Curriculum

STANDARD 2:  LITERATURE AND CRITICAL THINKING 

   Students read a wide range of literature from many periods in many genres to build an understanding of the many dimensions (e.g., philosophical, ethical, aesthetic) of human experience.

   Literature plays a vital role in developing critical thinking. As students learn to read and respond to literary texts, they utilize terms and concepts of literary analysis necessary to and explore worlds (actual and imagined) from perspectives other than their own.

· Read and study characteristics of various genres

· Reflect critically on classic and contemporary works

· Learn and use specialized terms and concepts of literary analysis

· Explore the complexities of the human experience through literature

KINDERGARTEN

1. Predict words, story events, story endings

2.  Clarify meaning by asking and answering questions about essential elements of text

3.  Connect information and events in texts to life experiences through oral or artistic expression

4.  Ask questions of others for understanding and respond to questions

FIRST GRADE

1.  Compare what two stories have in common

2.  Look at text from the writer’s and illustrator’s perspectives

3. Predict words, story events, story endings

4. Choose a book at independent reading level

5.  Make personal connections to literature

6.  Respond to who, what, where, when, and how questions

7.  Recognize how character traits affect plot

SECOND GRADE

1.  Read and respond to literature comparing plot, setting, and character

2.  Compare different versions of the same story

3.  Generate alternative endings to plots

4. Make personal connections to literature

5.  Identify rhythm, rhyme, and alliteration in poetry or song

6.  Formulate questions to get information, clarify meaning, and check for understanding

THIRD GRADE

1.  Interpret, analyze, and summarize stories

2.  Ask and answer how, why, and what if questions and support answers by  connecting background knowledge with literal and inferential information from the text

3. Distinguish between cause and effect, fact and opinion, main idea, and supporting details in text

4. Recognize parts of a plot (e.g., problem, conflict, sequence of events, resolution of problem)

5.  Determine what a character is like by what the character thinks, says, and does

6. Recognize the theme or author’s purpose 

7.  Make personal connections to literature

8. Write a sentence that would best be added to the end of a paragraph as appropriate sequence

9. Distinguish main idea and supporting details in expository text

FOURTH GRADE

1. Identify the events in the plot, their causes, and how they influence future action

2. Make inferences about text after reading several passages

3.  Describe the structural differences of various imaginative forms of literature; fantasies, fables, myths, legends, fairy tales

4. Understand the role and importance of character, of plot, and of setting in fiction

5. Use knowledge of the situation, setting, and the character’s traits and motivation to determine the causes for a character’s actions

6.  Discuss the presence of figurative language in literary works including simile, metaphor, and personification

7. Compare information on the same topic after reading several passages or articles

8. Distinguish between cause and effect, or fact and opinion in expository text

FIFTH GRADE

1. Recognize the function of key literary devices, such as imagery and symbolism in literary works

2. Interpret, analyze, and summarize a variety of reading materials

3. Distinguish between fact and fiction

4.  Identify main problem or conflict of the plot and how the author uses various techniques to resolve it

5. Recognize how characters, plots, and settings are developed

6.  Compare and discuss the actions, motives, and appearances of characters in a work of fiction

7. Understand that theme refers to the meaning or the moral of a selection and recognize themes (implied or stated directly)

SIXTH GRADE

1. Recognize the difference between first and third person narrative (e.g., autobiography vs. biography)

2. Analyze whether the characters and/or plot are contrived or real

3. Recognize figurative language such as simile, metaphor, idioms, and figures of speech

4. Identify and analyze themes conveyed through characters, actions, and images

5.  Distinguish among forms of fiction and describe the major characteristics of each form

6. Analyze how human qualities (e.g., perseverance, friendship, loyalty or ambition) affect the plot, and resolution of the conflict

7. Analyze influence of setting on the problem and its resolution

8. Understand character, plot, and setting of a story

SEVENTH GRADE

1.      Identify events that advance the plot and determine how each event explains past or present action(s) or foreshadows future actions(s)

2.      Analyze characterization as delineated through a character’s thoughts, words, speech patterns, and actions; the narrator’s description; and the thoughts, words, and actions of other characters

3.      Identify and analyze recurring themes across works (e.g., the value of bravery, loyalty, and friendship; the effects of loneliness)

4.      Contract points of view (e.g., first and third person, limited and omniscient, subjective and objective) in narrative text and explain how they affect the overall theme of the work. Identify events that advance the plot and determine how each event explains past or present action(s) or foreshadows future actions(s)

