Search every subject world, from Preschool to Grade 12. The first five courses of every subject path are free.
172 courses
English · Preschool
Short listening games with Olly: children listen to a spoken clue and find the picture it describes, follow simple spoken directions in play, and practise taking turns in a conversation with a grown-up. Everything is spoken aloud; no reading is needed.
English · Preschool
Children grow their everyday vocabulary: they find familiar things by name, use describing words such as big, little, hot, cold and soft, and sort things into groups by what they are and what we use them for. A grown-up encourages the child to say the words aloud.
English · Preschool
Children learn to "read" pictures: they say who is in a picture, what is happening and where, put three picture-story events in order, and ask and answer who, what and where questions in a back-and-forth chat with a grown-up.
English · Preschool
Playful listening for the sounds inside words: children find words that rhyme, clap and count the parts (syllables) of words, and join two small words into one big word (sun + flower = sunflower). It is all done by listening and speaking; no letters are needed.
English · Preschool
Children explore how books work: the front cover and its title, turning pages from front to back, and the difference between pictures and words. They learn that the words tell the reader what to say, and they spot print and signs in the world around them.
English · Preschool
Children explore letters through names and signs: they tell letters apart from numbers, find a named capital letter among look-alike letters (starting with the first letter of a name), and copy short names with letter tiles, learning that names and words are letters in a set order.
English · Preschool
A grown-up reads a short original story, Cat's Lost Mitten, aloud. Children name who is in it and where it happens, retell the events in order with pictures, say what the problem was and how it was fixed, and then retell the story with a simple sock puppet.
English · Preschool
Children learn that drawing and writing are ways to send a message. They choose drawings that tell a message, tell a grown-up about a picture so the grown-up can write their words down, and try their own marks, letter-like shapes and name letters, working from left to right.
English · Pre-K
Children learn "big" words for everyday ideas (enormous, tiny, soaked, exhausted, delicious), use group words such as fruit, vehicles and tools and explain why something belongs, and practise keeping a conversation going by adding an idea or asking a question on the same topic.
English · Pre-K
Listening games that make the parts of language visible: children count the words in a short spoken sentence, blend and split syllables (ta-ble makes table), and both hear and make rhymes, including spotting the word that does not rhyme.
English · Pre-K
Children tune in to the very first sound of spoken words: they hear that moon starts with /m/, match and sort pictures that begin with the same sound, and blend a first sound with the rest of a word (/s/ ... un makes sun). Everything is spoken; letters come in the next course.
English · Pre-K
Children meet six starter letters, m, s, t, a, p and n, in capital and small form, learn the sound each one makes, and find the letter for the first sound of a picture word (sun starts with s). These six letters begin the PlayOwl sound–spelling sequence that Kindergarten continues.
English · Pre-K
Children learn who makes a book (the author writes the words, the illustrator draws the pictures), that we read words from left to right and from the top line down, and that words are groups of letters with spaces between them, so we can count the words in a line and point to each one as we read.
English · Pre-K
Children listen to an original story, Lola and the Little Seed, and learn to name its characters, setting and main events, retell it with a beginning, middle and end, and explain how a character feels and why. A new story in the quiz checks that the skills transfer.
English · Pre-K
Children discover fact books: books that tell true information about real things. They compare a fact book with a make-believe story, learn how a tadpole becomes a frog from an informational read-aloud and its pictures, and practise asking and answering questions that a fact book can answer.
English · Pre-K
Children become book makers. They plan a little book with one topic and pages in order, dictate a sentence for each page and learn that every spoken word becomes a written word, and label their drawings using letters they know, starting with the letter for the first sound.
English · Kindergarten
Kindergartners sharpen the listening and speaking skills that every later reading course depends on: answering who, what, where and why questions about a story read aloud, following two- and three-step directions, and describing things clearly with describing words, opposites and category words.
English · Kindergarten
Kindergartners learn all 26 letters in capital and small form (including the tricky look-alikes b, d, p and q), put letters in alphabet order, and learn how print is built: letters make words, spaces separate words, and sentences start with a capital letter and end with an end mark. They also practise following print left to right and word by word.
English · Kindergarten
An all-listening course in the smallest sounds of speech (phonemes). Children blend sounds into words (/m/ /a/ /p/ makes map), break words into sounds and count them, find the first, middle and last sound, and swap one sound to make a new word. These oral skills prepare children to read and spell with letters in the next courses.
English · Kindergarten
Children learn the first 13 letter–sound pairs of the PlayOwl sound–spelling sequence, in three small steps: m, s, a, t; then p, n, i, f; then o, d, c, g, h. They hear each sound, tap letter tiles, and choose the letter that spells a sound at the start, middle or end of a spoken word, getting ready to blend and read words in the next course.
English · Kindergarten
Children use the 13 letter–sound pairs they already know (m, s, a, t, p, n, i, f, o, d, c, g, h) to blend sounds into words with letter tiles, read words that differ by just one letter, learn five heart words (the, a, I, is, to) and read a short decodable story. The checks are built so that pictures and first-letter guessing never give the answer away.
English · Kindergarten
Children learn Step 4 of the PlayOwl sequence (b, e, r, l, k, u), so they now know all five short vowels. Then they turn sounds into spellings: they say a word, tap its sounds and build it with letter tiles, learn when /k/ is spelled c or k, and learn five new heart words (he, me, be, said, of).
English · Kindergarten
Children learn the last single-letter sounds of the PlayOwl sequence (Step 5: w, j, v, x, y, z and qu) and nine more heart words, then read whole sentences and a short story, Jax and the Tan Pup, made only of taught spellings and heart words. They answer questions about the story and learn to reread when something does not make sense.
English · Kindergarten
Two original read-aloud stories, Turtle's Big Climb and Squirrel's Snowy Day, help children name characters, setting and major events, retell a story in order with key details, explain how a character feels and why, and compare the adventures of characters in two stories. Stories are heard, not decoded.
English · Kindergarten
Using an original read-aloud fact text, How Seeds Travel, children find the main topic and key details, ask and answer questions about the text, learn what titles, pictures, labels and captions do, and tell how two things in a text are alike and different. A new text about sea turtles checks transfer.
English · Kindergarten
Kindergartners learn three reasons to write (to share an opinion, to give information and to tell a story) and make one piece of each, combining drawing, dictating to a grown-up and writing with the letters and sounds they know. Short checks help them tell the three kinds apart, find a reason, separate facts from feelings and put story events in order.
English · Kindergarten
Using short sentences made of the letters and heart words they can read, children learn what makes a complete sentence, start sentences and names (and the word I) with capital letters, choose a period, question mark or exclamation mark, and build sentences with spaces between words.
