12th Grade - Gateway 2

The materials reviewed for Grade 12 meet the criteria for Indicator 2a.

The materials reviewed for Grade 12 meet the criteria for texts are organized around a cohesive topic(s)/theme(s) to build students’ ability to read and comprehend complex texts independently and proficiently. Each unit is organized around a central theme and related guiding questions that connect overall to the unit topic. The texts, tasks, and materials for this grade level are grouped so that students investigate a Central Question when moving through the Foundation and Development units using the information they gather from analyzing the various texts to perform the culminating tasks. Throughout the process of analyzing multiple texts, students broaden their vocabulary and knowledge, strengthen reading comprehension, and develop independent-thinking skills as they dig into unit content and apply their learning to new readings they encounter. The course capstone includes an Application Unit in which students drive their investigation with an inquiry question of interest. The Program Guide provides additional information for teachers relating to the selection of classic and contemporary texts within each unit: “Text sets guide and focus student learning and knowledge development by examining a diverse body of authors, perspectives, and genres. While students develop strands of knowledge in units, they also extend their understanding across units in their year, and across all four years, of high school.”

Texts are connected by cohesive topics/themes to build students’ ability to read and comprehend complex texts independently and proficiently. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Texts are connected by a grade-appropriate cohesive topic/theme/line of inquiry.

  • In the Foundation Unit, How Can I Prepare for Life After High School?, students read multiple educational texts that discuss the various paths for high school graduates, including collegiate, vocational, and military pathways. Students read texts in the unit that focus on this theme such as “The College Payoff: Education, Occupations, Lifetime Earnings,” “High School Seniors: Preparing for Your Next Step After High School,” and “The Stigma of Choosing Trade School Over College.” Through reading the multiple texts on various text types, students build their knowledge and strengthen the literacy skills necessary for life after graduation.

  • In the Development Unit, Community, students explore the Central Question: “What does it mean to belong to a community?” Examples of texts students study to explore a common line of inquiry include, but are not limited to, a nonfiction essay “The End of Solitude” by William Deresiewicz and an excerpt of “My Dungeon Shook: Letter to my Nephew on the One Hundredth anniversary of the Emancipation” from The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin.

  • In the Development Unit, Hamlet, Section 4, Lesson 6, students read texts that connect to the central theme: “How many ways can the same text be read?” Students build knowledge of existing critical lenses to read Hamlet through reading:

    • Excerpt from “The Sanity of Hamlet” by Tenney L. Davis;

    • Excerpt from “Representing Ophelia: Women, Madness, and the Responsibilities of Feminist Criticism” by Elaine Showalter; and

    • Excerpt from “Depressive Illness Delayed Hamlet’s Revenge” by Aaron Shaw and Neil Pickering.

  • In the Development Unit, In the Time of the Butterflies, students investigate the Central Question: “What makes a revolutionary?” Students examine the novel through four lenses to answer how the Mirabal sisters are revolutionary leaders. Examples of texts students study to explore a common line of inquiry include, but are not limited to, an article “When a Dictator Becomes Part of Your Family, Cont’d” by Juleyka Lantigua-Williams and the historical document “Dominican Republic (Document 305) U.S. Relations with the Dominican Republic” by the Office of the Historian, Foreign Service Institute. Students will choose one literary criticism lens through which to construct literary analysis after in-depth exploration of numerous texts developing the theme of the making of a revolutionary.

  • In the Development Unit, Artificial Intelligence, students investigate the Central Question: “How is artificial intelligence affecting our world?” Complex texts students read to examine the common line of inquiry include, but are not limited to, these Grade 12 appropriate texts: an excerpt from “Big Data: Seizing Opportunities, Preserving Values” by the United States Executive Office of the President and a report “Artificial Intelligence and Life in 2030” by Peter Stone.

• Texts build knowledge, vocabulary, and the ability to read and comprehend complex texts across a school year.

  • In the Foundation Unit, How Can I Prepare for Life After High School?, Section 2, Lesson 2, students read “How to Write a High School Resume for College Applications” and “High School Resume: A Step-by-Step Guide” and develop knowledge on the vocabulary associated with completing a college resume. Students work to answer the Central Question: “How Can I Prepare for Life After High School?,” by working together collaboratively with group members on tasks such as writing a resume in Section 2, Lesson 3.

  • In The Development Unit, Community, students focus on cross-genre text sets to answer the question: “What does it mean to belong to a community?”

  • In the Development Unit, Hamlet, students read multiple versions of the same texts to examine the Central Question: “How Many Ways Can the Same Text Be Read?” Students examine the complex classic Hamlet by William Shakespeare as well as articles about Hamlet. The tasks and texts help students to build their knowledge for the culminating task, a literary analysis on a literary criticism about Hamlet.

  • In The Development Unit, In the Time of Butterflies, students read the editorial and letter, “When a Dictator Becomes Part of Your Family” by Juleyka Lantigua-Williams, the poem “Parsley” by Rita Dove, and the historical text “The Mirabals” by the Mirabal Sisters Foundation. The central texts address the theme of what makes a revolutionary to deepen student knowledge around gender, age, and socioeconomic class affecting people living under a dictatorship.

  • In the Development Unit, 1984, texts center around a central theme: “How can stories send messages to societies?” Students read 1984 by George Orwell and examine texts on why the author constructed their piece with “Why I Write” by George Orwell and “George Orwell Explains in a Revealing 1944 Letter Why He’d Write 1984” by Colin Marshall. Each reading examines the messages in Orwell’s writing.

  • In The Development Unit, Artificial Intelligence, students read a large informational topical text set to explore how artificial intelligence affects our world. Central texts students read include, but are not limited to, “The Montreal Declaration: Why We Must Develop AI Responsibly” by Yoshua Bengio, “Fortune Brainstorm Films: Artificial Intelligence” from Fortune Magazine, and an excerpt from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Students consider one controversial issue from the texts to develop an argument.

  • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, students develop knowledge and vocabulary to conduct their own independent research through the use of plans, checklists, and guides. For example, in Section 1, Lesson 1, students learn about the research plan and process for their independent research projects. The materials explain, “Developing a researched perspective gives students the power to accurately assess information themselves and to take charge of their own knowledge.”

The materials reviewed for Grade 12 meet the criteria for Indicator 2b.

Grade 12 materials provide opportunities for students to analyze the author’s word choice, structure, and point of view development as delineated in the grade-level craft and structure standards. Additionally, each unit in the Grade 12 materials includes guiding questions that students track throughout the unit; these questions are present throughout each lesson and within the written materials and tasks. In the independent reading lessons, students read texts related to the anchor texts and use the guiding questions to present their findings on how the texts relate to each other.