5.      Assess adequacy/accuracy of the author’s evidence to support claims and assertions. Identify idioms, analogies, metaphors, and similes in prose and poetry

6.      Noting instances of bias and stereotyping

7.      Identify significant literacy devices such as dialect, flashback, foreshadowing, plot, climax, characterization. Use those elements to interpret the work

EIGHTH GRADE

1.      Analyze relevance of setting (place, time, customs) to the mood, tone, and meaning of text

2.      Analyze idioms, analogies, metaphors, and similes to infer the literal and figurative meanings of phrases

3.      Identify significant literary devices (e.g.,  metaphor, symbolism, dialect,  irony) that define a writer’s style and use those elements to interpret the work

4.      Identify and analyze recurring themes (e.g., good versus evil)  across traditional and contemporary works

5.      Compare and contrast motivations and reactions of literary characters from different historical eras confronting similar situations or conflicts

6.      Evaluate the structural elements of the plot (e.g., subplots, parallel episodes, climax), the plot’s development and the way in which conflicts are (or are not) addressed and resolved

7.      Evaluate the unity, coherence, logic, internal consistency, and structural patterns of text

NINTH/TENTH GRADE

1.   Synthesize the content and ideas from several sources dealing with a single issue or written by a single author. Paraphrase the ideas and connect them to other sources and related topics to demonstrate comprehension

2.   Extend ideas presented in primary or secondary sources through original analysis, evaluation, and elaboration

3.   Critique the logic of functional documents by examining the sequence of information and procedures and the anticipation of possible reader misunderstandings

4.   Evaluate the credibility of an author’s argument or defense of a claim by critiquing the relationship between generalizations and evidence, the comprehensiveness of evidence, and how the author’s intent affects the text’s structure and tone (e.g., professional journals, editorials, political speeches, primary source material)

5.   Analyze interactions between main and subordinate characters in literary text (e.g., internal and external conflicts, motivations, relationships, and influences) and how they affect the plot

6.   Analyze and trace an author’s development of time and sequence, including the use of complex literary devices (e.g., foreshadowing, flashbacks)

7.   Interpret and evaluate the impact of ambiguities, subtleties, contradictions, ironies, and incongruities in text

8.   Analyze a group of historically significant speeches to find the rhetorical devices and features that make them memorable (e.g., Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address  and Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream)

9.   Analyze types of arguments used by the speaker, including argument by causation, analogy, authority, emotion, and logic

ELEVENTH/TWELFTH GRADE

1.   Analyze both the features and rhetorical devices of different types of public documents (e.g., policy statements, speeches, debates, platforms) and how authors use these features and devices

2.   Make warranted and reasonable assertions about significant patterns, motifs, and perspectives by using elements of text to defend and clarify interpretations

3.   Analyze an author’s implicit and explicit philosophical assumptions and beliefs about a subject

4.   Critique the power, validity, and truthfulness in the logic of arguments set forth in public documents, their appeal to audiences both friendly and hostile, and the extent to which they anticipate and address reader concerns and counterclaims (e.g., appeal to reason, appeal to authority, appeal to pathos/emotion)

5.   Analyze how the theme or meaning of a selection represents a view or comment on life, using textual evidence to support the claims

6.   Analyze how irony, tone, mood, style, and “sound” of language are used  to achieve specific rhetorical and/or aesthetic purposes

7.   Analyze ways in which poets use imagery, personification, figures of speech, and sounds to evoke readers’ emotions

8.   Analyze recognized works of American literature representing a variety of genres and traditions in order to trace the development of American literature, contrast the major periods, themes, styles, and trends, and evaluate the philosophical, political, religious, ethical, and/or social influences that shaped characters, plots, and settings

9.   Analyze how authors over the centuries have used archetypes drawn from myth and tradition in literature, film, political speeches, and religious writings (e.g., how the archetypes of banishment from an ideal world may be used to interpret Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth)

10. Analyze recognized works of world literature from a variety of authors, in order to contrast the major literary forms and the characteristics of the major literary periods and relate literary works and authors to major themes and issues of their eras

11. Analyze the political assumptions in a selection of literary works or essays on a topic for their clarity and consistency (e.g., suffrage, women’s place in organized labor) (Political Approach)

12. Analyze the philosophical arguments presented in literary works to determine whether the author’s position have contributed to the quality of each work and the credibility of its characters (Philosophical Approach)