English · Kindergarten
The last Kindergarten English course brings the year's writing to an audience. Children share a drawing or piece of writing by speaking clearly in complete sentences, listen to others and respond with an on-topic question or kind comment, and revise their own work by adding a detail after a friend's question.
English · Grade 1
Grade 1 begins by sharpening the sound skills behind reading and spelling: telling short and long vowel sounds apart, blending and segmenting spoken words of up to five sounds (including words that start or end with two consonants), and finding sounds in any position. A quick review of Kindergarten's Steps 1–5 makes sure every child can spell and read CVC words before new spellings begin.
English · Grade 1
Step 6 of the PlayOwl sequence: children learn the "floss" pattern (ff, ll, ss and zz after a short vowel, as in puff, bell, kiss, buzz), ck after a short vowel (duck, sock), and the -s ending that can sound like /s/ or /z/ (cats, dogs). They read a decodable story, Fuzz and the Big Mess, with ten new heart words.
English · Grade 1
Steps 7 and 8 of the PlayOwl sequence: digraphs, where two letters make one new sound (sh, ch, th, wh, ng and nk), and consonant blends, where two or three consonants sit side by side and each keeps its own sound (st, fl, tr, -nd, -mp). Children read and spell these words and read a decodable story, Chip and the Ship.
English · Grade 1
Steps 9 and 10 of the PlayOwl sequence teach long vowels: the silent final e (cap becomes cape, kit becomes kite), single vowels that say their names at the end of short words (he, go, hi) and y as long i (my, fly), and the first vowel teams ee, ea, ai, ay and oa. Children read and spell long-vowel words and read the decodable story Jade and the Kite.
English · Grade 1
Step 11 of the PlayOwl sequence: children read and spell words with the endings -s, -es, -ed and -ing (wishes, jumped, landed, helping), learn what those endings tell us about number and time, and read two-syllable words by splitting them between consonants (rab-bit, nap-kin) and compound words (sun + set). They read the decodable story The Picnic.
English · Grade 1
Children put Steps 1–11 to work in connected text. They practise reading every word accurately by its letters instead of guessing, noticing and fixing their own errors, reading with phrasing and expression that follow punctuation, and rereading a longer decodable story, Zack and the Skunk, to understand and retell it. Accuracy and meaning come before speed.
English · Grade 1
Children read two original stories written with the spellings they know, The Best Hat and Fred and the Beans. They retell each story with key details, describe how characters feel and why, work out each story's central message, and compare the two main characters' experiences, finishing with a short written comparison.
English · Grade 1
Using two short original fact texts, Bats and Owls, children name the main topic and key details, ask and answer questions with evidence from the text, use headings, bold words, a glossary and captions to find facts quickly, and compare two texts on similar topics. A third text about moths checks transfer.
English · Grade 1
Children learn what makes a clear sentence: a naming part and a telling part, a capital letter at the start (and for I, names and days of the week) and the right end mark. Then they make sentences stronger by adding details that tell where, when or how, and by joining two short sentences with and, but, so or because.
English · Grade 1
Grade 1 writers learn three kinds of writing and the parts each one needs. An opinion piece names a topic, states an opinion, gives a reason and ends with a closing. An informative piece names a topic, gives facts and closes. A narrative tells two or more events in order with time words and an ending. Each lesson models a piece, checks the key structure and ends with real writing reviewed by an adult.
English · Grade 1
A toolkit course for Grade 1 language: common and proper nouns, one and more than one, verbs that match their nouns and show past, present or future, pronouns such as he, she and they, and describing and position words. Children also grow vocabulary by sorting words into categories, defining words by group and feature, and choosing between words with shades of meaning (look, peek, stare).
English · Grade 1
The Grade 1 capstone brings reading, talking and writing together. Children practise the rules of a good book discussion (listen, take turns, build on what others say, ask questions), use questions from a partner to revise their writing by adding details, edit for capitals, end marks and spelling, and publish a finished piece to share.
English · Grade 2
Grade 2 opens with a quick check of Steps 1–11 and then Step 12 of the PlayOwl sequence: r-controlled vowels (ar, or/ore, er/ir/ur), tch and dge after short vowels (match, badge), and soft c and soft g before e, i and y (city, giant). Children read and spell these patterns and read a decodable story, Marge and the Hedge.
English · Grade 2
Step 13 of the PlayOwl sequence adds the rest of the common vowel teams: igh, ie, ue, ew and oe; teams with two sounds (oo in moon and book, ow in snow and cow) and ou; and the vowel sounds in coin, boy, haul and saw. Children also learn a set of common irregular words with the heart-word routine, and read the decodable story Joy and the Owl.
English · Grade 2
Step 14 of the PlayOwl sequence turns everything learned so far into a strategy for longer words. Children learn the six syllable types (closed, open, final e, vowel team, r-controlled and consonant-le), split two-syllable words in the right place (rab-bit, ro-bot, cab-in), read y at the end of a longer word as long e (hap-py) and read the decodable story Pickle and the Puddle.
English · Grade 2
Step 15 of the PlayOwl sequence: children learn common prefixes (un-, re-, pre-, dis-, mis-) and suffixes (-ful, -less, -ly, -ness, -er, -est, -y), use them to read longer words and work out their meanings, learn the three spelling changes when adding suffixes (drop e, double the consonant, change y to i), and use a known base word to understand new words in the same family.
English · Grade 2
Children use the whole PlayOwl K–2 sound–spelling sequence (Steps 1–15) to read connected text accurately, in meaningful phrases and with expression that fits the characters. They practise using context to confirm or fix words, and reread an original decodable story, The Muffin Mix-Up, to build smooth, expressive reading. Understanding always comes before speed.
English · Grade 2
Through two original stories, Ruby's Bridge and the fable Beaver and Otter, children describe how characters respond to challenges, see how a story's beginning sets up the action and its ending wraps it up, work out the central message or moral, and notice that different characters see events differently, reading each character's lines in a different voice.
English · Grade 2
Children read an original multi-part nonfiction text, Busy Honeybees, to find the main topic of the whole text and the focus of each section, use a table of contents, subheadings, bold words, a glossary, an index and captions to find facts quickly, follow the steps of a process (how bees make honey) and work out the author's purpose. A new text about spiders checks transfer.
English · Grade 2
Children compare two retellings of a very old fable, The Lion and the Mouse, and two original nonfiction texts about why leaves change colour, finding the most important points in each and how they are alike and different. They identify the reasons an author gives to support a point, and write a short comparison using linking words such as both, but and also.
