English Language Arts Content Standards

Use knowledge of common Greek, Latin, and Anglo Saxon derived roots and affixes to determine the meaning of complex words

Use knowledge of Greek and Roman mythology, the Old and New Testament of the Bible, and other works often alluded to in British and American literature to understand the meaning of words (e.g., the word “narcissistic” drawn from the myth of Narcissus and Echo)

Understand how the English language has evolved and been influenced by other languages (Greek, Latin, French, and Germanic languages)

Understand the etymology of words

Understand that the meanings of words change over time

Use context to support word identification and to confirm word meaning

Understand and explain shades of meanings for related words (e.g., annoyed, irritated, aggravated, irked, miffed, peeved, angry, irate, furious, enraged)

Understand and explain the difference between the literal and figurative meanings of words and the denotative and connotative meanings of words

Understand and explain the meaning of common idioms and adages (e.g., see Brewer's Dictionary of Phrases and Fables)

Understand and explain foreign language phrases commonly used in English (e.g., caveat emptor, carpe diem, coup de grâce, coup d'état, carte blanche, c'est la vie, fait accompli, savoir faire)

Use common antonyms, synonyms, homophones, homonyms, and homographs precisely

Recognize and construct analogies by identifying similarities between two objects, people, actions, or events

Know the uses of the Oxford English Dictionary (i.e., to analyze each definition to determine the contextually accurate and appropriate meaning; to trace the usage of words through quotations from a wide range of international English language sources and classic literature)

Use resources such as general and specialized dictionaries, thesauruses, glossaries to find pronunciations, derivations, spellings and contextually appropriate meanings of unfamiliar words, synonyms and replacement words

Read a challenging passage and respond to clarifying questions concerning essential textual elements of exposition (e.g., why, who, what, where, when, how, what-if,)

Know and be able to explain the various functions of language (e.g., to inform, to persuade, to entertain) to help students comprehend challenging text

Use different reading strategies (e.g., skimming and scanning; finding information to support particular ideas) to help students comprehend text

Identify essential background knowledge that readers must have in order to understand a text

Identify and interpret the central ideas (stated or implied) of text

Distinguish major from minor facts, evidence, and details and determine how they support ideas or arguments in text

Objectively summarize events and ideas of text for different purposes (e.g., write a book review, summarize to produce a counter-argument)

Interpret and use graphic sources of information such as maps, charts, graphs, timelines, tables and diagrams

Identify modes and methods of expository writing (i.e., cause/effect, comparison/contrast, problem/solution, classifications, analogy, definition, narrative)

Distinguish between facts and opinions in text

Distinguish between supported and unsupported opinions in text

Assess the adequacy, accuracy and appropriateness of an author's details and evidence to support claims and assertions

Recognize arguments that are usually identified as logical fallacies, such as:

• Ad hominem: an effort to falsely discredit an argument by attacking the character of the person instead of the points he is making.

• Ad populum: an argument that tries to avoid persuading on the basis of facts and reason by appealing to and audience’s prejudices or passions.

• Appeal to authority or appeal to prestige: an argument relying not on facts but on opinions, beliefs or theories of experts or oral testimonials of famous people

• Slippery slope

• Straw man argument: a front for another more questionable argument

• Begging the question or circular reasoning: an argument in which your premise is also given as your conclusion.

• False causality: an action purported to cause an effect, which does not, in fact, cause the effect

• Red herring: something introduced in order to divert attention or mislead

• Overgeneralization: a generalization that goes beyond the evidence

• Non sequitur: an argument in which your assertion and your conclusion do not follow logically and may have nothing to do with each other.

• Self‑contradiction: an argument that asserts two things that cannot be true at the same time.

• Confusion of fact and value judgment: mistaking a personal opinion or value judgment for something that exists independent of anyone’s feelings about it and which can be discerned through an objective process or criteria. Value judgments are important, but they should not be confused with facts.

• False analogy: an attempt to win an argument by making a comparison between two things that are not in fact comparable.

