12th Grade - Gateway 1

The materials reviewed for Grade 12 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.

Examples include, but are not limited to:

• Unit 1 contains a variety of texts intended to support students’ ability to analyze and critique rhetoric with a focus on immigration and cultural experience. Poetry is a featured genre and includes classic and contemporary poems such as “A Poison Tree” by British poet William Blake, “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus, “I Remember” by Edward Montez, and “The White Man’s Burden” by Rudyard Kipling.
• Unit 1 also includes several essays by renowned authors such as the 1936 literary magazine publication “Shooting an Elephant” by political novelist George Orwell and “Stranger in the Village” by activist and Harlem Renaissance novelist, James Baldwin. Both authors were controversial for their time due to their political and racial activism.
• Unit 2 continues with literary criticism and primarily features the 1913 play Pygmalion by Nobel Prize winner, George Bernard Shaw, but includes supporting materials such as the poem “Orpheus Sings: Pygmalion and the Statue” by classical Roman poet Ovid and the contemporary children’s passage “The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein.
• Unit 3 focuses primarily on The Tragedy of Othello by William Shakespeare. This play is a timeless classic that provides opportunities for text-to-self and text-to-text connections. The themes of deceit, jealousy, and gossip reflect universal themes across multiple genres and age groups.
• Unit 4 includes a variety of contemporary media publications for students to analyze the way media impacts how society interprets the news and develops opinions on events and issues. These include a 2014 publication in The New Yorker “How Headlines Change the Way We Think” by Russian-American writer and psychologist, Maria Konnikova. Konnikova uses this article to discuss bias and the role of the media and word choice in influencing readers.
• Unit 4 also features a series of media publications on Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath including “The Press, Race, and Katrina” by Madison Gray, published in 2006 in Time magazine. This article, written a year after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, reflects on the negative role that the media played in the portrayal of African Americans and the potential impact that had on rescue efforts.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 12 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.

Examples include, but are not limited to:

• In Unit 1, the publisher provides a text complexity analysis for nine texts. These range from 870L to 1520L. Texts in the unit include poems, informational and argumentative texts, essays, and advertisements.
• Activity 1.7 excerpt from Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison: Quantitative, 870L: Qualitative, Moderate Difficulty: Task, Moderate–Analyze
• Activity 1.9 text “Children’s Bureau Act:” Quantitative, 1520L: Qualitative, High Difficulty: Task, Challenging–Evaluate
• Activity 1.15 text “On Seeing England for the First TIme” by Jamaica Kincaid: Quantitative, 1230L: Qualitative, Moderate Difficulty: Task, Moderate–Analyze
• In Unit 2, seven texts are accompanied by a qualitative and quantitative analysis to explain the complexity of each text. The central text for the unit is the classical play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. The majority of texts are below the grade level lexile band and fall between 700L to 1120L. Text types include a myth, narrative texts, and a fairy tale.
• Activity 2.3 text “Orpheus Sings: Pygmalion and the Statue” by Ovid: Quantitative, 1120L: Qualitative, Moderate Difficulty: Task, Moderate–Analyze
• Activity 2.3 excerpt from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: Quantitative, 980L: Qualitative, Moderate Difficulty: Task, Challenging–Evaluate
• Activity 2.19 text “The Landlady” by Roald Dahl: Quantitative 770L: Qualitative, Low Difficulty: Task, Challenging–Evaluate
• In Unit 3, the publisher provides complexity information for two texts that supplement the central text The Tragedy of Othello by William Shakespeare (1320L). The unit also includes a song and poem which do not require a complexity analysis.
• Activity 3.9 excerpt from “The Moor in English Renaissance” by Jack D’Amico: Quantitative, 1430L: Qualitative, High Difficulty: Task, Challenging–Evaluate
• Activity 3.20 text “Othello on Stage and Screen” by Sylvan Barnet: Quantitative, 1370L, Qualitative, High Difficulty: Task, Moderate–Analyze
• In Unit 4, publishers provide a text complexity analysis for 14 prose selections. With a range of 590L to 1600L. Unit texts reflect a balance of accessible, complex, and very complex texts. Text types include legal documents, articles, speech, reports, films, and editorials.
• Activity 4.3 text “Why Partisans View Mainstream Media as Biased and Ideological Media as Objective by Matthew C. Nisbet: Quantitative, 1600L: Qualitative, High Difficulty: Task, Challenging–Evaluate
• Activity 4.7 text “Looters Leave Nothing Behind in Storm’s Wake”by Mike Perlstein and Brian Thevenott: Quantitative, 1180L, Qualitative, High Difficulty: Task, Moderate–Analyze
• Activity 4.7 text “‘Attitude of Resilience’ Helped Create Demo Diva” by Simone Bruni: Quantitative, 590L: Qualitative, Low Difficulty: Task, Moderate–Analyze

