Early High School English Language Arts: Semester One

SEMESTER THEME: Who Dun It? A Mystery-Filled Semester 

In this semester course, students will receive a full ELA curriculum. My curriculum is created completely by me, and loosely follows the Common Core Standards. I am an experienced and certified English teacher with seven years of experience in the classroom and in curriculum creation. My classes involve lots of project-based learning and gamified learning, so sign up for my class if you are ready for a hands-on learning experience! Games, in-class projects, groupwork, and class discussions are central to my class, so I expect students to participate for as much as they are comfortable. 

Each class session will involve a short presentation/lecture on a specific literary topic. Students will be provided with guided notes at the beginning of each week to print off, or they can take notes on a separate sheet of paper or by typing. Most of my classes look something like this: 

2-5 minutes: Opening game/question/discussion 
10-15 minutes: Lesson on week's topic 
20-25 minutes: Applying the literary topic with groupwork (breakout rooms), Nearpod, discussion, game, or project (or a combination of these) 
2-5 minutes: Go over homework and answer questions 

Each week, we will meet twice, for 50 minutes in each session. Students are expected to do writing and reading homework assignments. The semester will follow this schedule: 

Tuesday: Reading lesson 
Wednesday: Reading homework assignment 
Thursday: Writing Lesson 
Weekend: Writing Assignment 

All work will be submitted to me by the given deadline and will receive feedback within a week. I also give weekly scoresheets with rubric scores and letter grades BY PARENT REQUEST.

CORE TEXTS: 
- The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin 
- Excerpts from The Borden Murders: Lizzie Borden and the Trial of the Century 
- The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe 

The semester will follow the following schedule (please be aware that this schedule is subject to some changes based on how quickly work is completed in class and based on student needs/requests): 

"The Tell Tale Heart" 
Week 1: Common literary devices + Read "The Tell Tale Heart" 

The Borden Murders 
Week 2: Inferencing + Excerpts from The Borden Murders
Week 3: Solving a Crime using text evidence/inferencing from The Borden Murders 
Week 4: Searching for Clues: Finding figurative language in The Borden Murders 

Writing focus for weeks 2-4: Narrative and Fiction writing

The Westing Game 
Week 5: Characterization 
Week 6: Theme 
Week 7: Irony 
Week 8: Main idea 
Week 9: Sensory Language 

Writing focus for weeks 5-9: Explanatory/informative

The Borden Murders + Research 
Weeks 10-12: Students will work in groups to research and use information from The Borden Murders to create a persuasive presentation. They will argue their claim for who they believe is responsible for the crime. This project will include using persuasive writing skills, inferencing, and compiling textual evidence in order to support a claim. 

Writing focus for weeks 10-12: Persuasive/Argumentative 

**Please remember that we play lots of educational games (Kahoot, Gimkit, Jeopardy) and work together on group projects and class discussions. Each class session involves about 10-15 minutes of a lesson/lecture, but please do not sign up for this class if you are looking for a completely lecture-based class. Students who wish to work by themselves and not with partners is completely fine, but note that they will be placed in a breakout room by themselves to work (I will be in each breakout room periodically)**