing and publishing, and reflecting on the final product.
• In Unit 3, American Forums: The Marketplace of Ideas, Activity 3.9, students learn and practice the steps to draft, write, and revise an editorial about a contemporary issue.
• In Unit 4, An American Journey, Activity 4.9, students write a literary analysis. The prompt reads: “Analyze the extent to which Hurston’s story is a tribute to the lives of ordinary African American people. Choose a method of prewriting and then draft a response to this story. In your analysis, address the literary elements you have studied.” Another component of the activity guides students through “Revising and Editing with Peer Review”.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 11 meet the criteria for materials provide opportunities for students to address different text types of writing that reflect the distribution required by the standards. (Writing opportunities incorporate digital resources/multimodal literacy materials where appropriate. Opportunities may include blended writing styles that reflect the distribution required by the standards.)

The materials provide opportunities for students to learn, practice, and construct a variety of writing modes and genres across the school year. Because writing instruction starts at the sentence level and progresses through paragraphs to full, multi-draft pieces of writing, students and teachers are able to monitor progress. The majority of writing prompts, assignments, and assessments are text-based and reflect an in-depth look at author's craft across a variety of text types. Each unit contains two Embedded Assessments that require students to demonstrate their understanding of the unit focus through writing types and media as required by the standards. Students regularly engage in task-based writing and writing to sources, and direct instruction in narrative, argument, and informational writing. Students engage extensively in each writing type across the year as each unit exemplifies a different mode of writing. There is also variation of writing types within each unit typically for smaller tasks within lessons.

There are also ten Writing Workshops per grade level that provide direct instruction and practice for argumentative, explanatory, narrative, literary, research, narrative nonfiction, poetry, script, and procedural writing. It is important to note that these workshops are not a part of the core materials and must be used at the teacher’s discretion.

Materials include sufficient writing opportunities for a whole year’s use. Some examples are as follows:

• In Unit 1, The American Dream, students read a variety of informational and literary texts and practice several writing types, including definition essays and arguments. Students read exemplars and practice analyzing and writing definition pieces, as well as “a three to five paragraph narrative about a difficult moment” from their lives. Tasks like these help students prepare for Embedded Assessment 1 in which they write a multi-paragraph essay of their own interpretation of the American dream that incorporates texts from the unit. This continues into Embedded Assessment 2 which requires students to synthesize up to five sources from the unit to write an argument that defends or challenges “the statement that America still provides access to the American Dream.”
• In Unit 2, The Power of Persuasion, students practice a variety of writing genres, such as analysis of arguments, a dramatic scene, and an argumentative speech. In the first half of the unit, students read and analyze the social, dramatic, and historical elements of The Crucible by Arthur Miller. For Embedded Assessment 1, students write an original dramatic scene based on a social conflict that is set in an alternate historical period. The second half of the unit focuses on American rhetoric in historical speeches to prepare students for Embedded Assessment 2 in which they write and present a persuasive speech ”that addresses a contemporary issue.”
• In Unit 3, American Forums: The Marketplace of Ideas, students compose argumentative and informational pieces about debatable social issues. Students begin the unit reading and analyzing articles and editorials. They practice writing a letter to the editor to prepare for Embedded Assessment 1. For this assessment, students collaboratively write a full informational essay on a significant social issue, and then individually write editorial works that “include at least two different pieces, such as cartoons, editorials, letters, posters, photos, and so on.” The second half of the unit builds on the first by presenting exemplars of historical and modern parody and satire that students analyze and practice composing. This leads to Embedded Assessment 2 in which students write a full piece of satire that critiques an aspect of society.
• In Unit 4, An American Journey, students read multiple short stories and poems by Harlem Renaissance authors to write analytical, informational, and argumentative pieces. For the first part of Unit 4, students synthesize textual information on the Harlem Renaissance with a focus on crafting a strong thesis statement for a research question. Students then collaboratively write and present an informational essay on an aspect of the Harlem Renaissance for Embedded Assessment 1. After the assessment, students read several works by Zora Neale Hurston, including the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. Students practice a range of writing types with tasks such as “Analyze the extent to which Hurston’s story is a tribute to the lives of ordinary African American people” and read several critiques of the novel; then “choose one and defend or challenge.” Students continually analyze Hurston’s works in light of what they learned about the Harlem Renaissance. The unit culminates with Embedded Assessment 2: “Write an analytical essay in which you discuss how Zora Neale Hurston’s writing is both a reflection of and a departure from the ideas of the Harlem Renaissance.”

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 11 meet the criteria for materials include frequent opportunities for evidence-based writing to support sophisticated analysis, argumentation, and synthesis.

The instructional materials provide frequent opportunities for writing that requires students to analyze sources, make arguments with claims and supporting evidence, and synthesize information across texts and various media sources. These opportunities include on-demand tasks within lessons, as well as both embedded assessments per unit. Close, critical reading activities throughout the units incorporate text-based writing from the sentence level to multi-draft full-length compositions. Students also read additional texts independently within each unit and synthesize in writing what they learned from these texts along with the selections that are embedded in the lessons. Students complete two Knowledge Quests per unit, in which they read and analyze a collection of texts around a topic, theme, or idea and synthesize what they learned either in a Writing to Sources prompt or a class discussion. For significant tasks such as the Embedded Assessments, students are provided with graphic organizers, checklists, and/or rubrics to support their work.