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 12 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. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• In the beginning of the year, the students focus on rhetorical analysis. In Unit 1, Perception is Everything, students study an advertisement from an 1890s magazine and write an analysis using Cultural Criticism. Students also analyze the structure of an argument and write a timed rhetorical analysis essay about an argumentative text, called Profiting on the Backs of Laborers by Victoria Riskin and Mike Farrell (1200L). Tasks like these help students prepare for the unit assessments. For example, Embedded Assessment 1 requires students to independently write a rhetorical analysis essay on the editorial “Tipping System Exacerbates Unfair Pay” at Restaurants by Kathleen Kingsbury.
• In the middle of the year, students shift to literary analysis and informational writing. In Unit 2: The Collective Perspective, students read Act II of the play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw and write an informational essay that compares the character of Eliza with the statue in the Pygmalion myth. These demands of this essay and others in this unit are similar and build upon those found throughout Unit 1. In Unit 3, Evolving Perspectives, students read Othello by William Shakespeare. Among other similar analysis tasks, students develop a character analysis of Othello, applying the Cultural Criticism lens to answer a writing prompt. For Embedded Assessment 1 in this unit, students independenlty write a character analysis for Othello using one of the literary crtisicms studied (Feminist, Archetypal, Marxist, Cultural, or Historical).
• By the end of the year, the focus is on argumentation. In Unit 4, Creating Perspectives, students take an in-depth look at Hurricane Katrina through a variety of sources including articles, reports, legal documents, photographs, an infographic, a podcast, and film documentary trailer. Students have multiple opportunities to practice writing and presenting argumentative pieces. This leads to the final Embedded Assessment 2 in which students gather multiple sources of research and present an argument through their choice of medium. Suggestions include podcasts, a documentary, news broadcast, or persuasive speech. The scoring guide for teachers focuses on ideas, structure, and use of language.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 12 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. 

Examples include, but are not limited to:

• In Unit 1, Perception is Everything, Activity 1.15, Digging Deeper for Meaning, students read the essay “On Seeing England for the First Time” by Jamaica Kincaid. The Text Complexity document provides a Lexile score of 1230 and an overall rating of complex. The Summary section provides this rationale for text placement: “This text is complex for a twelfth grade reader, and students read and analyze the text with considerable independence at this point in the unit. The 1230 Lexile measure places the text within the 11–12 grade level band, and the qualitative measures indicate a moderate difficulty due to its figurative language and complex layers of meaning. The task demands are also moderate, resulting in an overall complex rating.” 

• Unit 2, The Collective Perspective, Activity 2.3, Introducing the Myth presents an excerpt from Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley. The Text Complexity document provides a Lexile score of 980 with an overall rating of very complex. The Summary section states, “This text is very complex for a twelfth grade reader, offering a challenging complementary text to the somewhat more accessible “Orpheus Sings” myth from earlier in the activity. The 980 Lexile measure places the text below the 11–12 grade level band, but the qualitative measures indicate a moderate difficulty level due to its completing levels of meaning and [use of] figurative language. The task demands are challenging, resulting in an overall very complex rating.”

• In Unit 3, Evolving Perspectives, Activity 3.9, A Historical Look at the Moor, students first receive direct instruction in Historical Criticism prior to reading the literary criticism, from “The Moor in English Renaissance Drama” by Jack D’Amico. This text receives an overall rating of Very Complex based on the above 11–12 grade level Lexile of 1430, qualitative level of High Difficulty and task level of Challenging. The Summary recognizes, “The text is very complex for a twelfth grade reader. As students approach college readiness, this text exposes them to the type of writing they will encounter in academic journals in college. The 1430 Lexile measure places the text above the 11–12 grade level band, and the qualitative measures indicate a high difficulty level due to its dense language and complex connections of ideas. The task demands are also challenging, resulting in an overall very complex rating.” 

