Course Overview
Contemporary Writers is the study of literature written since the end of World War II. 

Course Essential Questions:

• How can contemporary texts help me understand the human experience?
• How do contemporary texts help me understand the world and shape my place in it?
• How are issues raised by contemporary texts connected with each other and with the world around me?

High Priority Benchmarks: These are the state standards that are the focus of what students will learn in the course.

• 11.1.4.2 - Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and synthesize their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to provide a complex synthesis.
• 11.2.1.2 - Write with varied use of elements of grammar and mechanics to align voice and style with the publishing plan.
• 11.2.5.2 - Write to respond to literary text, analyzing multiple literary with texts with common genre, author, or theme.
• 11.2.7.2 - Plan and conduct independent research from a wide variety of sources including academic journals and peer-reviewed sources, demonstrating understanding of subject of investigation, and share findings in writing.
• 11.3.1.1 - Exchange ideas through storytelling, discussion, and collaboration, both as facilitator and participant, expressing ideas, intentionally considering the perspectives of Dakota and Anishinaabe people as well as other perspectives. 

Units: 
The course units will include Individual and Community, Themes in Contemporary Literature, and Survey of Authors.

Activities: 
Students should expect to read, write, and discuss every day.  In addition, students will participate in book clubs, Socratic seminars, research to support a study of contemporary authors, and presentations.

Project: 
Survey of Contemporary Authors - Students will explore a contemporary author of choice and present information about that author and their works.

Course Overview:
Graphic Novels will focus mainly on stories that are told through a combination of text and visuals - though other styles texts will be included, as well. 

Course Essential Questions:

• How do I read and analyze graphic novels as a unique form of literature?
• How do words and pictures work together to communicate ideas?
• Why is the graphic novel an effective way to tell certain stories?
• How do graphic novels provide a unique window into the human experience?

High Priority Benchmarks: These are the state standards that are the focus of what students will learn in the course.

• 11.1.4.2 - Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and synthesize their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to provide a complex synthesis.
• 11.2.1.2 - Write with varied use of elements of grammar and mechanics to align voice and style with the publishing plan.
• 11.2.5.2 - Write to respond to literary text, analyzing multiple literary texts with common genre, author, or theme.
• 11.2.7.2 - Plan and conduct independent research from a wide variety of sources including academic journals and peer-reviewed sources, demonstrating understanding of the subject of investigation, and share findings in writing.
• 11.3.3.2 - Create and present a piece of digital work or digital communication, which may include ethical remixing or transformation of work, for a specific, current, relevant purpose; publish work, considering the audience, demonstrating understanding of digital footprint.

Units: 
The course units will include Pivotal Moments, Heroism, and Character.
 
Activities: 
Students should expect to read, write, and discuss every day.  In addition, students will participate in book clubs, Socratic seminars, research related to book club texts, and presentations.
 
Project: 
Memorable Moments Digital Project - Students will craft a digital memoir throughout the course utilizing a comic-book style.  Each unit will conclude with one thematic installment.  At the end of the course, students will share their completed memoirs.

Course Overview:
Humanities is the study of how people process and document the human experience. Humanities encompasses the full range of human thought and creativity.

Course Essential Questions:

• How do we analyze and respond to creative expression?
• How does human experience impact human expression
• How does creative expression throughout history impact us today?

High Priority Benchmarks: These are the state standards that are the focus of what students will learn in the course.

• 11.1.6.1 - Evaluate how the author's, including Dakota and Anishinaabe authors, purpose, stated identities, biases, and perspective shape the content and style of a text.
• 11.2.1.2 - Write with varied use of elements of grammar and mechanics to align voice and style with the publishing plan.
• 11.2.2.2 - Write to reflect how personal perspective, identity, and voice have developed and changed over time, in relation to the global community.
• 11.2.7.2 - Plan and conduct independent research from a wide variety of sources including academic journals and peer-reviewed sources, demonstrating understanding of subject of investigation, and share findings in writing.
• 11.3.1.1 - Exchange ideas through storytelling, discussion, and collaboration, both as facilitator and participant, expressing ideas, intentionally considering the perspectives of Dakota and Anishinaabe people as well as other perspectives. 

