High School 1
Language Arts
Overview
High School 1 Language Arts from Beyond the Page will provide freshman and sophomore level students with a challenging and comprehensive language arts curriculum. Through this year long program, students will be exposed to a variety of different genres — including novels, short stories, poetry, nonfiction, drama, and informational texts. This challenging array of texts will help prepare students for future college courses and will help them develop more sophisticated ways of understanding the world. Students will also be challenged to become strong and effective writers. They will improve their mastery of writing through formal expository, comparison/contrast, and persuasive essays as well as shorter reflective and analytical assignments. They will also compose their own short story. Students are encouraged to write effectively by improving their ideas, organization, support, and word choice. They will also be challenged with two advanced grammar units that will focus on areas that give writers difficulty.
You will not find a more engaging and challenging language arts curriculum for your high school student. The nine language arts units that comprise this level will cover all of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for either a freshman or a sophomore level student. We don't stop with the CCSS, however. This is seen as a bare minimum requirement for a quality language arts curriculum. Our program also does the following:
Beyond Standards
Because all lessons are based on state and national standards, your child will learn all of the necessary skills for his age. Your child will continue to be challenged to read and write at a higher level.
Summary of Skills
The links below will take you to the Summary of Skills for each of the concepts that make up the High School 1 curriculum. The
Summary of Skills is a list of the state and national standards that are covered within Beyond the Page. This list can be useful for your own planning purposes, but it is also quite helpful when submitting required documentation to fulfill state and local reporting requirements.
High School 1 Common Core Alignment
Our curriculum has excellent coverage of the Common Core standards for ELA.
Prerequisites
- Able to read books and texts at a high school reading level
- Experience writing a five-paragraph essay
- Usually used by students in the 9th or 10th grade
- Familiar with the conventions of poetry and short stories
- Able to understand, interpret, and apply figurative language techniques in reading and writing
- Some basic experience with creative writing
Schedule
Semester 1
Unit 1: Lord of the Flies
3 weeks
Explore symbolism, allegory, and the dystopian novel. Improve vocabulary and learn to use different types of phrases and clauses in your writing. Learn about theme, narration, and allegory.
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Unit 2: Short Stories
3½ weeks
Explore popular short stories and the literary devices that authors use to create them, including irony, characterization, symbolism, and point of view. Create your own short story.
Unit 3: Grammar, Part I
2 weeks
Review the parts of speech and cover some common problems that writers face, including subject-verb agreement, commonly confused words, and the correct use of pronouns. Review punctuation use and spelling rules.
The Only Grammar & Style Workbook You’ll Ever Need by Susan Thurman, The Only Grammar Book You’ll Ever Need by Susan Thurman
Explore common elements found in poetry including figurative language, sound and rhythm, rhyme, voice, and tone. Read The Crossover by Kwame Alexander, a novel in verse, as well as a variety of both classic and modern poems.
The Crossover by Kwame Alexander, 100 Best-Loved Poems by Philip Smith
Unit 5: Nonfiction
5 weeks
Read a true account of a teenager forced to become a soldier in his country’s civil war, a letter composed by a legendary civil rights leader, an essay written by an American abolitionist, a speech given by a Holocaust survivor, and the narrative of a young woman fighting to ensure that girls have the right to be educated.
A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai
18 weeks
Semester 2
Unit 1: Ender's Game
3½ weeks
Explore the elements of science fiction, and learn to identify and analyze conflict in literature. Explore the concepts of power and leadership and the difference between convergent and divergent thinking.
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Unit 2: Grammar, Part II
2½ weeks
Continue reviewing grammar basics and commonly confused words. Improve writing by identifying sentence fragments and
run-on sentences as well as misplaced and dangling modifiers. Improve word choice and parallelism in your own writing.
The Only Grammar & Style Workbook You’ll Ever Need by Susan Thurman, The Only Grammar Book You’ll Ever Need by Susan Thurman
Unit 3: Informational Texts
5½ weeks
Learn to use informational texts to research, convey information, and persuade others. Identify logical fallacies and learn to interpret and write informational and persuasive texts for specific audiences.
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Appreciate the different genres of drama. Read plays that highlight issues of race, love, and family loyalty. Read and watch a performance of one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays.
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
18 weeks