English · Grade 2
Grade 2 writers learn to tell a well-built story about a real or imagined event: they plan a beginning, middle and end, add details about actions, thoughts and feelings, use time words to show order, and finish with an ending that wraps it up. Each lesson studies a model, practises one skill and ends with writing that an adult reviews.
English · Grade 2
Children learn to write opinion pieces that introduce a topic or a book, state an opinion clearly, support it with reasons (and an example for each), connect ideas with linking words such as because, also and another reason, and finish with a concluding sentence. They also learn to tell facts from opinions and strong reasons from weak ones.
English · Grade 2
Grade 2 grammar and editing tools: collective nouns (a flock of birds) and irregular plurals (feet, mice), irregular past-tense verbs (ran, told) and reflexive pronouns (myself), adjectives versus adverbs, simple and compound sentences, capital letters for holidays, product names and places, commas in letters, and apostrophes in contractions and possessives. Children finish by editing a short letter.
English · Grade 2
The Grade 2 capstone is a small shared research project: How do penguins stay warm? Children ask a research question, gather facts from two short sources (a fact page and an interview with a zookeeper), take notes in their own words and group them, write a short report with a topic sentence and a conclusion, revise and edit it with feedback, and publish and present it.
English · Grade 3
Grade 3 readers meet longer words every day. This course builds on the PlayOwl K–2 sequence to read words of three or more syllables by syllable type, use common prefixes and suffixes to read and understand words, decode words with Latin suffixes such as -tion, -sion, -able and -ment, and learn a set of irregularly spelled words that appear often in Grade 3 texts.
English · Grade 3
Fluent reading is accurate, well paced and expressive, and it always serves understanding. Children read an original story and an original poem, set a purpose before reading, adjust their pace to the kind of text, use punctuation and line breaks to phrase and express meaning, and use context to confirm or fix words, rereading when understanding breaks down.
English · Grade 3
Children become word detectives. Using an original adventure, The Cave of Echoes, they work out unknown words from context clues (definitions, examples, synonyms and antonyms), from word parts (prefixes, suffixes and base words), and by checking a dictionary or glossary. They also learn to tell literal from nonliteral meanings and to choose between words with shades of meaning.
English · Grade 3
Through an original three-chapter story, Saving Pepper, children describe characters by their traits, motivations and feelings, explain how a character's actions move the plot forward, see how each chapter builds on the one before, and separate their own point of view from that of the narrator and the characters.
English · Grade 3
Children read a retelling of Aesop's fable The North Wind and the Sun and an original folktale, The Smallest Gift. They ask and answer questions by pointing to exact words in the text, recount each tale, work out its central message or moral, explain which key details convey it, and compare the two messages in a short written response with evidence.
English · Grade 3
Using an original article, How Beavers Change Their World, children find the main idea of the whole text and of each paragraph, pick out the key details that support it, describe how events and ideas are connected (time order, sequence and cause and effect), notice how sentences and paragraphs link logically, and write a short summary. A new article about recycling paper checks transfer.
English · Grade 3
Two original texts tell about the monarch butterfly's long migration: a reference article with headings, a sidebar, a map and key words, and a journal written by a fictional student who helped tag monarchs. Children use text features and search tools to find information, get information from a map, separate their own point of view from each author's, and compare the most important points of the two texts.
English · Grade 3
Grade 3 writers plan and write real or imagined narratives. They open by establishing a situation and introducing characters, organise events that unfold naturally, bring characters to life with dialogue and descriptions of actions, thoughts and feelings, punctuate dialogue correctly, use time words to show order and end with a satisfying sense of closure.
English · Grade 3
Children learn to write informative pieces that teach a reader about a topic. Using a model text, How Snowflakes Form, they introduce a topic, group related information into paragraphs with headings, develop each part with facts, definitions and details, connect ideas with linking words and finish with a concluding statement, then plan, draft and revise their own piece.
English · Grade 3
Grade 3 writers build opinion pieces that persuade. Using a model letter, A Splash Pad for Riverside Park, they introduce a topic and state a clear opinion, organise reasons in a logical order, support each reason with facts, details or examples, connect ideas with linking words such as because, therefore, since and for example, and end with a strong concluding statement.
English · Grade 3
A Grade 3 grammar and revision toolkit: what nouns (including abstract nouns), pronouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs do; simple verb tenses and agreement; comparatives and superlatives; and simple, compound and complex sentences built with conjunctions. Children use these tools to write and revise paragraphs with a clear topic sentence and supporting details.
English · Grade 3
The Grade 3 English capstone is a short research project: How do sea turtles find their way? Children write a focused question, gather facts from two provided sources, take brief notes in their own words and sort them into categories, write and revise a short report with a source list, publish it with headings and a captioned image, and present their findings to an audience.
English · Grade 4
Grade 4 readers meet many long, unfamiliar words, especially in science and social studies. This course teaches ten common Greek and Latin roots (graph, tele, photo, port, rupt, struct, aud, vis, dict, spect), combines them with prefixes and suffixes to decode and define words, and practises fluent reading of an original article about volcanoes, using context to confirm or correct words.
English · Grade 4
Using an original story, The Storm at Willow Bay, children explain similes and metaphors, recognise idioms, adages and proverbs, use synonyms and antonyms to understand and choose precise words, and use context, a dictionary and a thesaurus to clarify meanings, pronunciations and parts of speech.
English · Grade 4
Using original stories, children tell the difference between what a text says directly and what it suggests, combine text clues with background knowledge to make inferences, and support answers by quoting or citing details accurately.
English · Grade 4
Through two original stories, children work out a theme from details in the text, write short objective summaries, and describe a character in depth using thoughts, words and actions, including how the character changes.
English · Grade 4
Children read the same original event told three ways (a story, a poem and a short play) to compare the structures of prose, poetry and drama, then compare first-person and third-person narration and what each viewpoint lets the reader know.
English · Grade 4
Using original informational texts about the Erie Canal, canal locks and two reptiles, children identify five text structures (description, sequence, cause and effect, problem and solution, compare and contrast) and explain events, procedures and ideas, including what happened and why, using specific details.
English · Grade 4
Children compare a firsthand and a secondhand account of the same (fictional) ice storm, combine information from two original texts about hummingbirds, interpret a data table and explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support a point.
English · Grade 4
Children study an original scene to learn how writers orient the reader, move events along with transitions, use dialogue and description to show characters, choose precise words and sensory details and end with a satisfying conclusion. They punctuate dialogue correctly and write their own narrative.
English · Grade 4
Using an original model article about glaciers, children learn to introduce a topic clearly, group related information in sections with headings, develop ideas with facts, definitions, details and examples, link ideas with transitions, use precise topic vocabulary and write a concluding section, then plan and write their own informational piece.