Students build knowledge by investigating a topic or anchor text through organized text sets in each unit. Throughout this process, students cite textual evidence and examine themes and complex characterization according to grade-level standards. To support student learning and literacy development, as students develop their projects they examine key ideas and details from texts, use texts to craft definitions of key concepts and themes through close examination of language used by the authors of the core texts read, examine choices made in film adaptations of literature and how these choices affect the overall meaning of the texts, and embed their learning into final products that take key details and structure into account as they compose their final drafts.

The Foundation Unit provides data for teachers to make decisions about the support necessary in future development units and whether students might need additional guidance or differentiation. The scaffolding for students is consistent to support students in grade-level proficiency by the end of the year and to support comprehension of grade appropriate complex texts. By the end of the year, analysis of key ideas, details, craft, and structure are embedded into student tasks and routines.

Materials require students to analyze the key ideas, details, craft, and structure within individual texts as well as across multiple texts using coherently-sequenced, high-quality questions and tasks. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• For most texts, students analyze key ideas and details and craft and structure (according to grade-level standards).

  • The materials contain coherently sequenced questions and tasks that address key ideas and details.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Can I Prepare for Life After High School?, Section 2, Lesson 4, students use the Foundation Unit Research Guide to find two academic sources about their selected learning pathway chosen at the beginning of their projects for the Culminating Activity. These pathways include a four-year university, two-year community college, vocational or technical profession, or the military. Students read the collected materials and answer the following questions:

      • “What information do the texts provide on my pathway?

      • How do the texts help me respond to our guiding questions?

      • How does the information in the texts relate to other texts I have read on the topic?

      • How do I know these texts are credible?

      • How extensive and supported is the information they provide?”

    • Here students explore the key ideas of their pathway found within the text and how this information relates to other resources read as well.

    • In the Development Unit, Community, Section1, Lesson 2, students read the poem “If They Should Come for Us” by Fatimah Asghar to create a Writer’s Rhetorical Toolbox. Before reading the poem, the teacher primes students to create a document to list various writer’s stylistic strategies that they would like to emulate in their own writing. Students use a vocabulary tool to answer questions such as, “What does the context suggest the author means when using the word?” The sequence of questions builds to the cross-analysis of a second poem, “’Where I’m From’: A Crowdsourced Poem That Collects Your Memories of Home,” by Casey Noenickx, Kwame Alexander, and Rachel Martin as students answer: “How does the line you chose to analyze [from ‘If They Should Come for Us’] connect to ‘Where I’m From?’” In Section 1, Lesson 4, students use the Attending to Details Tool when reading “If They Should Come for Us” to answer questions such as: “How did the people in the narrator’s community come to belong in this community?” In Section 2, Lesson 1, students use the Attending to Details Tool when reading Chapter 4, an excerpt from Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance, and consider the question: “What should outsiders understand about Vance’s community?”

    • In the Development Unit, Hamlet, Section 4, Lesson 3, students analyze themes in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Students work to understand the various themes in the play by annotating the text for key ideas and details. As an example, students annotate lines 67–229 to answer the question: “What do these lines reveal about Hamlet’s views on life and death?” Later in the lesson, students extend their analysis to look closely at how Hamlet’s interactions with other complex characters affect the theme and answer the questions:

      • “What does Hamlet reveal to Horatio?

      • What does the revelation reveal about Hamlet’s state of mind?”

  • The materials contain coherently sequenced questions and tasks that address craft and structure.

    • In the Development Unit, Hamlet, students “Write an analytical multiparagraph response based on your literary criticism lens choice,” by identifying specific lines from the play that support their interpretation. In Section 1, Lesson 3, students read and discuss lines 124–137 of Act 1, Scene 2 of Hamlet and answer the following:

      • “How would you describe the structure of the beginning of Act 1, Scene 1?

      • How does the scene with the ghost contribute to the story’s aesthetic impact?

      • Is the decision to start the story with the ghost scene interesting? Why or why not?”

    • In Section 2, Lesson 9, students read and discuss lines 40–50 of Act 3, Scene 3 of Hamlet and answer:

      • “What allusion is in Lines 41–42? What impact does it have on the meaning of the soliloquy?

      • What imagery does Claudius use to describe his crime? What does his use of imagery reveal about his feelings regarding his crime?”

    • Such questions follow a sequence that focuses students on tasks that address the craft and structure of the text. Students use this analysis to help them complete the Culminating Activity described at the beginning of the unit: “Choose one of three literary criticism texts written about Hamlet” and “Write a well-developed, multiparagraph literary analysis essay that defends or challenges a claim from one of the literary criticisms.”

    • In the Development Unit, In the Time of the Butterflies, Section 2, Lesson 3, students reread an excerpt of Chapter 5 from the novel In the Time of Butterflies by Julia Alvarez. Students review the terms: juxtaposition, metaphor, and simile. Students annotate and categorize phrases according to literary device and answer: “How does Alverez’s use of each of these literary devices impact your understanding of the chapter?” In Section 3, Lesson 7, students continue reading the text and annotate for alliteration, simile, and italics.

    • In Section 4, Lesson 12, students read the poem “Parsley” by Rita Dove. During Activity 3, students “Select one line from the poem and do a five-minute quick-write responding to…:”

      • “What stood out to you in the line you chose? Why did you choose that line?

      • Can you make any connections or write any questions about the poem based on the line you chose?”

    • In Activity 4, students build upon this analysis to answer: How does your line connect to In the Time of the Butterflies or other material from this unit? The sequence of questions requires students to examine the craft of the poem in relation to the key ideas of the unit.

    • In the Development Unit, 1984, Lesson 3, Section 3, students examine craft and structure components in George Orwell’s 1984. Students work in literature circles to answer questions such as:

      • “How are Julia and Winston alike? How are they different?

      • What techniques does Orwell use to develop each character into a unique personality?”

    • Such questions address the craft and structure component of point of view and perspective. Students build upon this skill in Section 4, Lesson 4, analyzing how character perspectives change as the plot develops by answering: “How have Winston’s beliefs changed since he was arrested?”

• By the end of the year, these components (language, word choice, key ideas, details, structure, craft) are embedded in students’ work rather than taught directly.

  • In the Development Unit, 1984, students complete a Culminating Activity to create a narrative that sends a powerful message. To support their independent writing, students use the Culminating Task Checklist to complete a series of objectives addressing language, word choice, key ideas, details, structure, and craft, including:

    • “Uses precise words and phrases, telling details, and sensory language to convey a vivid picture of the experiences, events, setting, and characters.

