English 10, First Semester

Course Overview

This course is designed to help you develop your writing, critical thinking and reading skills. All assignments and assessments are aligned to the English 10 Indiana Language Arts Standards, and each lesson will tell you which standard/s we are tackling. Assignments include reading, writing, and speaking; independent and collaborative work; and low-stakes and high-stakes writing assignments.

This one-semester course, intended for 10th grade students, will hone students’ reading, writing, and research skills, as they work toward creating a blog that focuses on a topic of their choice. 

This course is skill-based. It will not focus on memorizing names of authors or characters; neither will it primarily test students on the recall of plot details. Instead, it will satisfy the Indiana ELA learning standards for grade 10, the guiding principle of which is as follows:

Guiding Principle: Students read a wide range of fiction, nonfiction, classic, and contemporary works, to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They read a wide range of literature in many genres from a variety of time periods and cultures from around the world to build an understanding of the many dimensions (e.g., philosophical, ethical, aesthetic) of human experience. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, and reading skills that they have developed and refined.

Students can expect to interact with peers as well as to receive regular constructive feedback from their teachers. The course provides learning experiences focused on Indiana state literature and composition standards.

This course is designed for the second year of high school.
Please note that Cooperative courses are restricted to teen-age students only; you must be under 19½ at the time of registration.

View a demo version of the course at https://iu.instructure.com/courses/2196219

Prerequisite

English 9, or Freshman-level English equivalent.

Required Materials

We don't have a textbook, because, quite simply, we don't need one. In an online classroom, we can find plenty of good information open-source (free), which saves you money and hassle. The class is aligned to Indiana's learning standards, so it's not just literature based. Actually, it's very skill-based. It will teach you how to do some new things and how to do some old things better...instead of just having you read literature and write about it, although (of course) we will do some of that, too!

In this class, we will practice conducting academic research. Academic research is not exactly the same as general "internet searches," although it can be done online. You will be required to gain access to an online academic database. This can be done in a variety of ways, and none of them cost any money! Various options will be provided.