English · Grade 4
With an original model essay, children separate facts from opinions, state a clear opinion, support logically ordered reasons with relevant facts and details, link ideas with phrases such as for instance, in addition and in order to, answer a likely objection and write a concluding section, then write their own opinion piece.
English · Grade 4
Children fix fragments and run-ons, use relative pronouns and relative adverbs to combine ideas, add prepositional phrases, use progressive tenses and modal verbs, put adjectives in the usual order, and edit for capitals, commas in compound sentences and commonly confused words.
English · Grade 4
Children carry out a short research project: they write a focused research question, choose useful sources, take notes in their own words, sort notes into categories, list their sources and plan an organized oral report with a visual display.
English · Grade 5
Learners become word detectives: they split words into prefixes, bases and suffixes, use Greek and Latin roots as clues, and read sentences around a new word for definition, synonym, antonym and example clues. The last lesson teaches the academic words that appear in school directions, such as analyze, compare and summarize.
English · Grade 5
Learners read a challenging informational article about beavers as wetland engineers and practise the moves strong readers use when a text gets hard: noticing confusion and fixing it, breaking long sentences into chunks, using headings and other text features, and stating the main idea of each section. A new article about snow fences checks transfer.
English · Grade 5
Through an original story about a broken tomato plant and a hard choice, learners practise quoting a text accurately, inferring characters' feelings and motives from clues, choosing the evidence that best supports an inference, and keeping what a story says separate from what a reader figures out. A short constructed response pulls it together.
English · Grade 5
Learners read an original three-scene story about two partners building a craft-stick bridge, told by a narrator who misjudges her partner, and a public-domain poem by Emily Dickinson. They find themes from how characters respond to challenges, see how a narrator's point of view shapes what readers learn, explain how scenes and stanzas fit together, and write a summary.
English · Grade 5
Learners read several short sources about monarch butterflies: a chronological article, a problem-and-solution article, a chart from a fictional nature center and two accounts of the same tagging day. They compare text structures, analyze how two accounts differ in point of view, combine information from several sources to answer questions and write a paragraph that integrates two sources.
English · Grade 5
Learners take apart a student newspaper article that argues for a school garden: they find the author's point, connect each reason to the evidence that supports it, separate facts from opinions, spot evidence that does not fit, and judge how well each reason is supported. A new speech to a town council checks transfer.
English · Grade 5
Using an original mentor story about a family during a power outage, learners study the choices narrative writers make on purpose: an opening that orients the reader, dialogue and action that show feelings, transitions and pacing that control time, sensory details and precise words, and a conclusion that reflects. They plan, draft and check their own narrative.
English · Grade 5
Learners study how an informative explanation is built, using an original model text about how honeybees make honey. They write focused introductions, group facts into sections with headings, develop sections with definitions, facts, examples and quotations, link ideas with transition words, choose precise science vocabulary and write a conclusion. They then draft their own explanation about sea otters from research notes.
English · Grade 5
Learners write their own opinion piece about whether a fictional school should start a Reading Buddies program. Working from a fact sheet, they state a clear opinion, plan reasons in a logical order, choose relevant facts and details, link ideas with words such as specifically and consequently, and write a conclusion. A new fact sheet about library hours checks transfer.
English · Grade 5
Learners use grammar as a writer's toolkit. They explain what conjunctions, prepositions and interjections do, form the perfect verb tenses and fix tense shifts, place commas correctly in series, after introductory words and in direct address, and revise choppy or wordy sentences by expanding, combining and reducing them.
English · Grade 5
Learners investigate why leaves change color in fall. They turn a topic into focused research questions and keywords, take notes in their own words, record where information came from in a simple list of sources, check whether sources are reliable, and figure out whether a media message is trying to inform, persuade, entertain or sell.
English · Grade 5
In this capstone, learners follow a fictional fifth grader's inquiry into cafeteria food waste from question to presentation, then carry out their own. They pose a focused question and plan how to answer it, draft and revise a report with evidence and sources, present findings clearly, and defend them by answering questions with evidence and honesty about limits.
English · Grade 6
Learners analyze words the way linguists do: they use Greek and Latin roots such as aud, vis, script, ject and cred, choose the right meaning of multiple-meaning words with context and a dictionary entry, compare the connotations of words with similar definitions, and use word relationships to solve analogies.
English · Grade 6
Learners read an original story about a boy who signs up for a robotics team and then crosses his name off, plus a short science article about how ants find food. They annotate with purpose, cite evidence with signal phrases, explain inferences using claim, evidence and commentary, and choose the strongest evidence for an analysis.
English · Grade 6
Learners follow an original story about a girl who refuses to explore her new neighborhood until a tree survey changes her mind, and study Robert Frost's public-domain poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” They map plot episodes and character change, trace how details develop a theme across a text, explain what particular sentences, scenes and lines contribute to the whole, and write objective summaries.
English · Grade 6
Learners read one classroom mishap told by three different narrators, a storm description full of figurative language, Carl Sandburg's public-domain poem “Fog,” and two very different descriptions of the same cafeteria. They identify points of view and what each narrator can know, interpret similes, metaphors, personification and hyperbole, analyze how word choice creates tone and mood, and rewrite a scene from a new perspective.
English · Grade 6
Learners read an original article about Louis Braille and the six-dot reading system he developed as a teenager. They determine its central idea and the details that convey it, analyze how the author introduces, illustrates and elaborates key ideas, explain what each section and sentence contributes to the structure, and write objective summaries. A new article about cool roofs checks transfer.
English · Grade 6
Learners trace and evaluate two fictional opinion pieces about phones and devices in school: one by a teacher and one by a marketing director for a tablet company. They outline claims, reasons and evidence, separate supported claims from unsupported ones, explain how word choice and selected details reveal an author's point of view and purpose, and consider how a source's interests can shape an argument.
English · Grade 6
Using an original mentor story about a girl baking her grandfather's cornbread from a smudged recipe card, learners study advanced narrative techniques: openings that establish context and a narrator, dialogue that reveals character and moves the plot, the difference between scene and summary, transitions that signal a flashback and a return, and endings that reflect. They then draft a narrative with a time shift.
English · Grade 6
Learners study an original model essay that explains the main families of clouds, then write their own explanatory essay. They choose organizational strategies (definition, classification, comparison and cause and effect), develop ideas with facts, examples, quotations and a table, connect ideas with transitions and precise vocabulary, keep a formal style and write a conclusion that does more than repeat.
English · Grade 6
Learners write an argument about whether a fictional middle school should start a composting and recycling program, using a set of sources that vary in credibility. They write a precise claim, organize reasons and evidence, choose credible and relevant evidence and cite it, explain how evidence supports each reason, use transitions and a formal style, and conclude in a way that follows from the argument.