• In Unit 4, Creating Perspectives, Activity 4.15, Framing the Investigation, students read the article “Daylong Efforts to Repair Levee Fail” by Dan Shea. The Text Complexity document provides a Lexile score of 960 with an overall complexity rating of accessible. The Summary section provides this rationale for text placement: “This text is accessible for a twelfth grade reader, giving students a chance to apply Feminist Criticism with and engaging text. The 960 Lexile measure places the text below the 11–12 grade level band, but the qualitative measures indicate a moderate difficulty due to its unconventional language and subtle, complex theme. The task demands are also moderate, resulting in an overall accessible rating.”

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 12 meet the criteria that 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.

Examples include, but are not limited to:

• In Unit 1, Perceptions is Everything, students encounter a collection of poetry: “On Being Brought from Africa to America” by Phillis Wheatley, “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus, “in just–” by E.E. Cummings, “Mushrooms” by Sylvia Plath, and “Water” by Anne Sexton. These complement additional texts such as a speech to the National American Woman Suffrage Association by Florence Kelley, Pears’ Soap Company, “Lightening the White Man’s Burden” (advertisement), “On Seeing England for the First Time” by Jamaica Kincaid (essay), “‘Is this what the west is really like?’ How it felt to leave China for Britain,” by Xiaolu Guo (essay), and “Clothing Brands Need to Step Up and Keep Women Safe in Their Factories” by Aruna Kashyap (argument).
• Unit 2, The Collective Perspective, features the play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw along with several supporting texts including “Orpheus Sings: Pygmalion and the Statue” by Ovid, an excerpt from Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley (novel), Stills from My Fair Lady, directed by George Cukor (illustrations), “Talkin’ ’bout a Revolution,” by Tracy Chapman (song lyrics), “Why Women Always Take Advantage of Men,” from Mules and Men, by Zora Neale Hurston (folktale).
• Unit 3, Evolving Perspectives, introduces students to the central text The Tragedy of Othello, The Moor of Venice by William Shakespeare (play). Supporting texts include “The Right to Love” by Gene Lees and Lilo Schifrin (song), “The Canonization” by John Donne (poem), an excerpt from The Moor in English Renaissance Drama by Jack D’Amico (literary criticism), and “Othello on Stage and Screen” by Sylvan Barnet (essay).
• In Unit 4, Creating Perspectives, students “use critical perspectives to analyze informational texts.” For example, in Activity 4.5: Framing the Investigation, students evaluate the legal document “The Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, Section 101” and the article “Daylong Efforts to Repair Levee Fail” by Dan Shea.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 12 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 from 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. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Unit 1, Activity 1.18, after reading “Stranger in the Village” by James Baldwin, students answer questions including, “How do the villagers react to Baldwin when he first arrives in Switzerland?”
• In Unit 2, Activity 2.17, students read the folktale, “Why Women Always Take Advantage of Men” by Zola Neale Hurston. After a rereading of the text, students complete a series of questions including: “How does the author use the language and dialogue in Chunk 1 to reveal how men see the relative advantages of men and women? Use details from the text to support your answer.”
• In Unit 4, Activity 4.3, students read and analyze two texts, “Headlines Change the Way We Think” by Maria Konnikova and “Why Partisans View Mainstream Media as Biased and Ideological Media as Objective” by Matthew C. Nisbet. They answer questions using multiple texts. Questions include: “According to Konnikova's arguments, how does the headline frame the rest of the reader's experience? Cite details from the text to support your answer” and “According to the article, why was the misdirection in the headline easier to detect for the factual pieces used in the Ullrich Ecker study than in the opinion pieces?”
  

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 12 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 rhetorical analysis essay, writing a reflective essay, illuminating Pygmalion, applying a critical perspective, writing a literary analysis, staging an interpretation, examining how an issue is presented in media texts, and presenting an argument.