    • Uses narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, description, reflection, and multiple plot lines, to develop experiences, events, and characters.

    • Uses a variety of techniques to sequence events so that they build on one another to create a coherent whole and build toward a particular tone and outcome (e.g., a sense of mystery, suspense, growth, or resolution).

    • Integrates research information into the narrative selectively to maintain the flow of ideas while avoiding plagiarism.”

  • In Section 5, Lesson 3, students construct a story map to format their learning throughout the unit into their narrative writing products. Students “Use the criteria on the checklist and what you have learned over the course of the unit and what you have brainstormed with peers to map the story arc of your narrative.”

  • In The Development Unit, Artificial Intelligence, students complete a culminating task that “respond[s] to a complex ethical question by researching information, identifying perspectives, delineating arguments, developing a personal perspective and position, and writing an evidence-based argument.” By this point in the unit, students are familiar with the evaluation process and were guided in preparing their research and returning to guiding questions encountered in the unit. Students follow a Culminating Task Checklist and rubric to support their planning, pacing, and accountability to embed the required components within their work to demonstrate mastery of unit skills and standards. In Section 1, Lesson 2, students utilize the Attending to Details Tool to note key details as they read “A 6 Minute Intro to AI” by Snips. Students focus on the guiding question: “The website compares AI to a symphony and identifies five different instruments that they believe are the cornerstone instruments of AI. What are the instruments, and what are the reasons given for why they are a cornerstone of AI?” In Section 2, Lesson 2, students read “The Future of Employment: How Susceptible are Jobs to Computerisation?” by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne. Students answer questions such as: “What types of intelligence or skills might lead to a lower probability of machines taking over jobs?”

  • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research, students examine multiple texts to complete independent research. Components of key ideas, details, craft, and structure are embedded in the activities rather than taught directly. In Section 2, Lesson 2, for example, students analyze potential research sources by answering guiding questions that require students to consider how the key ideas and details of the text relate to their research topic and central question.

The materials reviewed for Grade 12 meet the criteria for Indicator 2c.

The Grade 12 materials include questions and tasks to support students’ analysis of knowledge and ideas via sets of coherently sequenced higher-order questions and tasks that require students to analyze the language, knowledge, and ideas within a text or texts to make meaning and to build an understanding of a text or a topic.

Throughout the year, students read a variety of selections for analysis and annotation while investigating a topic. The sequences of text-specific and/or text-dependent questions support students in their ability to analyze across multiple texts and within single texts. The materials juxtapose texts strategically to build student knowledge around a common topic or theme. Lessons build to a unit culminating task or project through which students demonstrate understanding of the core body of knowledge and skills built into the unit. By the end of the year, integrating knowledge and ideas is embedded in student work.

Materials require students to analyze the integration of knowledge and ideas within individual texts as well as across multiple texts using coherently-sequenced, high-quality, text-specific and/or text-dependent questions and tasks. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Most sets of questions and tasks support students’ analysis of knowledge.

  • Sets of questions and tasks provide opportunities to analyze within single texts.

    • In the Development Unit, Community, students focus on cross-genre text sets to answer the Central Question: “What does it mean to belong to a community?” To complete the Culminating Task, students “[w]rite a blended piece (i.e., a mix of narrative, informational, and argumentative elements) that addresses the Central Question and conveys an important message about their community they want outsiders to understand.” In Section 3, Lesson 4, students continue to deepen their understanding of Deresiewicz’s argument while reading “The End of Solitude” by William Deresiewicz. In Lesson 3, students “move from exploring what comprises a community and how those definitions evolve to identifying the rhetorical strategies and stylistic decisions authors use to convey their arguments.” As students read and analyze the text, they answer a series of text-dependent questions, including:

      • “In describing how solitude has been characterized throughout history, Deresiewicz also traces the role technology has played in this evolution, going so far as to call the Internet an ‘incalculable blessing.’ Would you agree with that statement? Why or why not? What role does technology play in community building?

      • ‘Loneliness is not the absence of company, it is grief over that absence.’ Is community building a coping mechanism against loneliness? Does community appease loneliness? Have communities changed over time so people can combat these feelings?”

    • In Section 5, Lesson 1, students read an excerpt from Toni Morrison’s essay, “The Site of Memory,” and select details significant to determine how Morrison feels authors create text and subtext.

    • In the Development Unit, Hamlet, Section 2, Lesson 2, students explore the Central Question of the unit, How many ways can the same text be read?, by examining Act 2, Scene 1 of Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Students focus on the single text and answer the questions:

      • “What task does Lord Polonius assign Reynaldo?

      • What is Polonius’s reasoning?

      • According to Ophelia, how has Hamlet been acting lately?

      • What does Polonius think is the cause?”

    • Students examine Hamlet as a single text and analyze across multiple texts throughout the unit. In Section 3, students analyze gender roles in Act 4 by answering the following:

      • “How are the characters of Ophelia and Gertrude portrayed in the play?

      • What stereotypes do they embody? What stereotypes do they defy?

      • How are they treated by the male characters? What power do they have?”

    • In the Development Unit, 1984, Section 2, Lesson 2, students read the text “George Orwell Explains in a Revealing 1944 Letter Why He’d Write 1984” by Colin Marshall and answer the questions:

      • “What does Orwell fear?

      • What is he optimistic about? What specific examples can you provide from the text to describe his optimism?

      • What does he caution against?

      • What is the tone of the letter? What word choice supports your conclusion?”

    • The sequence of questions provides students the opportunity to analyze an individual piece within a unit.

    • In the Application Unit, Section 2, Lesson 2, students use the Assessing Sources Reference Guide and Potential Sources Tool to develop “a process for determining if a potential source will be useful” by evaluating whether a source is:

      • “interesting and accessible to you as a reader

      • relevant to your inquiry or research and rich in information

      • credible, accurate, and unbiased.”

  • Sets of questions and tasks provide opportunities to analyze across multiple texts.

    • In the Foundation Unit, How Can I Prepare for Life After High School?, Section 2, Lesson 4, students read and annotate academic resources and answer the following sequence of questions:

      • “What information do the texts provide on my pathway?

      • How do the texts help me respond to our guiding questions?

      • How does the information in the texts relate to other texts I have read on the topic?

      • How do I know these texts are credible?

      • How extensive and supported is the information they provide?”

    • In Section 3, Lesson 2, students research the requirements for the top programs of their choice and work in a group to complete the following text-dependent prompts:

      • “Based on my research, I found _____.