• Ignoring the question or rambling: presenting support for a thesis that has nothing to do with it or addresses an issue only peripherally connected to it.

• Bandwagon: an effort to win an argument by ignoring relevant facts and logic and instead appealing to a person’s desire to feel or act like everyone else around him.

• Ambiguity: a statement or argument whose meaning is so uncertain that it is possible to interpret it in more than one way.

• Equivocation: an expression or word that is used in two different ways in the same sentence or argument without being identified clearly as such.

• Oversimplification: an argument or a statement that reduces or ignores the complexities and nuances involved.

• False division or either‑or: an argument that falsely asserts that no middle ground exists leaving only two extreme possibilities or choices.

Evaluate the coherence, logic, internal consistency and organizational patterns of text

Distinguish different kinds of evidence used to support conclusions (e.g., logical, empirical, anecdotal)

Compare and contrast readings on the same topic and explain how authors reach the same or different conclusions based on differences in evidence, argument, style or reasoning

Describe how one part of a passage functions in relation to a whole passage and how paragraphs contribute to the development of an essay

Synthesize information from different portions of text to draw inferences, conclusions or generalizations about the topic, people, ideas and/or situation

Identify an author's implicit and explicit assumptions about a subject based on evidence in the selection

Describe how the author's perspective or point of view affects the text

Identify basic elements of arguments, including arguments by cause and effect, by analogy, by authority, by emotion, and by logic

Evaluate the merit of an argument, action, or policy by examining evidence offered in the material itself and by comparing the evidence with information available in other sources

Analyze celebrated speeches, essays and political documents in American history (see attached list) for their rhetorical features and historical significance

Understand how text features such as titles, tables of contents, chapter headings and sub-headings, glossaries, indices, bibliographies, citations, and graphics, make information accessible and usable

Understand the tradition and historical development of major literary genres and sub-genres, including poetry, drama, the essay, the novel, and the short story

Identify characteristics of modes of writing, including satire, parody, allegory, pastoral, narrative, comedy, tragedy, farce, novel, and various poetic forms (e.g., ballad, sonnet, lyric, epic, ode)

Identify and describe the poetic conventions of verse

• Sound (alliteration, onomatopoeia, consonance, assonance, rhythm, repetition)

• Prosody (rhyme scheme; metrics; scansion of regular lines; concept of "foot"; basic feet, including iamb, trochee, dactyl, and anapest; variant feet, including pyrrhic and spondee; iambic pentameter, blank verse vs. Free verse, heroic couplet, tetrameter)

• Form (ballad, sonnet, couplet, epic, haiku, limerick, light verse, ode, dramatic monologue, epigram, elegy)

• Graphic elements (capital letters, line length, word position, punctuation)

Identify and describe the function of dramatic conventions such as dialogue, monologues, soliloquies, chorus, asides, dramatis personae, character foils, stage direction, acts, and scenes

Describe elements of setting (place, historical period, time of day); plot (exposition, conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement, poetic justice); theme (moral, lesson, meaning, message, view or comment on life); and characterization (qualities, motives, actions, thoughts, development, tragic flaw, doppelgänger, antagonist, protagonist anti-hero, Byronic Hero) in literary works

Compare and contrast works that deal with similar themes and problems by examining the motivations and reactions of a variety of literary characters confronting similar situations or conflicts (e.g., examine the theme of fate by comparing Tess of the d'Urbervilles with Sister Carrie)

Demonstrate a working familiarity with such universal mythic themes as the quest, creation, and naming

Analyze and trace an author's development of time and sequence, including the use of literary devices such as foreshadowing and flashbacks

Explain how voice, persona, point of view, and narrator (i.e., first person, third person limited, unreliable and omniscient narrator) affect tone, characterization, plot and credibility

Demonstrate a working familiarity with the plots, characters, themes, and settings of great literary works (see attached list)

Demonstrate a working familiarity with the historical and philosophical contexts which shaped that literature and which were, in turn, shaped by it (e.g., connection of literary work to primary source documents; connection to the seminal ideas of its time)