Examples include, but are not limited to:

• In Unit 3: Evolving Perspectives, Embedded Assessment 1, students complete this culminating activity: “Select a character from Othello and write a literary analysis about him or her using one of the critical lenses that you have studied (choose Feminist, Marxist, Cultural, Historical, or Archetypal for this assignment). You will support your analysis with valid reasoning and sufficient evidence from your reading, observations, and previous written work.” Leading up to this culminating assessment, students complete tasks such as Activity 3.3, “review the elements of Cultural Criticism and apply the lens to compare how two authors address similar themes.” In Activity 3.5, students “evaluate the social status of each character in Othello based on their cast descriptions.” Then they “use the Marxist perspective to write an essay explaining how the economic context of the setting influences the dynamics between characters.” To practice using Feminist Criticism, students “analyze the character of Desdemona through a feminist lens” in Activity 3.10. By Activity 3.14, students begin preparing for the Embedded Assessment as they work in groups to apply a specific critical perspective to a character in Othello.
• In Unit 4: Creating Perspectives, students explore how media sources use different lenses, rhetorical strategies, and bias to present news. In Embedded Assessment 1, students complete this culminating activity: “Your assignment is to write an argumentative essay that argues for the use of a particular critical lens to interpret an event. Your essay must include an annotated bibliography and evidence from at least five texts gathered alone or with your group members.” Some of the activities leading up to this culminating assessment include Activity 4.2: “Read an article that traces the history of the media industry since the advent of television news.” Then in Activity 4.3, students “read and analyze two texts that present different perspectives on the root cause of media bias.” By Activity 4.4, students begin practicing for the Embedded Assessment as they “watch two reports of a news event, noting any reporting and filming techniques that indicate bias.” Students are then prompted to “write an argument exposing the bias and logical fallacies evident in one of the news reports.”

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 12 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. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• In Unit 1, Perception is Everything, Activity 1.14, students take part in a Socratic Seminar. In the section, “Working from the Text”, there is a call-out box “Introducing the Strategy: Socratic Seminar,” which says, “A Socratic Seminar is a focused discussion that is tied to an essential question, topic, or selected text. You participate by asking questions to initiate a conversation that continues with a series of responses and additional questions. In a Socratic Seminar, you must support your opinions and responses using specific textual evidence.” The teacher wrap goes on to provide additional directions on reforming groups from the small groups saying, “Form larger groups of 8 to12 students to compare perspectives and prepare for the Socratic Seminar.” Students then follow several steps in preparing for and conducting a Socratic Seminar that are spelled out in the “Working from the Text” section for students. The teacher wrap provides the following directions for teachers:
• With students still in their new, combined groups, review the bulleted list in the Participating in a Socratic Seminar section. Answer any questions students may have. Then, conduct a Socratic Seminar using the pre-seminar questions and any additional questions the students have generated.
• As students participate in the Socratic Seminar, check for a well-rounded understanding of Cultural Criticism, incorporating concepts of nationality, ethnicity, and social class.
• To conclude the Socratic Seminar and to check understanding, have students respond to the Post-Seminar Reflection questions individually.
• In Unit 2, The Collective Perspective, Activity 2.16, during a whole-class reading of the text, the Teacher Wrap says, “After paragraph 7, pause to discuss the Word Connections boxes. Have students identify how the word mandate is used in the text. Then ask them about the author's possible intent for using the word. Elicit other words that the author could have used.” Later in the lesson, teachers are prompted: “Language & Writer's Craft presents a good opportunity for students to focus on the use of parallelism in lists. Show them the following sentence: ‘I looked through my closet and found the following items: a shoe without laces, a shirt with a hole, a belt without a buckle, a book with a ragged cover, and a torn dollar covered with ink doodles.’ Explain that the base parts of the list are parallel nouns. Ask students to create and share their own sentences using parallelism.”
• In Unit 3, Evolving Perspectives, Activity 3.17, materials prompt students: “Work in groups to apply a specific critical perspective to a character in Othello. Then you will create a class presentation to share your findings with your peers.” In the Teacher Wrap, teachers are directed to ask the groups to discuss their assigned critical perspective and complete a graphic organizer that includes specific discussion questions such as, “How does this perspective provide insight into a particular theme?” Materials also prompt teachers: “Monitor their discussions, questioning assumptions and offering suggestions as needed. Remind groups to use language and word choices that are precise and engaging enough to keep listeners interested.”