      • One thing that excites me most about the postsecondary program I have chosen is _____.

      • One thing that confuses or concerns me about the postsecondary program I have chosen is _____.

      • I need to _____ in order to make myself a better candidate for my postsecondary program of choice.”

    • Here students analyze across multiple texts as the requirements of each program are separate sources.

    • In the Development Unit, In the Time of the Butterflies, Section 3, Lesson 4, students read from the novel In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez to “explore the Marxist and feminist literary criticism lenses, examining how these lenses impact the audience’s understanding of the novel.” During the analysis of the text, students respond to questions such as:

      • “What does the syntax reveal about Mama’s social status in the letter Tio Chiche suggested she write?

      • What does the following sentence reveal about gender power structures: ‘Suddenly, she got her permission to go to law school’?”

    • In the following lesson, Section 3, Lesson 5, students utilize the Feminist Criticism Lens handout and discuss: “What do you think it means to read and analyze literature through a feminist lens?” Students then read and analyze The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein as they record examples that “exemplify the traditional gender roles of men and women.” In Section 4, Lesson 3, students read and annotate “Dominican Republic (Document 305) U.S. Relations with the Dominican Republic” to acquire information about the June 14th Movement. Students also conduct online research to “[f]ind two credible websites or news articles about the June 14th Movement” to prepare for a class discussion that addresses:

      • “What was the June 14th Movement?

      • How does learning about the June 14th Movement help you understand In the Time of the Butterflies?”

    • This task leads to the exploration of how information gained from reading “Dominican Republic (Document 305) U.S. Relations with the Dominican Republic” applies to the discussion question: “How does learning about the June 14th Movement help you understand In the Time of the Butterflies?”

• By the end of the year, integrating knowledge is embedded in students’ work.

  • In the Development Unit, 1984, Section 5, Lesson 1, students synthesize their knowledge from multiple texts to create a final product for the Culminating Task to ”[r]esearch a contemporary issue and write a narrative story to send a message to society” including “a brief literary analysis of your own work, defending your narrative choices and evaluating their effectiveness.” Incorporating multiple sources of information is embedded within the student workflow as they complete the Culminating Task Checklist, including analysis of texts and integration of knowledge as evidenced in prompts such as: Provide an analysis of your work.

  • In the Development Unit, Artificial Intelligence, Section 2, Lesson 6, students build knowledge and consider the questions:

    • “Should our society allow AI to influence human decision-making or make decisions on its own?

    • Can machine learning simulate enough human intelligence and executive functioning to make acceptable decisions? Why or why not?”

  • As students consider these questions, they delineate and evaluate a counterargument to the article “Machine Bias” by Jula Angwin et al. Students utilize the Delineating Arguments Tool and Evaluating Arguments Tool before considering questions relating to five counterclaims including:

    • “What evidence does this article use to counter ‘Machine Bias?’

    • Which argumentative position and supporting claims do you find most convincing? Why?”

  • Students continue to build knowledge connecting to the Central Question with a third subtopic prompt: “Is it possible to protect an individual’s privacy with the rise of artificial intelligence? Why or why not?” Students also read “Big Data: Seizing Opportunities, Preserving Values” by the United States Executive Office of the President, as they consider questions, such as:

    • “What are the pros and cons of perfect personalization?

    • Why is the persistence of data concerning?”

  • The tasks students complete and close analyses of texts around the Central Question: “How is artificial intelligence affecting our world?” which prepare them to “develop an argumentative position in response to a complex issue regarding the impact of artificial intelligence on our society.” In Section 5, students complete the Culminating Task to “develop an argumentative position in response to a complex issue regarding the impact of artificial intelligence on our society…supported by a series of evidence-based claims, including at least one counterargument to an opposing perspective or position.” By the end of the year, the students choose and prepare their own topic of study, returning to guiding questions encountered in the Foundation Unit and throughout the Development Units. Students follow a Culminating Task Checklist and rubric to support their planning, pacing, and accountability to embed the required components within their work to demonstrate mastery of unit skills and standards.

The materials reviewed for Grade 12 meet the criteria for Indicator 2d.

The Grade 12 materials include multimodal and summative unit Culminating Tasks that provide various ways for students to communicate their understanding to smaller peer groups and to the larger learning community. Unit Culminating Tasks are varied and include the following: Narrative Essay/Group Presentation; Fictional, Personal, or Historical Narrative; Literary Analysis; Explanatory Essays; Argumentative Essay; and Portfolio/Group Presentation. Session Diagnostics at the end of each unit section provide formative opportunities to assess student readiness of the discrete skills required to complete each Culminating Task. According to the Program Guide: “Written diagnostics tasks span a range of task types, including literary analysis, argument, narrative, and expository. Oral diagnostics may be tasks done by an individual (e.g., participation in a Socratic Seminar) or in groups (e.g., presentation of an analysis with teammates).”

Culminating tasks require students to demonstrate their knowledge of a unit’s topic/theme through integrated literacy skills. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Culminating tasks are evident across a year’s worth of material and they are multifaceted, requiring students to demonstrate mastery of several different standards (reading, writing, speaking, and listening) at the appropriate grade level. Culminating tasks are varied across the year and provide students the opportunity to demonstrate comprehension and knowledge of a topic or topics through integrated skills (reading, writing, speaking, listening).

  • In the Foundation Unit, How Can I Prepare for Life after High School?, students complete a culminating writing task in the form of an individual portfolio and a narrative reflection that incorporates reading and writing skills. Students address the unit theme by investigating their chosen postsecondary pathway (four-year university, two-year community college, vocational or technical profession, or military) in a research team, and individually create a portfolio of artifacts (resume, Common App essay, sample application, and mock interview) they need to enter into that pathway. Students then write a multi-paragraph reflective narrative that describes their research and explains why they have chosen their postsecondary pathway in response to the following questions:

    • “How can I prepare for life after high school?

    • What academic experiences do I need this year to prepare myself to enter my postsecondary pathway?”

  • In the Development Unit, Community, students compose a Culminating Task that integrates a variety of writing modes such as narrative, informational, literary, expository, or argumentative. Students also engage in a whole-class discussion where they address the central question, “What does it mean to belong to a community?” by answering the following:

    • “How did the texts in this unit help you understand or think about the Central Question?

    • What about this text or topic do you still want to know?

    • What particular topics or texts captured your attention? Why?”