Writing opportunities are focused around students’ analyses and claims developed from reading closely and working with sources. Some examples are as follows:

• In Unit 1, The American Dream Activity 1.16, students read the Declaration of Independence and analyze its effectiveness as a piece of argumentative writing. Students must construct a claim and use specific evidence as a part of their written responses to the following question: “What is the modern American Dream? How do the foundational documents of American life still support the American Dream today?”
• In Unit 2, The Power of Persuasion, Activity 2.2, students read a series of primary source documents to understand the context of The Crucible. After completing the examination of the documents, the Check Your Understanding activity directs students to “summarize what you now know about the historical context of the play.” Students are then guided to “refer to evidence from the primary sources [they] read.”
• In Unit 3, American Forum: The Marketplace of Ideas, Activity 3.10, students analyze the effectiveness of evidence in editorials presented in the unit. In Activity 3.11, students write a letter to the editor in response to one of the editorials from the unit. Students are reminded to use “claims, reason, evidence, and response to counterclaims” as well as “a variety of rhetorical techniques, including anecdotes, case studies, or analogies.”
• In Unit 4, An American Journey, Activity 4.13, students have read the first six chapters of Zora Neal Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. Students complete an argumentative prompt that first asks them to “review the characteristics of folktales and the portions of Chapter 6 that reflect folktale characteristics.” Students then write a paragraph in which they “agree or disagree with critics who ‘frowned upon [Hurston’s] broad humor and lowly nature of her material.’” The prompt reminds students to use folktale elements as examples to support their claim and “embed any quotations using correct conventions.”

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 11 meet the criteria for materials including instruction and practice of the grammar and conventions/language standards for grade level as applied in increasingly sophisticated contexts, with opportunities for application in context.

Materials provide embedded instruction and practice of grammar and language concepts throughout the four units of study at each grade level. Sections titled Grammar and Usage point out authors’ use of grammatical constructs in the selections students are reading in the activity. The goal of providing these call-outs is to increase reading comprehension and provide a model for students to incorporate the constructs into their own writing. Students engage in sentence-level grammar and usage practice through Focus on the Sentence tasks. Several times in the unit, students complete Language and Writer’s Craft tasks that “address topics in writing such as style, word choice, and sentence construction.” These exercises are also embedded in daily lessons, reference the text at hand, and include application to the students’ own writing.

Materials include instruction of all grammar and conventions standards for the grade level. Some examples are as follows:

• Students have opportunities to apply the understanding that usage is a matter of convention, can change over time, and is sometimes contested.
• In Unit 4, An American Journey, Activity 4.9: The Tradition of Dialect, students read the short story “Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston. While reading the story, students learn more about the variations of language that exist in dialect through a “Language Change” section: “Our world is vast, and throughout the world, dialect and speech have varied from place to place and over time. For this reason, authors sometimes use their own experiences to light up a story with language that may be considered complex. For example, phrases in ‘Sweat’ may include nonconventional variations in spelling, grammar, punctuation, and meaning, such as:
• ‘… Mah sweat is done paid for this house …’ (paragraph 20)
• ‘… jez ez reg'lar ez de weeks roll roun' …’ (paragraph 33)
• ‘Too much knockin' …’ (paragraph 37)
• These words give a more accurate account of the story as it plays out in the author's mind.
• Find two examples in the text of phrases that include variations in dialect and work with a partner to discuss the literal meaning of the phrases.
• As a group, evaluate why an author might choose to use a nonconventional word or phrase in a story.”
• Students have opportunities to resolve issues of complex or contested usage, consulting references (e.g., Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, Garner's Modern American Usage) as needed.
• In Unit 1, The American Dream, Activity 1.14, students revise and edit their definition essay. Instruction on the editing process explains the purpose of a style guide and its usefulness during this stage of the writing process. "A style guide is a collection of rules for writing. Popular style guides for general writing include Elements of Style, The Associate Press Stylebook, and The Chicago Manual of Style. Other good style guides exist for writing in specific fields (science, medical, etc.).” Students then edit their work using an online or print style guide. During both Embedded Assessments, students "check [their work] for grammatical and technical accuracy" using "outside resources," such as a style guide.
• Students have opportunities to observe hyphenation conventions.
• In Unit 4, An American Journey, Activity 4.8, students read “Colored Me’ by Zora Neale Hurston. During the lesson, students encounter a call out Grammar & Usage explanation of how writer’s use dashes while utilizing the short story as a mentor text. They are instructed to “try revising another sentence from this essay by replacing a dash with a colon, a comma, or parentheses. How does your revision change the way you read the sentence?”
• Students have opportunities to spell correctly.
• In Unit 3, American Forums: The Marketplaces of Ideas, Activity 3.21, while writing a satire, the instructional guidance prompts students: “Edit the satire to ensure that the spelling, grammar, and punctuation are all correct. Use a style guide as needed.”