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 12 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.

Examples include, but are not limited to:

• In Unit 1, Perception Is Everything, Activity 1.6, students conduct On the Spot Research: “With your group, use the following questions to conduct research on one of the following poetic forms: villanelle, sonnet, ode, haiku, pantoum, concrete poem, prose poem, ballad, limerick. Jot down notes about the form you have selected.” Students then have a follow-up discussion and are prompted: “With a partner, discuss how you would use your respective poetic forms to write about a childhood memory. Spend a few minutes brainstorming ideas for an original poem using either of the forms. As you brainstorm ideas, consider the purpose of your poem: Will it tell a story, teach a lesson, or focus on a single image, such as a scene from nature? Will the tone be playful, melancholy, or reflective?”
• In Unit 2, The Collective Perspective, Activity 2.15, students learn about the feminist perspective. The Teacher Wrap includes directions with questions and follow up activities to practice with the critical theory. Materials prompt teachers: “Introduce the phrase ‘feminist lens’ and ask students what they think using a feminist lens means. Ask the students to form small discussion groups to talk about the points in the Feminist Criticism section. Ask them to share one example from a text they have read or from real life. As part of a think-pair-share activity, have students complete student steps individually. Then ask students to work in pairs and share their paraphrases. Ask partners to note any missed concepts or paraphrases that may not be clear. After they have worked in pairs, ask the students if there were any points they found especially difficult or challenging to paraphrase. Have students share these points and see if the class can come up with a way to paraphrase them.”
• In Unit 3, Evolving Perspectives: Activity 3.8, in the Working from the Text section, students learn about oral interpretation. After reading a monologue, students discuss with a partner about how they would perform an oral interpretation of the monologue. They highlight lines important to conveying the message and tone. Students receive the following questions to guide their discussion: “Discuss how you would have Othello deliver these lines in a performance by your acting company. As you discuss the planning of your performance, highlight lines that you find particularly important in conveying how Othello's past experiences led him to his present circumstances” and “Use the lines that you have highlighted to practice giving an oral interpretation of Othello's monologue with your acting company. Listen attentively and provide feedback on each other's use of enunciation, volume, rate, tone, pauses, and gestures.”

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 12 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, Perception is Everything, Activity 1.9, students are guided through a Knowledge Quest with specifically marked questions throughout the activity. The final component is a Knowledge Quest writing prompt: “Think about how Kelley advocated for the rights of children. Write an informative text that tells people how they can make a convincing case about a problem that inspires people to take action.” Students return to the Knowledge Quest questions to identify the ways Kelley made a convincing case to identify the components they need to include in their writing.
• In Unit 2: The Collective Perspective, Activity 2.5, students write a comparative analysis of characters from two different texts: Pygmalion and Metamorphoses. In preparation to write the analysis, students receive direct instruction about “organizing information” with a focus on comparing two texts.
• In Unit 4: Creating Perspectives, Activity 4.3, students read the article, “How Headlines Change the Way We Think” by Maria Konnikova. While reading the first few sentences of the article, students complete a Quickwrite: “Why do you think that Konnikova suggests that the headline might be the most important part of her article? What purpose do headlines serve in an informational text?”