  • In the Development Unit, Hamlet, Section 4, Lesson 6, students complete a Socratic Seminar and Personal Reflection for the Section Diagnostic. Students engage in a student-guided Socratic Seminar to explore how analyzing the play Hamlet through various critical lenses influences their interpretation of the play’s themes. Students engage in an academic discussion addressing the question: “What themes of Hamlet are illuminated when analyzing the play through a psychological lens?” The discussion prepares students for the Culminating Task to write a literary criticism essay about the play and provides teachers with formative data on student understanding. Teachers can use the Section Diagnostic to inform instructional decisions.

  • In the Development Unit, In the Time of Butterflies, Section 4, Lesson 14, students engage in a student-led Socratic Seminar to discuss how the Mirabal sisters are portrayed as revolutionaries in the novel In the Time of Butterflies. To complete this task, students must demonstrate comprehension and knowledge of the topic and integrate reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. The student-facing materials direct students to plan for the Socratic Seminar as follows:

    • “Review the epilogue. Underline the word, phrase, or sentence in the epilogue that resonates with you the most. Then, write two to three open-ended discussion questions in your Learning Log that you would like to discuss during the Socratic Seminar.

    • Ask your discussion questions to keep the conversation going.

    • Use evidence from the text to support your responses.

    • Use a discussion strategy to keep the conversation going.”

  • In the Development Unit, 1984, Section 3, Lesson 12, students complete the Section Diagnostic, a short vignette of a self-identified contemporary problem or issue that focuses on one aspect of their stories (e.g., use of tone, developing setting, staging the problem, use of time) and a brief analysis of the vignette, defending the effectiveness of their narrative choices. In Section 4, Lesson 8, students participate in a Socratic Seminar to explore the question: “How can storytelling be a powerful medium for sending messages to society?” as the Section Diagnostic. For the unit Culminating Task, students research a contemporary issue and write a narrative to send a message to society. Students then write a literary analysis to defend and evaluate the effectiveness of their narrative choices and assemble a writing portfolio. The various tasks provide students with multiple opportunities to demonstrate an understanding of the unit texts they are examining through reading, writing, speaking, and listening.

  • In the Development Unit, Artificial Intelligence, students complete the Culminating Task, an argumentative essay that establishes and supports a position in response to a current issue related to artificial intelligence, choosing from one of the following subtopics:

    • “Subtopic 1 - Job Market: Should people be concerned about the possibility of AI replacing humans in jobs? Will AI create or eliminate jobs? Why or why not?

    • Subtopic 2 - Machine Learning: Should our society allow artificial intelligence to make its own decisions or influence human decision-making? Why or why not?

    • Subtopic 3 - Privacy: Is it possible to protect an individual’s privacy with the rise of artificial intelligence? Why or why not?”

  • The unit Section Diagnostics engages students in various opportunities to demonstrate comprehension and knowledge of the topics through integrated skills. In Section 2, Lesson 10, for instance, students write an analysis of the reading “Why We Should Stop Fetishizing Privacy” by Heidi Messer using the Delineating Arguments Tool. In Section 3, Lesson 5, students create and deliver a presentation to show their research team their findings from the Delineating Arguments Tool and complete the peer review section of their Section 3 Diagnostic Delineating Arguments Tool.

  • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, Section 6, Lesson 1, students work with their research groups to develop an action plan to address the Culminating Task, a presentation to their learning communities that addresses a group-developed inquiry question. Students collaborate in teams to develop and deliver a presentation of their findings to their learning community. Students use the Culminating Task Checklist to assist their completion of the task, which includes the following categories for assessment: Reading & Knowledge Goals, Writing Goals, and Speaking & Listening Goals. Students complete the checklist by answering prompts, such as: “How well does our presentation use visual media and technological tools in an effective way, building the audience’s interest and illuminating our findings?”

• Earlier text-specific and/or text-dependent questions and tasks are coherently sequenced and will give the teacher usable information about the student’s readiness (or whether they are “on track”) to complete culminating tasks.

  • In the Development Unit, Community, Section 2, Lesson 16, students complete the Section Diagnostic, a well-developed, multi paragraph comparative analysis of two texts, which prepares students for the unit Culminating Task, a blended piece containing a mix of narrative, informational, and argumentative elements that describes a community to which the students belong. The Culminating Tasks Connections Section of the Section 2 Diagnostic provides a rationale outlining task coherence as follows:

    • “Students demonstrate their ability to analyze the effectiveness of arguments made by the authors read in this unit. In doing so, students determine what makes an effective argument about community so that they can, in turn, write effectively about their own communities. Additionally, students continue to see ways in which they can model their own writing on the pieces read in this section.”

  • Text-dependent questions throughout the unit lessons prompt students to consider critical ideas and support student readiness to complete the Culminating Task. Examples include:

    • “Which author creates the most compelling portrayal of what it means to be a member of a community?

    • How does the author make their message compelling?”

  • In the Development Unit, Hamlet, Section 1, Lesson 4, students read Hamlet by William Shakespeare and analyze the character Claudius through a political lens. The student-facing materials provide guidance and a series of questions to answer as students read Act 1, Scene 2, Lines 1–41, including:

    • “Why would Claudius marry his dead brother’s wife?

    • What reaction might the royal family have to this hasty marriage during the mourning period? What reaction might the citizens of Denmark have to this hasty marriage during the mourning period?

    • What does Claudius’s reaction to Young Fortinbras reveal about Claudius’s perception of his own power?”

  • Students answer the questions independently before engaging in a discussion, and they utilize the Political Lens Note-Taking Tool to record their thinking and analysis. Additionally, Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition share guidance to further student understanding, including:

    • “From a political perspective, Claudius’s marriage to his dead brother’s wife secures his position as the most powerful person in Denmark. However, this hasty and potentially improper marriage sows deep resentment in the character of Hamlet. It also violates society’s code of conduct for the mourning period and contributes to the sense that ‘something is rotten in the state of Denmark’ (1.4.100).”

  • Teachers may use these opportunities to inform instructional decisions and to assess student understanding of the texts throughout the unit. The various unit readings and lessons provide coherently sequenced questions for consideration that prepare students for the unit Culminating Task to choose one of three literary criticisms of Hamlet and write a well-developed, multi-paragraph literary analysis essay that defends or challenges a claim from one of the critiques.