English · Grade 6
Learners use grammar to make writing clear and engaging. They choose pronouns in the correct case and use intensive pronouns, fix shifts in pronoun number and person and vague pronouns, punctuate extra information with commas, parentheses and dashes, and revise paragraphs by varying sentence length, openings and structure while keeping a consistent style and tone.
English · Grade 6
Learners research the question of whether school gardens help students eat more vegetables, using a set of fictional sources that range from a university study to a company blog. They refocus a research question, choose search strategies, judge credibility by reading laterally, quote and paraphrase data and conclusions without overstating them, and record sources in a consistent bibliographic format.
English · Grade 6
Learners prepare for and analyze a student seminar about the role of modern zoos, practise asking and answering questions with elaboration and paraphrasing different perspectives, plan a clear presentation with a helpful visual, and curate a portfolio of their year's writing with a reflection that uses evidence from their own work.
English · Grade 7
Learners sharpen their word knowledge for reading and writing at a seventh-grade level. They use Greek and Latin roots such as bell, vert, path and tract, interpret allusions to myths, literature and history, distinguish shades of meaning among related words, and revise sentences to be precise and concise.
English · Grade 7
Through an original story about a girl who secretly saves her family's garden during a drought, learners cite several pieces of evidence for one analysis, build inference chains and test whether evidence is sufficient, analyze how setting shapes characters and plot, and write an analytical paragraph that weaves evidence and commentary. A fictional lighthouse keeper's log checks transfer.
English · Grade 7
Learners read an original one-act play about a father and daughter who disagree about the future of the family hardware store, plus Shakespeare's public-domain Sonnet 18 and an original sonnet. They analyze how characters' interactions drive the plot, how a drama's form (scenes, stage directions, soliloquy, aside) shapes meaning, how a theme develops across a text, and how a sonnet's structure and turn build its message.
English · Grade 7
Learners read an original story told by two narrators, a girl who thinks her neighbor is mean and the neighbor himself, then compare it with a screenplay adaptation written for this course. They analyze how an author develops and contrasts characters' points of view, learn the techniques unique to film, audio and stage, compare a story with its adaptation, and plan an adaptation of their own.
English · Grade 7
Learners compare two fictional accounts of a city's plan to close a neighborhood library branch: a city budget office press release and a community newspaper feature. They identify central ideas in each, analyze which evidence each author emphasizes, test competing interpretations of the same visitor data with a chart, examine how authors set their positions against others, and write a comparison.
English · Grade 7
Learners delineate and evaluate a fictional parent's speech asking a town council to install speed cameras near a school. They trace its claims, judge whether each piece of evidence is relevant and sufficient, recognize unsound reasoning such as hasty generalization, false cause, either-or thinking, bandwagon appeals and personal attacks, and write an evaluation. A new letter about school start times checks transfer.
English · Grade 7
Learners study an original mentor story that opens in the middle of the action, flashes back, and circles back to its opening image with a new meaning. They experiment with narrative structures (in medias res, flashback, frame and circular), choose points of view for effect, build a motif or symbol with precise sensory language, and draft their own narrative that tries a new structure.
English · Grade 7
Learners study an original model explanation of how a canal lock lifts a boat using only water and gravity, then explain a complex process of their own. They write introductions that preview what follows, organize steps and causes clearly, make difficult ideas accessible with definitions, analogies, examples and a graphic, create cohesion with transitions and precise vocabulary, and conclude in a way that follows from the explanation.
English · Grade 7
Learners build and revise an argument about whether a fictional town should turn an empty lot into a community garden or a parking lot. They write reasoning that explains why evidence supports a claim, acknowledge and distinguish opposing claims, use sources accurately with cohesive language, and use a peer-feedback protocol to plan and carry out revisions.
English · Grade 7
Learners use sentence structure as a style tool. They tell phrases from clauses and explain what each does, choose simple, compound, complex and compound-complex sentences to show how ideas relate, fix misplaced and dangling modifiers, punctuate coordinate adjectives, and build cohesion across a paragraph with transitions, consistent terms and clear references.
English · Grade 7
Learners research how rain gardens help reduce flooding using five fictional sources that agree, disagree and sometimes repeat each other. They generate focused follow-up questions and use advanced search strategies, corroborate facts across independent credible sources and trace conflicting claims to their origin, organize notes in a synthesis matrix while paraphrasing honestly, and cite sources with in-text citations and a works-cited list.
English · Grade 7
Learners follow a student team proposing a rain garden for their school, from discussion to presentation to an online article. They ask questions that draw out elaboration and steer a discussion back on topic, revise their views when new evidence warrants it, present the most important points with multimedia that clarifies, and publish digitally with descriptive links, citations, alt text and properly permitted images.
English · Grade 8
Learners build the precise academic language that high-school reading and writing demand. They use Latin roots such as ced/cess, duc/duct, pend, fer, voc and jur to unlock words, interpret verbal irony and puns, distinguish fine shades of connotation, and choose precise reporting verbs and appropriate levels of certainty when writing about texts and evidence.
English · Grade 8
Through an original story about a science-fair competitor who spots an error on her rival's poster, learners read closely in several passes, choose the evidence that most strongly supports an analysis, and analyze how particular lines of dialogue and incidents propel the action, reveal character and provoke a decision. They finish by writing an evidence-rich analysis.
English · Grade 8
Learners read an original retelling of the Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus and an original modern story about a teen drone pilot who ignores his sister's warning. They analyze how each text develops its theme through characters, setting and plot, compare how the two texts' structures shape meaning and style, examine how the modern story borrows and renews the myth's patterns and character types, and write a comparative analysis.
English · Grade 8
Learners analyze how speakers and writers persuade and how perspective shapes a reader's experience. They determine a speaker's purpose and point of view and how the speaker answers opposing views, identify appeals to credibility, emotion and logic, analyze rhetorical devices in Abraham Lincoln's public-domain Gettysburg Address, and explain how dramatic irony creates humor or suspense.
English · Grade 8
Learners compare four fictional accounts of a new bridge's opening day: a newspaper article, a TV news script, a podcast transcript and an interactive map. They evaluate what each medium does well and poorly, separate disagreements about facts from disagreements about interpretation, resolve factual conflicts by checking sources, methods and definitions, and recommend the best medium for a given purpose and audience.
English · Grade 8
Learners evaluate a fictional study app's press release against an independent study. They delineate the argument and spot irrelevant evidence, identify subtler reasoning flaws (confusing correlation with causation, cherry-picking, straw man and slippery slope), judge source credibility by expertise, conflicts of interest and research methods, and write an evaluation. A new argument about school uniforms checks transfer.
