Course Syllabus
English 9A

Description

This course is the first in a two-semester sequence designed to develop students’ reading, writing, and analytical skills. Throughout the course, students explore two central themes, Courage and Choice, and engage with essential questions that guide their learning. Students read a range of texts, including novels, short stories, informational articles, and poetry. They also analyze informational videos to strengthen their ability to interpret ideas across multiple media. Writing assignments focus on a variety of purposes and audiences, with major projects including a research paper and a narrative essay. To support their writing development, students participate in targeted grammar challenges that build conceptual understanding and promote mastery of key language conventions. In addition to strengthening their writing, students develop essential reading strategies, such as using graphic organizers to identify key information and summarizing to monitor comprehension. The course also introduces foundational literary and rhetorical concepts, including symbolism, figurative language, theme, setting, and other analytical tools that support deeper interpretation of texts. Prerequisites:  8th Grade English Language Arts

Course Objectives: Upon completion of this course, students will be able to...

• Identify their values and beliefs
• Use prior knowledge to build a personal connection with unfamiliar texts
• Use graphic organizers to write a variety of paragraphs
• Identify and evaluate the effectiveness of several literary and rhetorical devices, such as setting and characterization
• Develop an effective argument essay with claims and counterclaims
• Create a works cited page and parenthetical documentations using MLA format
• Use graphic organizers and summarizing to guide them through readings and help them to think critically about literary and informational texts
• Identify and evaluate the effectiveness of several literary and rhetorical devices like oxymoron, soliloquy, allusion, and irony
• Evaluate how the passage of time alters perspectives and choices
• Identify the elements of an informative essay
• Construct an effective informative essay
• Use comparison and contrast for evaluation

Course Outline:

Note: Units 1-2 will study To Kill a Mockingbird, Unit 3 will study various short works of literature, and Units 4-6 will study Romeo and Juliet, as a context for analyzing themes and literary elements and applying an understanding of these to various reading and writing skills.

Unit 1: Societal Values and Beliefs

Unit 2: Argumentative Essay

Unit 3: Choices in Society

Unit 4: Getting to Know Shakespeare

Unit 5: Choices in Romeo and Juliet

Unit 6: The Informative Essay

Resources Included: Students may need to locate some short stories, essays, and poems. There are links to electronic versions of all of these works in the course. Several video clips that are linked in the course include Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment” and Saki’s “The Interlopers.”
Online lesson instruction and activities, opportunities to engage with a certified, online instructor and classmates, when appropriate, and online assessments to measure student performance of course objectives and readiness for subsequent academic pursuits.

Additional Costs: Students will be responsible for locating a print or online version of the following books: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.

Scoring System: Michigan Virtual does not assign letter grades, grant credit for courses, nor issue diplomas. A final score out of total points earned will be submitted to your school mentor for conversion to their own letter grading system.

Time Commitment: Semester sessions are 18-weeks long: Students must be able to spend 1 or more hours per day in the course to be successful. Summer sessions are 10 weeks long: Students must be able to spend a minimum of 2 or more hours per day, or about 90 hours during the summer, for the student to be successful in any course. Trimester sessions are 12-weeks long: Students must be able to spend 1.5 or more hours per day in the course to be successful.

Technology Requirements: Students will require a computer device with headphones, a microphone, webcam, up-to-date Chrome Web Browser, and access to YouTube.

Ensure that your school or district network and device administrator establishes network access permissions or exceptions for online resources relevant to the course in which you are choosing to enroll. Ref., Michigan Virtual Course Allow List

Please review the Michigan Virtual Technology Requirements.

Instructor Support System: For technical issues within your course, contact the Customer Care Center by email at [email protected] or by phone at (888) 889-2840.

Instructor Contact Expectations: Students can use email or the private message system within the Student Learning Portal to access highly qualified teachers when they need instructor assistance. Students will also receive feedback on their work inside the learning management system. The Instructor Info area of their course may describe additional communication options.

Academic Support Available: In addition to access to a highly qualified, Michigan certified teacher, students have access to academic videos and outside resources verified by Michigan Virtual. For technical issues within the course, students can contact the Michigan Virtual Customer Care by email at [email protected] or by phone at (888) 889-2840.

Required Assessment: Online assessments consist of formative and summative assessments represented by computer-graded multiple choice, instructor-graded writing assignments including hands-on projects, model building, discussion-based assessments (one-on-one conversations with your teacher), and other forms of authentic assessments.

Technical Skills Needed: Basic technology skills necessary to locate and share information and files as well as interact with others in a Learning Management System (LMS), include the ability to:

• Download, edit, save, convert, and upload files
• Download and install software
• Use a messaging service similar to email
• Communicate with others in online discussion or message boards, following basic rules of netiquette
• Open attachments shared in messages
• Create, save, and submit files in commonly used word processing program formats and as a PDF
• Edit file share settings in cloud-based applications, such as Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides
• Save a file as a .pdf
• Copy and paste and format text using your mouse, keyboard, or an html editor’s toolbar menu
• Insert images or links into a file or html editor
• Search for information within a document using Ctrl+F or Command+F keyboard shortcuts
• Work in multiple browser windows and tabs simultaneously
• Activate a microphone or webcam on your device, and record and upload or link audio and/or video files
• Use presentation and graphics programs
• Follow an online pacing guide or calendar of due dates
• Use spell-check, citation editors, and tools commonly provided in word processing tool menus
• Create and maintain usernames and passwords

Additional Information: None