  • In the Development Unit, In the Time of Butterflies, students complete a literary analysis of the text In the Time of Butterflies by Julia Alverez to analyze “Julia Alvarez’s depictions of the Mirabal sisters through one of the following literary criticism lenses: biographical, feminist, historical, or Marxist.” The materials offer opportunities for students to practice applying critical analysis throughout the unit and assess student readiness before the Culminating Task. In Section 2, Lesson 3, for example, students practice analyzing selections of In the TIme of Butterflies through a historical lens via a series of writing exercises, whole-class discussions, and using the Historical Lens Note-Taking Tool. Teachers may use the tool to assess how well students are identifying and analyzing textual evidence. Subsequently, in Section 3, Lesson 5, students practice using feminist criticism by analyzing The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein utilizing a T-Chart to identify details about the “The Female Tree” and “The Male Character.”

  • In the Development Unit, 1984, Section 4, Lesson 6, students view a commercial by Apple to analyze the influence of the novel 1984 by George Orwell on the commercial and the medium of advertising. Following this discussion, students collaborate in small groups to select an artistic genre (film, television, literature, music, or visual art) and conduct research to find one example from that genre that was influenced by the novel 1984. Guiding questions for this activity are:

    • “What central ideas from the novel did you find?

    • What connection was the artist trying to make between their work and the novel 1984?”

  • To conclude the activity, students write a half-page finding of their summaries, citing at least two sources. Subsequently, in Lesson 8, students perform the Session Diagnostic task to participate in a Socratic seminar in response to the question: “How can storytelling be a powerful medium for sending messages to society?” Students-facing materials direct students to:

    • “Use evidence from the novel as well as other supporting texts you have read to pose new questions, support your responses to your classmates’ questions, and develop a more critical understanding of the themes and ideas found in 1984.”

  • Students use reading and writing skills in the scaffolding activities and reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills to complete the diagnostic task. Moreover, the Lesson 6 activity provides coherent skill development and practice and allows teachers to assess student readiness for both the Session Diagnostic and unit Culminating Task to research a contemporary issue and write a narrative story to send a message to society. novel 1984. Guiding questions for this activity are:

  • “What central ideas from the novel did you find? 

  • What connection was the artist trying to make between their work and the novel 1984?”

To conclude the activity, students write a half-page finding of their summaries, citing at least two sources. Subsequently, in Lesson 8, students perform the Session Diagnostic task to participate in a Socratic seminar in response to the question: “How can storytelling be a powerful medium for sending messages to society?” Students-facing materials direct students to:

• “Use evidence from the novel as well as other supporting texts you have read to pose new questions, support your responses to your classmates’ questions, and develop a more critical understanding of the themes and ideas found in 1984.”

Students use reading and writing skills in the scaffolding activities and reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills to complete the diagnostic task. Moreover, the Lesson 6 activity provides coherent skill development and practice and allows teachers to assess student readiness for both the Session Diagnostic and unit Culminating Task to research a contemporary issue and write a narrative story to send a message to society.

The materials reviewed for Grade 12 meet the criteria for Indicator 2e.

The Grade 12 materials provide writing tasks across the grade level that increase in complexity. The program’s design provides practice through Section Diagnostics to allow teachers to monitor student progress of grade appropriate writing activities and to prepare students for completing the unit summative tasks. The program also offers a final Application Unit as a capstone in which students can follow a self-selected topic of inquiry and apply writing skills they acquire and practice throughout the year. The student-facing materials include guidance as students complete writing tasks, and the teacher-facing materials provide additional support for scaffolding, including opportunities for modeling and using exemplar or model texts students read during the unit. A Literacy Toolbox includes Reference Guides and Tools to support student writing tasks. These tools are incorporated purposefully throughout the course materials.

Students encounter a Culminating Task at the beginning of each unit and perform a series of formal and informal writing activities addressing grade-level standards to build their knowledge and writing skills over the course of each unit. The materials provide students a wide range of writing tasks, including short-response questions, guiding questions, and formative writing opportunities throughout the year. Writing tasks vary in length and purpose and help students to develop their analytical, argumentative, informational, and narrative writing skills. The lessons provide a cohesive design so that students apply and expand the skills they learn from previous lessons to perform on later lessons throughout the units. Culminating tasks walk students through each stage of the writing process and allow students to monitor their progress with rubrics, checklists, and graphic organizers. Writing instruction and assignments scale up in difficulty throughout the year. Writing instruction supports students’ growth in writing skills over the course of the school year, building students’ writing ability to demonstrate proficiency at grade level at the end of the year.

Materials include a cohesive, year-long plan for students to achieve grade-level writing proficiency by the end of the school year. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Materials include writing instruction that aligns to the standards for the grade level and supports students’ growth in writing skills over the course of the school year.

  • In the Development Unit, Community, students complete the Culminating Task during which they write a blended piece using a mixture of narrative, informational, and argumentative writing elements. Lesson Goals for the activity include writing standards that require students to “Appropriately communicate and utilize language in a way that effectively does the following:

    • uses structure and format as a way to enhance the message

    • utilizes rhetorical tools and devices

    • maintains a tone suitable for the topic, situation, and message

    • utilizes language both literally and figuratively.”

  • Students develop their writing throughout the unit through a series of formal and informal writing tasks. In Section 2, Lesson 13, for instance, students write a sentence using a stylistic or rhetorical device used by the authors read in the unit. In Section 3, Lesson 2, students practice writing about community in a positive and negative tone to answer the question, “Does the word community have a positive or negative connotation for you?” These activities build on students’ ability to write and help prepare them for the Culminating Task.

  • In the Development Unit, Hamlet, students complete the Culminating Task, a multi-paragraph literary analysis essay that defends or challenges a claim from one of the literary criticisms of Hamlet studied throughout the unit. Student-facing materials direct student writing as follows:

    • “Support your analysis using a variety of well-selected evidence from Hamlet as well as material from the unit. Logically and sufficiently support your response with evidence from the play and the literary criticism, including direct quotations with parenthetical citations. Apply correct and effective words, phrases, syntax, usage, and mechanics to clearly communicate your analysis. Provide a works cited page with your final product.”

  • Lesson Goals for this activity include writing standards that ask students:

    • “Can I apply correct and effective syntax, usage, mechanics, and spelling to communicate ideas and achieve intended purposes?

    • Can I use effective formatting, style, and citations to present ideas for specific audiences and purposes?”

  • To support student writing development over the course of the unit, students complete a variety of formal and informal writing tasks. In Section 1, Lesson 4, students use the Psychological Lens Note-Taking Tool and Section 1 Question Set to guide them through the textual analysis of the four literary lenses: archetypal, political, psychological, and feminist. In Section 1, Lesson 9, students complete the Section 1 Diagnostic, an analytical multi-paragraph response based on the literary criticism lens of their choosing. This Section Diagnostic supports student writing skills across the school year and prepares them for the unit Culminating Task. Similarly, in Section 5, students complete prewriting activities, including evaluating research strategies, developing an organizational structure, reading a student model, and annotating for features of informative research in preparation for writing their final draft and submitting a peer review and revisions in Lesson 8.