Units: 
The course units will include Forms of Human Expression, Inquiry and Collaboration, and Individual Application.
 
Activities: 
Students should expect to read, write, and discuss every day.  In addition, students will participate in book clubs, Socratic seminars, group research projects, and presentations.
 
Project: 
Personal Museum Capstone Project - All students will gather and reflect on artifacts of personal significance throughout the course as we explore various forms of human expression.  Students will share their collections with classmates to demonstrate their mastery of learning.

Course Overview:
Real World English is a course designed to provide experience with the type of reading and writing most commonly found in the workplace and daily life.

Course Essential Questions:

• How can I read complex technical and informational texts effectively?
• How do I communicate effectively in print and through media?
• How can I enhance my discussion and collaboration skills?

High Priority Benchmarks: These are the state standards that are the focus of what students will learn in the course.

• 11.1.7.1 - Examine validity of reasoning, relevance and sufficiency of evidence supporting arguments in several texts to evaluate credibility of frequently used sources.
• 11.1.8.2 - Evaluate the impact of academic, technical, and domain-specific vocabulary, including words and phrases, on content, style, and meaning of informational text.
• 11.2.1.2 - Write with varied use of elements of grammar and mechanics to align voice and style with the publishing plan.
• 11.2.5.1 - Write to inform or explain, comparing, integrating, and evaluating factual information to convey complex ideas accurately, choosing the best text structure to inform or explain on chosen topic for particular audience, building on skills from previous years. 
• 11.3.1.1 - Exchange ideas through storytelling, discussion, and collaboration, both as facilitator and participant, expressing ideas, intentionally considering the perspectives of Dakota and Anishinaabe people as well as other perspectives. 

Units: 
The course units will include Reading and Writing in the Workplace, Reading Technical Documents, and Exploring a Career.
 
Activities: 
Students should expect to read, write, and discuss every day.  In addition, students will participate in book clubs, research about a chosen career path, presentations, and Socratic
Seminars.
 
Project: 
Career Exploration Presentation - Students will research about a chosen career path, including the type of communication required, and then present the information to the class.

Summary of Text: This novel offered a vision of a totalitarian society where the government controls individual thought and even reality. It presents a variety of issues regarding human nature. 1984 is a great modern classic of “Negative Utopia” – a startlingly original and haunting novel that creates an imaginary work that is completely convincing, from the first sentence to the last four words. 
Sensitive Content: language, sex, violence

Summary of Text: Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian , which is based on the author's own experiences, coupled with poignant drawings that reflect the character's art, chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he thought he was destined to live. 
Sensitive Content: discrimination, language, sex, violence

Summary of Text: Who is Jenna Fox? Seventeen-year-old Jenna has been told that is her name. She has just awoken from a coma, they tell her, and she is still recovering from a terrible accident in which she was involved a year ago. But what happened before that? Jenna doesn't remember her life. Or does she? And are the memories really hers?
Sensitive Content: language

Summary of Text: Heroes, monsters, gods, battles, and kings - the legend of Ulysses is brought to life in this classic retelling of The Odyssey.
Sensitive Content: violence

Summary of Text: Bunny and Nasir have been best friends forever, but when Bunny accepts an athletic scholarship across town, Nasir feels betrayed. While Bunny tries to fit in with his new, privileged peers, Nasir spends more time with his cousin, Wallace, who is being evicted. Nasir can’t help but wonder why the neighborhood is falling over itself to help Bunny when Wallace is in trouble.
When Wallace makes a bet against Bunny, Nasir faces an impossible decision—maybe a dangerous one.Told from alternating perspectives, this is a heart-pounding story about the responsibilities of great talent and the importance of compassion.
Sensitive Content: language, violence