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

• In Unit 1, Perception is Everything, Embedded Assessment 1, students write a rhetorical essay for this prompt: “Write an essay in which you critique and evaluate how the author of ‘Tipping System Exacerbates Unfair Pay at Restaurants’ builds an argument to convince her audience that restaurant workers deserve fair wages from their employers instead of tips. In your essay, explain and evaluate how Kathleen Kingsbury uses one or more of the features in the directions that precede the passage (or features of your own choosing) to develop her argument. Be sure that your critique focuses on the most relevant features of the passage. Your essay should not explain whether you agree with Kingsbury’s claims. Instead it should explain and evaluate how Kingsbury builds an argument to persuade the audience.”
• In Unit 3, Evolving Perspectives, Embedded Assessment 1, students are guided through the writing process to answer the writing prompt: “Select a character from Othello and write a literary analysis about him or her using one of the critical lenses that you have studied (choose Feminist, Marxist, Cultural, Historical, or Archetypal for this assignment). You will support your analysis with valid reasoning and sufficient evidence from your reading, observations, and previous work.”
• In Unit 4, Creative Perspectives, Embedded Assessment 1, students write an argumentative essay that uses a particular critical lens to interpret an event. Students’ essays must include an annotated bibliography and evidence from at least five texts gathered alone or with group members. Students will pre-write, plan, write, draft, evaluate, revise, and edit in preparation for publication.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 12 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. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• In Unit 1, Perception is Everything, students practice using reader response criticism to write a range of informative, creative, and argumentative pieces. After reading a variety of poems, students write an informational paragraph on the use of language to convey meaning in a selected poem. Students then craft their own poem using the craft of a studied poem. Students also practice writing a literary analysis essay on the use of language in an excerpt from Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison and write a personal informative essay that inspires people to take action on a cause. For Embedded Assessment 1, students compose an essay to “critique and evaluate how the author of ‘Tipping the System Exacerbates Unfair Pay at Restaurants’ builds an argument.” In the second half of the unit, students use Cultural Criticism to analyze a variety of text types including advertisements. Students practice writing a reflective essay on a significant life event to prepare for Embedded Assessment 2 in which they write and present a personal reflective essay of a time they or someone they know felt like a “stranger in the village” or a group.
• In Unit 2, The Collective Perspective, students continue using literary criticism to write informational, argumentative, and literary compositions. The first half of the unit takes students through several writing prompts for the play, Pygmalion, by George Bernard Shaw. Students write a script for a dramatic scene based on a personal experience with a faux pas. After finishing the play and studying several critical theories, students “write an alternate ending that adheres to the conventions of a play script” that focuses on character change and uses one critical theory. Students also write an argumentative essay for the prompt: “To what extent does Shaw adhere to or depart from the Pygmalion archetype?” These prompts helps students prepare for Embedded Assessment 2 in which they “transform a scene from Pygmalion so that it reflects one of the critical perspectives” studied in the unit. The second half of the unit continues with students practicing literary criticism of short stories, folktales, and fables. Their final writing task is Embedded Assessment 2: “Write an analytical essay applying the Feminist Critical Perspective to a short story.” Students choose from “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin or “The Chaser” by John Collier.
• In Unit 3: Evolving Perspectives, students continue studying literary criticisms as they read The Tragedy of Othello by William Shakespeare and excerpts from other interpretations. The first part of the unit contains multiple writing prompts across all three writing types because students read the entire play before completing the first assessment. These prompts include writing an informative paragraph that “explains how Marxist Criticism can inform analysis of characters in the play” and literary analyses of the characters Brabantio and Othello from either Cultural or Marxist Criticism. Students also write a short story from the perspective of the character “Emilia talking to a close friend.” After viewing film adaptations of the play, students compose an argumentative essay “explaining which film adaptation best illuminates one of the themes presented in the play.” These tasks prepare students for Embedded Assessment 1 in which they choose a “character from Othello and write a literary analysis about him or her using one of the critical lenses.” The rest of the unit is brief and requires students to write about how screen and stage interpretations can impact the audience perspective before writing their own scene interpretation for Embedded Assessment 2.
• In Unit 4: Creating Perspectives takes students through a variety of texts, such as films, articles, essays, and documentaries, to look at how serious social issues or events are portrayed in the media. Writing prompts focus heavily on argumentative writing with a few informational prompts. Students use the criticism types learned across the year to analyze arguments in media through prompts, such as “Write an argumentative paragraph on whether the media or the reader’s interpretation is more powerful” and “write an argument exposing the bias evident in the way one of the news stories reports the event.” Students also “write a brief essay explaining how producers of media can select information--interviews, statistics, images, or sounds-- to frame the information they present through a particular lens.” For Embedded Assessment 1, students write an argumentative essay that argues for the use of a particular critical lens to interpret an event. In the second part of the unit, students analyze the arguments across multiple media sources on Hurricane Katrina to prepare for the final assessment in which they research a concerning topic or issue to write and present an argument using a chosen media, such as a persuasive speech, short documentary film, podcast, or a video news broadcast.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 12 meet the criteria that 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. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• In Unit 1, Perception is Everything, Activity 1.10, students practice writing a rhetorical analysis essay prior to writing one for Embedded Assessment 1. Students have 50 minutes to read, analyze, and write about a text. The prompt asks students to consider how the authors use evidence and reasoning to support claims and then write an essay in which they “explain how Riskin and Farrell build an argument to persuade their audience that child labor in the U.S. argricultural sector is a disgrace and needs to be changed.”
• In Unit 2, The Collective Perspective, Activity, 2.16, students read “Cinderella, the Legend” by Madonna Kolbenschlag and write a rhetorical analysis for this prompt: “Write a response in which you explain how Kolbenschlag builds an argument to persuade her audience. As you write, consider how she uses persuasive elements to develop, support, and connect her ideas.” Students are reminded to support their “analysis by citing textual evidence.”
• In Unit 3, Evolving Perspectives, Activity 3.9, students learn about Historical Criticism. During the Knowledge Quest, students “think about a contemporary film and write an informative text explaining how the film uses stereotypes to affect racial prejudice.” They are directed to provide a claim and use details from the film to support that claim.
• In Unit 4, Creating Perspectives: Activity, 4:3, students read and analyze two articles, “How Headlines Change the Way We Think” by Maria Konnikova and “Why Partisans View Mainstream Media as Biased and Ideological Media as Objective” by Matthew C. Nisbet. Both articles present different perspectives on the root cause of media bias. Students then present their own perspective in a classroom debate and complete a written response. Students must include a claim, supporting evidence, and address a counterclaim in their written response.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 12 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 to 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. Examples include, but are not limited to:

• Students have opportunities to apply the understanding that usage is a matter of convention, can change over time, and is sometimes contested.
• In Unit 3, Evolving Perspectives, Activity 3.6, students read Act I, Scene I (lines 178-206) of William Shakespeare’s play The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice. During Grammar & Usage, the materials point out similarities and differences in the language and structure used during the time period of the play and modern times. “Even though the English of Shakespeare’s day is somewhat different from the language we use today, much of the sentence structure remains the same. Note Roderigo’s sentence, ‘I think I can discover him, if you please to get good guard and go along with me.’” The materials explain Shakespeare’s use of a complex sentence, outlining the independent clause, subordinate clause, and type of subordinate clause. Students then “Find another complex sentence from Othello and annotate it for independent clause, dependent clause, conjunction, and adverbial clause where appropriate.”
• 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 3, Evolving Perspectives, Activity 3.5, students learn about the class structure Shakespeare’s play Othello in preparation for reading the text. At the conclusion of the lesson, students learn about and practice decoding the meaning of words through Language & Writer’s Craft: Decoding the Meaning of Words. Using the word decorum as an example, students view several steps for determining word meaning including word patterns and context clues. Students are then reminded: “Sometimes you need to use a dictionary to be sure you understand a word's denotation (definition) and its connotations (associations). If you look up the definition of decorum, you will learn that it means ‘correct behavior.’ You can also research a word's etymology (history) to learn how it has evolved. Decorum was originally a theater term regarding the appropriateness of part of an artistic performance within the larger artwork.” Students then practice following the steps: “Read the following text. What does the word implored mean? First, jot notes based on context clues and your knowledge of word parts and changes. Then look up the word in a dictionary and record its definition.”
• Students have opportunities to observe hyphenation conventions.
• In Unit 1, Perception is Everything, Activity 1.8, the Language and Writer’s Craft focus is hyphenation. After providing a definition of hyphens, the instruction includes an example and task for students. “Example: Globally, [women’s rights] movements have forced many companies to revisit their gender pay gap and anti-harassment policies. PRACTICE Look over “Clothing Brands Need to Step Up and Keep Women Safe in Their Factories” again. List the five other examples of hyphenation from the text. If the hyphenated word functions as an adjective, write the noun it modifies.”
• Students have opportunities to spell correctly.
• In Unit 1, Perception is Everything, Activity 1.5, students complete a writing prompt. Teachers remind students to “use academic vocabulary and standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling.”