  • In the Development Unit, In the Time of the Butterflies, Section 3, Lesson 10, students complete the Section Diagnostic to write an analytical response about Chapters 7 and 8 of In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez, selecting either a feminist or Marxist critical lens. Lesson Goals for this activity include writing standards directing students to:

    • “Form Claims: How well do I develop and clearly communicate meaningful and defensible claims that represent valid, evidence-based analysis?

    • Use Conventions to Produce Clear Writing: How well do I apply correct and effective syntax, usage, mechanics, and spelling to communicate ideas and achieve intended purposes?

    • Develop Ideas: How well do I use devices, techniques, descriptions, reasoning, and evidence to support and elaborate on coherent and logical explanations?”

  • Students may utilize a Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tool to assist them in creating a claim. Additionally, Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition suggest guidance to support students, such as:

    • “You can also use this diagnostic to gauge student readiness to form claims, support claims with textual evidence, and develop their analyses.”

  • Throughout the unit, the writing tasks align to the standards for the grade level, provide opportunities for teachers to assess student readiness, help students to achieve proficiency with the Culminating Task, and support students’ growth in writing skills over the course of the school year.

  • In the Development Unit, Artificial Intelligence, Section 1, Lesson 13, to prepare for the Section Diagnostic in the subsequent lesson, students form claims and write expository paragraphs answering the question, “Why is it important to have policies and processes that address the ethical and privacy- and security-related implications of artificial intelligence?” The student-facing materials include a reminder to students that they should use materials they have created to prepare for the diagnostic assessment, including the Forming Evidence-Based Claims Tools and Organizing Evidence Tools. After creating a draft, the student materials state, “Our teacher will assess our understanding and skills at this point in the unit.” The activities also include an opportunity for students to reflect on their work and self-assess how prepared they are for the Culminating Task during which they develop an argumentative position addressing the Central Question: “How is artificial intelligence affecting our world?”

• Instructional materials include a variety of well-designed guidance, protocols, models, and support for teachers to implement and monitor students’ writing development.

  • In the Development Unit, Community, Section 3, Lesson 7, students use the mentor text, “The End of Solitude” by William Deresiewicz, as an example in order to write statements that utilize rhetorical appeals. The student-facing materials include instructions to guide students through the process by posing questions, such as “How does he elicit an emotional response from his reader?,” to analyze how Deresiewicz uses rhetorical appeal. Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition provide additional rationale and guidance to support students with the task:

    • “The goal is to provide students a model they can emulate when crafting their own writing. In this case, Deresiewicz—and later, Putnam—provide sound examples of a well-crafted and balanced argument that uses a variety of appeals.”

  • The Teaching Notes also include reminding students to use the Mentor Sentence Journal for future consultation.

  • In the Development Unit, In the Time of the Butterflies, students use a biographical, feminist, historical, or Marxist critical theory lens to answer the question, “How does Julia Alvarez depict the Mirabal sisters as revolutionary leaders in In the Time of the Butterflies?” Teachers monitor students’ writing through a series of tools used to develop students’ ability to critically analyze a text. In Section 3, Lesson 1, for example, students select a biographical or a historical lens to examine In the Time of the Butterflies and complete the Analyzing Relationships Tool using one of two guided questions:

    • “How does In the Time of the Butterflies reflect the setting, events, and people who lived under the Trujillo regime?

    • How are Julia Alvarez’s personal experiences reflected in In the Time of the Butterflies?”

  • In Section 3, Lesson 6, students use the Feminist Lens Note-Taking Tool to answer, “How does the portrayal of the Mirabal sisters as troublemakers exemplify the way women are traditionally depicted in literature?” Here, the materials provide supports and protocols to develop students’ ability to write analytically using a critical theory lens.

  • In the Development Unit, 1984, Section 1, Lesson 13, students complete the Section Diagnostic, a multi-paragraph literary analysis to discuss how central ideas are developed and build one another to produce a complex narrative. The materials include support for teachers to implement and monitor students’ writing development in the Teacher Edition. An example of guidance in the Teacher Edition states:

    • “Instead of telling students how to write, model texts act as examples of quality writing. This instructional strategy follows the “show, don’t tell” writing technique. Students can begin to read like writers by studying how an author writes and determining why the author makes specific writing choices.”

  • In the Development Unit, Artificial Intelligence, students complete the Culminating Task during which they compose an argumentative essay that establishes and supports a position in response to a current issue related to artificial intelligence. Throughout the unit, students and teachers follow the protocols outlined in the Culminating Task Checklist and Culminating Task Progress Tracker to monitor student progress. In Section 3, Lesson 1, students review their Culminating Task Checklist as they develop their positions. In Section 3, Lesson 5, students use the Culminating Task Progress Tracker to reflect on the Section Diagnostic and how well it prepared them to complete the Culminating Task. The Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition indicate:

    • “As their understanding of the unit’s content and their skills mature, students might refine what they have previously noted in the Culminating Task Progress Tracker.”

The materials reviewed for Grade 12 meet the criteria for Indicator 2f.

Grade 12 materials build skills throughout the year, including opportunities for collaborative research, evaluating sources, synthesis and analysis of texts, and applying those skills in a unit-long research project as a capstone for the course. The Program Guide provides details relating to active learning through inquiry: “In the Foundation and Application units, students investigate a topic through recursive and iterative cycles of inquiry in which they work in learning communities to explore significant issues and topics, refine research questions, find and assess sources for relevance and credibility, and present their research in various forms.” Students compile comprehensive research on specific questions during the final Application Unit and present their findings to their learning community. The student-determined text set during the final unit provides students with an opportunity to explore topics they have been learning more deeply and demonstrate the research skills they acquire.

The materials reviewed for this grade level include a progression of research skills according to the grade level standards by providing various opportunities for students to engage in online research and discussion of unit topics and to cite evidence from multiple sources in the Lesson Activities, Section Diagnostics, Culminating Tasks, and Independent Reading Presentations. Students also have the opportunity to synthesize work and analyze content through a variety of tools provided in the materials and are given opportunities to complete research projects of varying lengths. Materials sequence research projects throughout the year to help students progress in their research skills. At the beginning of the year, students begin to practice working in groups in the Foundation Unit with focused guidance from the instructor, and during the Application Unit at the end of the year students work collaboratively in self-directed teams with the instructor acting as coach or facilitator. Materials support teachers in employing projects that develop students’ knowledge of different aspects of a topic. The materials provide guidance and support to teachers, including but not limited to, questions to prompt student thinking, graphic organizers to assist students, and an option for teachers to provide various scaffolds for students.