English · Grade 8
Learners build an evidence-based argument about a fictional town's decision to turn an old rail line into a trail. They model claim, evidence and reasoning from four short original sources, compare a strong and a weak paragraph against criteria, answer a counterclaim fairly, then draft and revise after criteria-based feedback. The course ends with a mixed quiz and a teacher-reviewed argument on a new issue.
English · Grade 8
Learners explain how coral reefs bleach and recover by synthesizing four fictional sources, including two that disagree about coral restoration. They write a controlling idea and organize notes by subtopic, integrate evidence by quoting, paraphrasing and summarizing with signal phrases, explain disagreements between sources fairly, and draft a synthesized explanatory essay.
English · Grade 8
Using an original reflective narrative about a girl whose name has always been mispronounced, learners study style as a set of deliberate choices: precise diction, sentence length and rhythm, imagery, active and passive voice, and the conditional and subjunctive moods. They learn how reflective narratives weave events with insight from a later perspective, then draft and revise their own reflective narrative.
English · Grade 8
Learners edit like professionals. They identify gerunds, participles and infinitives and explain what each does, use the five verb moods and fix inappropriate shifts in voice and mood, punctuate pauses and breaks with commas, dashes and ellipses, mark omissions in quotations with an ellipsis, and polish a passage for correctness and effect.
English · Grade 8
Learners follow a fictional eighth grader's independent inquiry into students' sleep and design their own. They plan questions, sub-questions, methods and a timeline; collect information from people ethically with consent, privacy and adult approval; report results honestly without plagiarism, fabrication or cherry-picking (and disclose any AI help); and cite articles, websites, interviews and their own survey in a standard format.
English · Grade 8
In this capstone, learners lead and analyze a seminar on whether schools should require community service, learning to ask questions that connect several speakers' ideas and to qualify or justify their views in light of evidence. They then prepare a portfolio defense: a formal presentation that makes evidence-based claims about their growth as readers and writers, and thoughtful answers to a panel's challenging questions.
English · Grade 9
Learners practice reading a short passage three times with sharper questions each time, separating what a text states from what it suggests. They choose the strongest and most thorough evidence for a claim, weave quotations into their own sentences honestly, and write commentary that explains how the evidence proves the claim. An original story and a short public-domain excerpt from Jack London's “To Build a Fire” are the practice texts; the quiz uses a passage learners have not seen.
English · Grade 9
Learners examine who tells a story and how the telling is arranged. They compare one event told from two points of view, test a narrator's reliability with Poe's “The Tell-Tale Heart,” untangle stories told out of order, and see how pacing stretches or shrinks time. An optional Going further lesson shows how Ambrose Bierce bends time to build one of fiction's most famous endings.
English · Grade 9
Learners treat words and sentences as a writer's tools. They unlock unfamiliar words with context clues, roots and even sentence structure (using Lewis Carroll's “Jabberwocky”), weigh connotation to describe tone and mood in Poe's “The Fall of the House of Usher,” analyze Dickens's famous parallel opening, and interpret figurative language in Carl Sandburg's “Fog.” The quiz applies these tools to unseen sentences and to Tennyson's “The Eagle.”
English · Grade 9
Learners learn to write the basic unit of literary analysis: a paragraph that makes an arguable claim and proves it. Using Kate Chopin's “The Story of an Hour,” they separate claims from summary and opinion, assemble paragraphs from claim, evidence, commentary and a closing link, diagnose weak paragraphs and revise them. They then plan and write about stories they have never seen.
English · Grade 9
Learners compare the toolkits of poetry, drama and prose fiction, then see how form shapes meaning: line breaks in William Carlos Williams's “The Red Wheelbarrow,” rhyme and compression in Robert Frost's “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” and the Prologue of Romeo and Juliet, which gives away the ending on purpose. They examine how genre conventions set up expectations, and compare a poem and a prose passage on the same idea. An optional Going further lesson tells one event in three forms.
English · Grade 9
Learners read nonfiction the way they read literature: closely and critically. They find the central idea of an excerpt from Frederick Douglass's Narrative and summarize it objectively, map the structure of a feature article on cool roofs and city heat, compare a neutral article with a student op-ed to uncover purpose and point of view, and sort claims of fact, value and policy while tracing an argument's reasons.
English · Grade 9
Learners begin real research the way researchers do: with a good question. They narrow broad topics into focused, researchable questions, tell primary from secondary sources in a local-history investigation, judge credibility with five questions and lateral reading, and plan searches while recording the details they will need to cite. All sources are invented for practice, so learners can test their judgment safely.
English · Grade 9
Learners take arguments apart and put them back together. They map claim, reasons, evidence and the reasoning that links them in a student argument about phones in class, test whether evidence is relevant and sufficient, learn to spot six common fallacies, and write a paragraph that states a counterclaim fairly before rebutting it. An optional Going further lesson weighs two letters on the same local issue and builds a qualified claim.
English · Grade 9
Learners write true and imagined stories with craft. They practice showing rather than telling through precise words and telling details, use dialogue and pacing to reveal character, shape a personal essay from an engaging opening to a reflective ending, and revise a draft for voice and purpose. Model passages are original, and learners write a scene and a reflective narrative of their own.
English · Grade 9
Learners use grammar as a set of choices rather than a list of rules. Working on one student report about a community mural, they combine choppy sentences with phrases and clauses, repair faulty parallelism, join ideas with semicolons and colons while fixing comma splices, and decide when active or passive voice, concision and sentence position best serve their audience. They finish by revising a paragraph and explaining their choices.
English · Grade 9
Learners study the thinking behind good talk. Using a transcript of students discussing “The Last Ferry,” they learn to ask questions that move a discussion forward, to paraphrase, build on and respectfully challenge ideas, and to summarize where a group agrees and disagrees. They listen critically to a student speech full of distorted evidence, then plan a clear, honest presentation of their own. Speaking practice is offered as optional, unscored activities.
English · Grade 9
The Grade 9 capstone. Learners compare how Paul Laurence Dunbar's poem “We Wear the Mask” and an original story about a teenager working a hotel front desk treat the theme of hidden feeling. They plan a comparative thesis, choose an organization, draft and revise comparative paragraphs against a rubric, and assemble a small portfolio from the year with a reflection grounded in evidence of growth. An optional Going further lesson adds Dunbar's “Sympathy” for a three-way comparison.
English · Grade 10
Learners build habits for reading hard texts on purpose. They choose strategies to match a reading purpose, untangle long sentences from Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein by finding their core, write objective summaries of an informational article about why bridges move, and practice noticing and repairing confusion as they read.