Demonstrate a working familiarity with the major literary schools, movements, periods and literary figures in the history of English and American literature (e.g., the Elizabethan dramatists, the Metaphysical Poets, the Romantics and Romanticism, the American Renaissance, the Harlem Renaissance)

Identify how an author's choice of words and imagery sets the tone and advances the work's theme

Identify ambiguities, subtleties, contradictions, paradoxes, ironies, incongruities, and overstatements/understatements in text

Demonstrate a basic awareness of major critical approaches to literature, such as formalist, historical, psychological, and political

Recognize and define different elements of literary language (in addition to the words and phrases used in these standards), including allusion, conceit, diction, double-entendre, epithet, figures of speech, hyperbole, malapropism, metaphor, metonymy, oxymoron, personification, pun, simile, symbolism, and synecdoche

In addition to the words and phrases used in these standards, recognize and define the following literary terms:

• Techniques in writing: apostrophe, catharsis, explication, pathos, poetic license, realism, rhetorical question

• Additional genres: bildungsroman, fable, gothic novel, melodrama, picaresque, burlesque, roman a cléf, romance, stream of consciousness

Paraphrase difficult passages of poems (see attached list)

Recite from memory and read aloud from open book, poems, sections of speeches, and dramatic soliloquies with fluency, rhythm, pacing, appropriate intonation and vocal patterns; be prepared to instruct students in this art

Identify parts of speech (e.g., nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, pronouns), their functions, and typical forms in sentences

Understand the following principles of grammar and define and explain their use, including

• Present, past and future perfect and perfect progressive verb tenses

• Regular and irregular verbs in various tenses

• Transitive and intransitive verbs

• Appositives

• Consistent verb tense

• Correct subject-verb and noun-pronoun agreement

• Correct word order

• Verbals (a noun or adjective that comes from a verb such as participles and gerunds)

• Adjectives (comparative and superlative forms) and adverbs

• Prepositional phrases

• Nominative, objective, possessive, reflexive and relative pronouns

• Pronoun/antecedent agreement and clear pronoun reference

• Irregular plurals (e.g., sheep)

• Contractions with pronouns and verbs

• Use of italics for foreign phrases

Use correct punctuation, including

• Appropriate ending punctuation

• Commas in a series, greetings and closures

• Correct internal punctuation, including commas, colons, semi-colons, dashes, parentheses

• Apostrophes in contractions and possessives

• Quotation marks when appropriate

Identify incorrect grammar and punctuation

Recognize common English as a Second Language (ESL) errors that students make (e.g., plurals for Asians, word order for European languages)

Know and use correct punctuation with quotations (e.g., ellipses, brackets)

Capitalize proper nouns, geographical names, dates/holidays, historical periods, special events, names of organizations, titles, first word in quotations, first word in a sentence, the pronoun "I"

Know the logical significance of different words (e.g., because, if-then, unless, only, if, including, but, and) and syntactic structures (e.g., main versus subordinate or modifying clauses)

Know the meaning of common abbreviations such as i.e. and e.g.

Spell correctly

Paraphrase information shared orally by others in classroom discussions in order to translate an inelegant or incoherent statement from students into a clearer, more coherent one

Summarize major ideas and supporting evidence presented in spoken messages and formal presentations

Identify the speaker's point of view toward a subject

Distinguish between a summary of and an advocacy of a position

Assess how word choice and delivery establish the tone and emotion of the speech and affect the audience

Evaluate the credibility of the speaker (e.g., hidden agendas, slanted or biased material)

Analyze types of arguments used by the speaker, including argument by cause and effect, analogy, authority, emotion and logic

Identify possible sources of logical fallacies present in oral addresses, including attack ad hominem (attack on the character of the speaker, rather than his argument); attack ad populum (appeal to popularity), appeal to authority, post hoc, ergo propter hoc (After this, therefore because of this), false dichotomy, slippery slope, straw man argument, false analogy, begging the question (circular reasoning), false causality, red herring, overgeneralization, and bandwagoning, non sequitur ("It does not follow"): self‑contradiction; confusion of fact and value judgment, hasty generalization, false analogy, ignoring the question or rambling ambiguity, equivocation, oversimplification, false division or either‑or:

Distinguish relevant comments (clarifications, expansions, refinements, or implications) from digressions during discussions

Recognize traditional rules and formats of debate

Give precise directions and instructions

Deliver focused oral presentations that use details, examples, or anecdotes to explain or clarify information or a point of view

Formulate sound, rational arguments

Demonstrate understanding of the rules of the English language in oral work, and select the structures and features of language appropriate to purpose, audience, and context of the work (i.e.. principles of decorum, including informal usage for effect, Standard English for clarity, technical language for specificity)

Understand the purpose of various prewriting strategies (e.g., brainstorming, outlining, clustering, lists, questions, note-taking)

Explain the stages of the writing process and its recursive nature (to generate and develop ideas, organize information, connect ideas and paragraphs, develop and revise drafts, and edit for grammar, spelling and punctuation)

Understand and be able to explain the activities of revision, editing, and proofreading, and their differing roles in the writing process

Demonstrate knowledge of principles of composition, such as paragraphing, transitional phrases, sentence variety, and appropriate vocabulary

Combine short related sentences with appositives, participial phrases and prepositional phrases avoiding comma splices, run-on sentences, and sentence fragments

Know a range of transitional words and phrases and understand their logical and rhetorical use

Know the difference between active and passive voice and when to choose between the two in writing

Write compound and compound-complex sentences with effective coordination and subordination of ideas

Make effective use of parallel structure

Compose prose that:

• Develops a recognizable beginning that conveys a central idea or topic

• Contains an organizing structure that is appropriate to the purpose and the specified audience

• Groups related ideas and maintains a consistent focus

• Includes variety in sentence structure to enhance interest, flow, rhythm and meaning

• Includes well-chosen details to develop impressions, support judgments and convey concrete images

• Employs word choices that are consistent with the document's purpose and persona

• Moves through a logical sequence of steps or events, when appropriate

• Supports an interpretation through references to text, authors, experts, evidence or personal knowledge

• Uses expository, narrative, or persuasive strategies as appropriate

• Provides a sense of completion

Write an essay that discusses the elements (theme, plot, characterization, setting, and figurative language) of a selection of literature (text of literature supplied from attached list) and support assertions with specific detail from the text

Evaluate student writing in a manner that explains clearly to the student what improvements can be made (e.g., correcting errors, addressing shortcomings, and suggesting improvements in ideas and content, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency) in the following genres:

1. Narratives (e.g., biographies, autobiographies and short stories) that:

• Engage the reader by establishing a context and point of view

• Establish a plot and locate scenes and incidents in specific places

• Narrate a sequence of events

• Develop characters or relate ideas, memories, or observations

• Develop narrative elements with concrete sensory details and language (e.g., visual details of scenes; descriptions of sounds, smells, specific actions; dialogue; movements and gestures; interior monologue or feelings of characters)

• Effectively pace the presentation of actions to accommodate time/ mood changes

• Provide a sense of completion

2. Expository texts including essays of description, explanation, cause and effect, comparison and contrast and problem/solution that:

• State the thesis or purpose of the paper, describing the situation

• Follow an organizational pattern particular to its type (e.g., if description, is spatial; if problem/solution, is paired)

• Offer cogent evidence for the validity of the description, proposed solutions, etc.