Summary of Text: Rashad Butler and Quinn Collins are two young men, one black and one white, whose lives are forever changed by an act of brutality. The story is told in Rashad and Quinn’s alternating perspectives (Reynolds pens the voice of Rashad, and Kiely has taken the voice of Quinn), as they grapple with the complications of this moment which seep into their families, school, and town. Eventually, the two narratives weave back together, and begin the first step for healing and understanding racial injustice.  
Sensitive Content: language, stereotypes, violence

Summary of Text: All Jin Wang wants is to fit in. When his family moves to a new neighborhood, he suddenly finds that he's the only Chinese American student at his school. Jocks and bullies pick on him constantly, and he has hardly any friends. Then, to make matters worse, he falls in love with an all-American girl…
Sensitive Content: language, stereotypes, violence

Summary of text (from Random House): A powerful, tender story of race and identity by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the award-winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun. Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria for the West. Beautiful, self-assured Ifemelu heads for America, where despite her academic success, she is forced to grapple with what it means to be black for the first time. Quiet, thoughtful Obinze had hoped to join her, but with post-9/11 America closed to him, he instead plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, they reunite in a newly democratic Nigeria, and reignite their passion—for each other and for their homeland.
Sensitive Content: language, sex, stereotypes

Summary of Text: The author shares the story of his challenging upbringing in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. The memoir includes references to stories from Irish folklore, traditional Irish ballads, English poetry, and popular Irish films and actors. There are also many references to historical events in Ireland, such as the English conquest and the Potato Famine.
Sensitive Content: language, sex

Summary of Text: Sophocles' story about the individual’s duty to the gods versus government. Antigone must deal with the question whether or not to disobey a law she feels is unjust.
Sensitive Content: none

Summary of Text: With a narrative that combines heart-stopping martial arts wars and tense chess face-offs with life lessons that speak to all of us, "The Art of Learning" takes readers through Waitzkin's unique journey to excellence. He explains in clear detail how a well-thought-out, principled approach to learning is what separates success from failure. Waitzkin believes that achievement, even at the championship level, is a function of a lifestyle that fuels a creative, resilient growth process. Rather than focusing on climactic wins, Waitzkin reveals the inner workings of his everyday method, from systematically triggering intuitive breakthroughs, to honing techniques into states of remarkable potency, to mastering the art of performance psychology.
Sensitive Content: none

Summary of Text: Edna Pontellier, the heroine of The Awakening, shocked readers in 1899 and the scandal created by the book haunted Kate Chopin for the rest of her life. The Awakening begins at a crisis point in twenty-eight year-old Edna Pontellier's life. Edna is a passionate and artistic woman who finds few acceptable outlets for her desires in her role as wife and mother of two sons living in conventional Creole society. Unlike the married women around her, whose sensuality seems to flow naturally into maternity, Edna finds herself wanting her own emotional and sexual identity.
During one summer while her husband is out of town, her frustrations find an outlet in an affair with a younger man. Energized and filled with a desire to define her own life, she sends her children to the country and removes herself to a small house of her own: "Every step she took toward relieving herself from obligations added to her strength and expansion as an individual. She began to look with her own eyes; to see and apprehend the deeper undercurrents of life. No longer was she content to 'feed upon the opinion' when her own soul had invited her." Her triumph is short-lived, however, destroyed by a society that has no place for a self-determined, unattached woman. Her story is a tragedy and one of many clarion calls in its day to examine the institution of marriage and a woman's opportunities in an oppressive world. 
Sensitive Content: none

Summary of Text: In this enchanting tale about the magic of reading and the wonder of romantic awakening, two hapless city boys are exiled to a remote mountain village for reeducation during China's infamous Cultural Revolution. There they meet the daughter of the local tailor and discover a hidden stash of Western classics in Chinese translation. As they flirt with the seamstress and secretly devour these banned works, they find transit from their grim surroundings to worlds they never imagined.
Sensitive Content: sex

Summary of Text: Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. One night Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin's orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions. Lina hopes her messages will make their way to her father's prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles.
Sensitive Content: language, stereotypes, violence

Summary of Text:  This novel is a letter that details the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son,Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. 
Sensitive Content: stereotypes, violence