English · Grade 10
Learners study three masters of the short story to see how authors' deliberate choices create meaning. They distinguish verbal, situational and dramatic irony in O. Henry's “The Gift of the Magi” and Poe's “The Cask of Amontillado,” trace how Saki withholds and plants information in “The Open Window,” follow symbols and motifs across a story, and explain how word choice builds tone. They finish by analyzing how one author uses irony to shape meaning.
English · Grade 10
Learners study persuasion at one of its most famous moments: the two funeral speeches in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, where Brutus and Antony address the same crowd with opposite purposes. They analyze rhetorical situations, weigh appeals to ethos, pathos and logos using Aristotle's definitions, explain how devices such as repetition and verbal irony move an audience, and evaluate the evidence in a modern student speech. They finish by writing a rhetorical analysis comparing the two Roman speakers.
English · Grade 10
Learners read literature from different times, places and languages. They see how context shapes Rabindranath Tagore's “Where the mind is without fear,” compare how three translators open Homer's Odyssey, examine how a writer transforms source material by retelling the Sirens episode for the age of the phone, and compare Tagore with Mary Wollstonecraft on freedom of mind. An optional Going further lesson asks which translation suits which reader, and why.
English · Grade 10
One local controversy, many sources: the town of Millbrook plans to replace its old public pool with a splash pad. Learners synthesize a news report, a resident's viral post, a company press release and a sponsored article; compare how headlines, captions and charts frame the same story; catch misleading data displays and compute the real change; and learn to spot sponsored content and verify claims. They finish by writing a synthesis paragraph that puts three sources in conversation.
English · Grade 10
Learners grow the analytical paragraph into a full essay, working on Percy Bysshe Shelley's sonnet “Ozymandias.” They sharpen a thesis that is arguable and specific, plan an essay whose topic sentences advance that thesis, write layered commentary joined by logical transitions, and frame the argument with an introduction and a conclusion that extend it. An optional Going further lesson weighs two invented critics' readings of the poem and asks learners to join the conversation.
English · Grade 10
Learners argue the way careful thinkers do: by understanding the other side first. Working on a city's debate over banning gas-powered leaf blowers, and taking John Stuart Mill's warning that someone who knows only their own side knows little of that, they anticipate audiences' concerns, state counterclaims fairly, choose rebuttal strategies, recognize five more fallacies, and write a formal counterclaim-and-rebuttal section.
English · Grade 10
Learners handle sources the way researchers do. Using a small set of invented sources about city street trees and one sentence from Darwin's On the Origin of Species, they decide when to quote, paraphrase or summarize; paraphrase without patchwriting; integrate sources with precise signal phrases; build MLA-style in-text citations and Works Cited entries from the core elements; and learn what counts as plagiarism, including undisclosed AI help. They finish with a cited paragraph and two Works Cited entries.
English · Grade 10
Learners write narratives with deliberate craft. Starting from the first sentence of Stephen Crane's “The Open Boat,” they choose point of view and timeline on purpose, build experience from telling details and sensory language, write dialogue that reveals character with correct punctuation for interruptions, pauses and quotations within quotations, and revise a draft in response to peer feedback using a revision plan and memo.
English · Grade 10
Learners polish sentences for meaning, style and correctness. They build sentences with absolute, participial and appositive phrases and with noun, relative and adverb clauses; repair dangling and misplaced modifiers and unclear pronouns; replace wordy and vague language with precise words; and edit for tricky subject-verb agreement and commas around nonessential information. They finish by editing a paragraph and explaining their choices.
English · Grade 10
Learners prepare for and analyze a seminar on Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. They write closed, interpretive and universal questions; study a seminar transcript to see how evidence-based contributions build on one another; synthesize where a group agrees and disagrees and qualify their own views; and plan a short evidence-based talk while learning to catch misquoted or out-of-context evidence in others' talks. Speaking practice is optional and unscored.
English · Grade 10
The Grade 10 capstone brings research and writing together around one invented local question: should Riverside High turn part of its parking lot into a community garden? Learners plan a research project, synthesize five sources into an argument with MLA citations, revise a draft for coherence and citation accuracy, and reflect on their process while selecting portfolio work. An optional Going further lesson reconciles two sources whose data conflict and builds a qualified claim.
English · Grade 11
Learners travel through three centuries of American writing in short, public-domain excerpts: Anne Bradstreet and Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Paine, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, Willa Cather and Langston Hughes. They connect each text to its moment, analyze how history shapes theme and style, test the limits of tidy “movement” labels, and ask what these voices mean now. Walt Whitman's elegy for Lincoln serves as the unseen text in the quiz.
English · Grade 11
Learners analyze how great American speakers adapt to their audiences. They study Frederick Douglass's 1852 address “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” to see how a speaker can honor and confront the same listeners, and Patrick Henry's 1775 call to arms (as reconstructed decades later by William Wirt) to trace how a speech escalates. They learn to write rhetorical analysis that explains choices, effects and purpose rather than spotting devices.
English · Grade 11
Learners take arguments apart with the Toulmin model: claim, grounds, warrant, backing, qualifier and rebuttal. They uncover the unstated assumptions (warrants) that connect evidence to claims, test whether audiences would accept them, and use these tools on two foundational American texts: the Declaration of Independence and Federalist No. 51. They finish by building their own argument with a qualified claim and explicit reasoning.
English · Grade 11
Learners compare American voices that answered the same questions differently. They weigh Booker T. Washington's 1895 Atlanta address against W. E. B. Du Bois's response in The Souls of Black Folk, trace how the 1848 Declaration of Sentiments reworks the Declaration of Independence, consider Zitkala-Ša's account of a boarding school, and synthesize these perspectives in writing. An optional Going further lesson weighs two readings of Phillis Wheatley's “On Being Brought from Africa to America.”
English · Grade 11
Learners practice close reading in three genres: poetry by Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman; fiction in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's “The Yellow Wallpaper”; and argumentative prose in Henry David Thoreau's “Civil Disobedience.” They analyze diction, imagery, sound, syntax and narration, and compare how genre shapes these moves. The quiz turns to Macbeth's “To-morrow” speech and an essay sentence by Emerson. An optional Going further lesson weighs two invented critics' readings of Gilman's story.
English · Grade 11
Learners research a contested policy the way scholars do. Using an invented source set about a district's proposed four-day school week, they build a synthesis matrix, evaluate each source's methods and possible bias, write paragraphs that put sources in conversation and weigh conflicting evidence, and integrate and cite multiple sources in MLA style, including how to quote a famous speech that survives only in a later reconstruction.