• Provide a sense of completion

3. Persuasive texts that:

• Engage the reader by establishing a context and a point of view

• Structure ideas and arguments in a sustained and logical fashion

• Clarify and defend positions with precise and relevant evidence, including facts, expert opinions, quotations, illustrations, and/or expressions of commonly accepted beliefs and logical reasoning

• Use specific rhetorical devices to back up assertions (e.g., via an appeal to logic through reasoning; via an appeal to emotion or ethical belief; or by personal anecdote, case study or analogy)

• Anticipate and address the reader's concerns and counterclaims

• Provide a sense of completion

4. Descriptions that:

• Engage the reader by establishing a context and a point of view

• Provide a spatial perspective on the object being described

• Establish the author's relationship with the object (e.g., objective, involved)

• Make effective use of factual descriptions of appearance, concrete images, shifting perspectives and vantage points and sensory detail

• Provide a sense of completion

5. Responses to literature that:

• Engage the reader by establishing a context and a point of view

• Advance a judgment that demonstrates a comprehensive grasp of the significant ideas of works or passages

• Support key ideas and viewpoints through accurate and detailed references to the text or to other works

• Demonstrate awareness of the author's use of stylistic devices and an appreciation of the effects they create

• Identify and assess the impact of perceived ambiguities, nuances and complexities within the text

• Provide a sense of completion

6. Work-related text (resumes, bios, job applications, procedures, work orders, briefs) that:

• Address audience needs, stated purpose and context in an efficient manner

• Follow the conventional style for the type

• Make use of appropriate writing strategies, such as creating a visual hierarchy, using white space and graphics as appropriate, and providing smooth transitions between sections or steps of the text

• Include relevant information and exclude extraneous information

• Anticipate problems, mistakes, and misunderstandings that might arise for the reader

• Include the date, proper salutation, body, closing and signature

Make useful suggestions about how to revise a piece of writing, drawing upon principles of organization, transitions, point of view, and word choices to improve the coherence of ideas and clarity of sentence structure

Mark student writing for appropriate grammar and mechanics, as described in the Conventions section (Section 2.1)

Understand how and when (or when not) to evaluate surface correctness (conventions) in written compositions in connection with the audience and purpose of a piece of writing and its status in the writing process (e.g., prewriting notes, first draft, finished copy)

Understand and use quotations, paraphrase, citations (e.g., in-text, footnotes, endnotes) and bibliographic entries in a standard format

Formulate topics and research questions suitable for inquiry and investigation

Know the function of a variety of resources, both print and electronic (e.g., reference books, concordances and the Oxford English Dictionary, atlases, news sources, microfiche, electronic databases, educational reference software, on-line resources)

Know how to recognize and use reliable internet sources

Conduct searches and know how to use databases on the internet

Understand the importance of citing research sources, using accepted conventions (e.g., Chicago, MLA, APA, ACS)

Know strategies for detecting plagiarism, including how to use keyword searches on the internet

Knows strategies to enhance vocabulary development through the use of a variety of definitional and contextual approaches distributed over time and across settings (pre-teaching of vocabulary, word classification; reading in content areas) are important for student learning

Know strategies to ensure students attend to and learn about the usage as well as the meaning of words

Explain how to assess and instruct for functional vocabulary power

Know how to bring text to life so that students are engaged (e.g., make connections between the challenges people encountered in great texts of the past and the challenges people face presently)

Know a repertoire of strategies to build good independent reading habits in students in a manner that reinforces the interest and pleasure that reading holds and communicates the glory of great literature

Demonstrate a working familiarity with high quality and demanding literature for middle and high school students (see Addendum for suggested Young Readers Literature List)

Know that asking students to articulate and elaborate ideas and use language precisely will increase language competencies and verbal proficiencies of students

Compose writing assignments that provide an appropriate level of challenge with particular attention to practice for newly acquired skills

Explain how and why different writing assignments pose different degrees of difficulty for writers, varying according to the audience (self, friends, wider audience of peers, teacher as examiner, etc.) and purpose or level of abstraction (describing, recording, generalizing/classifying, arguing, speculating)

Explain how to vary writing assignments and construct sequences of assignments that take into account different degrees of rhetorical difficulty (e.g., audience variation) and different degrees of conceptual or logical difficulty (e.g., unfamiliar vs. familiar ideas, reporting information vs. analyzing information)

Know how to cultivate eloquence and style in writing and speech and have a repertoire of strategies for helping students develop eloquence and style

Demonstrate basic keyboarding skills