This course is designed to extend the range of oral communication, reading, writing, and media literacy skills that students need for success in their secondary school academic programs and in their daily lives. Students will analyze literary texts from contemporary and historical periods, interpret and evaluate informational and graphic texts, and create oral, written, and media texts in a variety of forms. An important focus will be on the selective use of strategies that contribute to effective communication. This course is intended to prepare students for the compulsory Grade 11 university or college preparation course.
Unit content in sequence of delivery
Poetry (30 hours)
Students will read a wide variety of poems and look at the techniques that poets use including poetic devices such as metaphor, verbs, similes, apostrophes, stanza length, powerful language, and how poets engage the readers’ senses. Students will write their own poems, they will hear poems read, and they will gain awareness of what makes effective delivery. Students will complete three polished writing assignments in this unit, search for inspiring poetry performances online, and make a video of their own spoken poetry.
Othello (25 hours)
In this unit students will read Shakespeare’s Othello, exploring the eternally relevant themes of militarism, personal conflict, ambition, and pride. Assignments include one that deals with imagery in the play, a speaking assignment giving advice to the characters, an assignment about irony, and a unit culminating essay.
Animal Farm (25 hours)
Students will read the story and completed the assigned work.
Media Studies (30 hours)
Students will read multiple articles and watch videos. In doing so, they will explore themes such as gender inequality, racism, local history, and maturation. Students will also produce several pieces of writing, one of which is a formal essay in which they will provide quotations from the text, properly cited in the body of the essay as well as at the end in a Works Cited page.
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