English · Grade 11
Learners build full-length arguments. Working on the question of whether high schools should replace some final exams with portfolios, they craft complex claims with qualifiers and stakes, choose classical, Rogerian or problem-solution organization to fit an audience, weave counterarguments through a sustained line of reasoning, and revise using reverse outlines and targeted checks for coherence, evidence and style.
English · Grade 11
Learners study language as a set of choices that change with audience and history. They analyze voice, including the vernacular voice of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn; shape periodic, cumulative and balanced sentences and deliberate fragments; learn why usage “rules” such as split infinitives and less/fewer are conventions with histories, and how to resolve contested usage; and practice hyphenation and shifts of register. They finish with a style imitation and an explanation of their choices.
English · Grade 11
Learners become skeptical, fair-minded readers of public information. They distinguish news, analysis, opinion, sponsored content and satire; analyze how framing, selection and omission shape a story; evaluate statistics, including relative versus absolute risk, base rates and misleading averages; and verify claims by tracing them to their sources, while learning the signals and limits of spotting AI-generated media. Mark Twain's observation that opinions follow interests frames the course.
English · Grade 11
Learners study discussion and presentation at an advanced level using Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address (1865). They pose questions that probe reasoning and assumptions, synthesize a group's competing views and resolve apparent contradictions, evaluate a speaker's point of view, reasoning and rhetoric, and plan a presentation with a distinct perspective and purposeful, accessible digital media. Speaking practice is optional and unscored.
English · Grade 11
Learners build habits for sustained independent reading of complex texts, write critical responses that interpret and evaluate rather than summarize or merely react, apply five critical lenses (formalist, historical, reader-response, feminist and economic), and treat narrator reliability as an interpretive question. Short excerpts come from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925) and two works by Herman Melville. An optional honors-style lesson weighs two competing readings of Nick Carraway's claim to honesty.
English · Grade 11
The Grade 11 capstone. Learners write a full rhetorical analysis of a passage from Susan B. Anthony's 1873 speech defending her vote, with a brief comparison to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address; build a researched argument that synthesizes invented sources on lowering the voting age for local elections, with accurate MLA-style citations; revise both pieces from specific feedback; and curate a portfolio with a reflective introduction that shows growth with evidence.
English · Grade 12
Learners open their senior year by reading challenging older prose from Francis Bacon's “Of Studies” (1625) and Ralph Waldo Emerson's “Self-Reliance” (1841). They paraphrase archaic syntax and vocabulary accurately, annotate an argument's moves (claim, concession, example, definition and qualification), generate factual, interpretive, evaluative and open inquiry questions, and keep an inquiry log that synthesizes ideas across texts.
English · Grade 12
Learners treat interpretation as argument. Using Robert Frost's “The Road Not Taken” (1916) in full, with short excerpts from Christina Rossetti, W. B. Yeats and Edith Wharton, they analyze how ambiguity and figurative language open more than one meaning, weigh competing readings by how much of the text each explains, and write an interpretation that engages a competing reading. An optional honors-style lesson studies the startling simile that opens T. S. Eliot's “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (1915).
English · Grade 12
Learners analyze how public arguments work. They study satire through Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal (1729) and a line of Mark Twain's mock advice, compare public-argument genres (op-ed, open letter, speech, policy brief) and the role of timing (kairos), evaluate John Stuart Mill's argument for free expression in On Liberty (1859), and identify four fallacies common in public debate: whataboutism, appeal to fear, loaded language and false balance. They finish by writing an op-ed for a defined audience.
English · Grade 12
Learners design research the way careful investigators do. They match questions to methods (secondary research, surveys, interviews, observation) and set a workable scope; evaluate study designs for sample size and representativeness, correlation versus causation, peer review and conflicts of interest; write annotated bibliography entries and a short literature review organized by theme; and plan ethical research with consent, privacy and honest attribution. An optional honors-style lesson critiques and redesigns a flawed invented study.
English · Grade 12
Learners write longer, more sophisticated essays. Responding to Henry David Thoreau's “Resistance to Civil Government” (1849, later called “Civil Disobedience”), they construct complex theses that concede and explain, sustain a line of reasoning across many paragraphs with clear sequencing and signposting, manage nuance with precise qualifiers and honest treatment of counterevidence, and plan and write both under time limits and through a full drafting process.
English · Grade 12
Learners study style as a set of deliberate choices. They analyze cumulative, periodic and balanced sentences and the rhythm they create; examine modernist techniques such as free indirect discourse and stream of consciousness in short excerpts from Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway (1925) and James Joyce's “Araby” (1914); revise for emphasis, concision and cohesion using known-new order and verbs in place of nominalizations; and imitate a style while explaining their choices.
English · Grade 12
Learners examine how information reaches them today. They explain how search ranking and recommendation feeds select content and where those systems fall short (treating “filter bubble” claims as debated), evaluate AI-generated text and images, including invented facts and citations, analyze data claims and charts for cherry-picked ranges and totals that should be rates, and build a personal verification routine with attention to ethics.
English · Grade 12
Learners write for life beyond the classroom. They adapt purpose, audience and format across emails, memos, cover letters and résumés written for fictional people; apply plain-language principles such as putting the point first, using headings and lists and preferring active voice; write a personal statement that combines a specific story with reflection in an authentic voice; and learn the academic genres of the abstract and the proposal.
English · Grade 12
Learners study the structure and thinking of formal debate and oral defense. They learn resolutions, burden of proof, constructive and rebuttal speeches and cross-examination; flow a debate and answer arguments by extending, turning and weighing impacts; ask and answer cross-examination questions fairly, using Theodore Roosevelt's “man in the arena” passage (1910) as a prompt; and prepare to defend a project by anticipating questions and acknowledging limits honestly. Speaking practice is optional and unscored.
English · Grade 12
Learners read poems as writers. They analyze the sonnet, free verse and the dramatic monologue; compare William Blake's “The Tyger” (1794) and “The Lamb” (1789) and read Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 (1609) against the love-poem conventions it mocks; write a creative imitation of Stephen Crane's or Walt Whitman's style; and explain their craft choices in a reflection. An optional honors-style lesson develops a comparative essay on the Blake pair.
English · Grade 12
Learners assemble a senior writing portfolio. They select and sequence pieces for a specific purpose and audience, write reflective introductions and revision memos that give evidence of growth, assess their own work against rubrics and set specific goals, and prepare the portfolio for publication with attention to format, accessibility, permissions and the privacy of people they write about.
English · Grade 12
The senior capstone. Following a fictional student's project on why classmates avoid a free tutoring center, learners write a research proposal (question, rationale, method, sources, timeline), synthesize their own data with published research into an argument with honest limits, communicate findings to a non-specialist audience through a plain-language summary, a clear visual and a short talk plan, and prepare to defend and reflect on their work.