Materials include a progression of focused research projects to encourage students to develop knowledge in a given area by confronting and analyzing different aspects of a topic using multiple texts and source materials. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Research projects are sequenced across a school year to include a progression of research skills according to grade-level standards.

  • In the Development Unit, Community, Section 2, Lesson 3, students explore the question: What does it mean to belong to a community? Students deepen their knowledge and skills to read and analyze texts through guiding questions and close examination of Chapter 4, an excerpt from the text Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance. The student-facing materials provide questions for student consideration, including:

    • “What is Vance’s perspective? Explain what the details and language tell you about his view of the topic.

    • How accurate, credible, and relevant are the information and ideas presented in Vance’s text?”

  • For the unit Culminating Task in Section 5, students gather ideas and information from multiple resources to respond to the following prompt:

    • “Select and analyze a community you belong to. Write a blended piece (i.e., a mix of narrative, informational, and argumentative elements) in which you respond to the following question: What is the most important message about my community that I want outsiders to understand?”

  • Students utilize a graphic organizer in their planning, adding thoughts on the thesis, the main idea in evidence from a variety of sources, and concluding thoughts. Lessons within the unit present students with various opportunities to research community and the genres and styles of writing students may emulate to complete this writing task.

  • In the Development Unit, 1984, Section 2, the materials represent a progression of research skills as students begin preparing for the Section Diagnostic in Lesson 9. In Lesson 5, students select research partners and topics and examine tips for finding relevant research. In Lesson 6, students evaluate their sources for bias. For the Section Diagnostic in Lesson 9, students “work in pairs to research how a central idea presented in the novel is reflected in contemporary society.”

  • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, in Section 5, Lessons 8–10, students engage in the unit Culminating Task, a final presentation delivered at a community, school, and/or classroom celebration demonstrating mastery of research skills developed across the year. Starting with the Foundation Unit, How Can I Prepare for Life after High School?, students create a research portfolio and narrative reflection for each unit Culminating Task and complete the Grade 12: Application Unit Potential Topics Tool to consider potential topics and questions to explore in the final Application Unit. Through a series of activities that build on skills developed throughout the year, students build their capacity to engage in a class, school, and/or community event celebrating what they learned throughout the year.

• Materials support teachers in employing projects that develop students’ knowledge of different aspects of a topic via provided resources.

  • In the Foundation Unit, How Can I prepare for Life After High School?, Section 2, Lesson 4, students collaborate in groups to research possible pathways for life after high school. The student-facing materials direct students to develop their knowledge from different aspects of the topic as follows:

    • “In your pathway group, individually find two new academic articles, documents, or other texts about your pathway. Use the Foundation Unit Research Guide to assist your research.”

  • In the Development Unit, In the Time of the Butterflies, Section 5, Lesson 5, students engage in a sustained recursive inquiry process as they conduct research to complete the Culminating Task, a literary analysis essay regarding Julia Alvarez’s depictions of the Mirabal sisters through one of the following literary criticism lenses: biographical, feminist, historical, or Marxist. The instructional materials provide a Culminating Task Progress Tracker to help students develop research and note-taking skills, reflect on what they have studied, and consider potential inquiry questions for the final Application Unit. Teachers may use the Culminating Task Progress Tracker to conference with students and guide their questions when monitoring readiness both for the unit Culminating Task and in the initial planning stage of the Application Unit end-of-year research project. In Section 5, Lesson 6, students examine and discuss as a group their understanding of what makes a revolutionary and consider questions they might want to explore to prepare for the final Application Unit. Students discuss possible connections among the unit, other units from the year, and the research they might choose to do in the final Application Unit. The materials also provide an Application Unit Potential Topics Tool for students to capture their reflections, and the teacher materials provide questions and prompts for teachers to support students, such as:

    • “What about each text or topic do you still want to study? What questions do you still have? Write these down in the Questions or Subtopics to Explore column.

    • How would you begin to research each text or topic?”

  • Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition provide additional guidance relating to the Tool and the purpose of the project, for example:

    • “It provides a space in which students can capture their reflections about what they found intriguing in a unit and might want to explore further in the Application Unit.

    • It serves as a repository of leads they might research when they arrive at the Application Unit.”

  • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, Section 2, Lesson 1, students build an initial research frame by generating and grouping inquiry questions to build inquiry paths that will further guide their investigations. To support students in this process, the materials provide a Research Evaluation Checklist and a Research Frame Tool. Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition provide the following rationale and guidance to support students:

    • “The Research Frame Tool urges students to further refine their inquiry. Framing inquiry through inquiry paths allows students to have a plan for comprehensively exploring a topic. At every step of the investigation, students should go back to their research frame and ask themselves what they have learned, what questions they have answered, and what questions they should investigate next based on the results of their investigation at that point.

    • It is important to make it clear that the research frame is not meant to be static. Questions within the inquiry paths might change, become obsolete, or be replaced by new questions. Entire inquiry paths might need to be abandoned or added as well. Even the framing of the Central Research Question might evolve, as students might revise their angle of investigation.”

• Materials provide many opportunities for students to synthesize and analyze content tied to the texts under study as a part of the research process.

  • In the Foundation Unit, How Can I Prepare for Life after High School?, Section 2, Lesson 6, students collaboratively research possible scholarships available for postsecondary pathways. Student-facing materials prompt students to:

    • “Consider the university, institution, or program that you want to enter after high school. Work with a partner from your pathway group to research scholarships that could award aid; share resources with one another.”

  • Students then use a series of research suggestions to help them in their research process:

    • “Vary your search terms. Instead of researching ‘scholarships,’ research ‘engineering scholarships,’ ‘Vanderbilt scholarships,’ ‘scholarship aid for…,’ or ‘aid.’

    • Search for scholarships based on your GPA or ACT and SAT scores.

    • Search for scholarships that could give aid based on athletic merit.”

  • In the Development Unit, Hamlet, Section 3, Lesson 10, students synthesize and analyze the texts using different critical lenses. To complete this task, student-facing materials prompt students as follows:

    • “You will write a well-developed, multi-paragraph literary analysis essay that defends or challenges a claim of the literary criticism. You will support your analysis using a variety of well-selected evidence from Hamlet and any other texts we have read or viewed.”

  • In the Development Unit, Artificial Intelligence, Section 2, Lesson 3, students synthesize information from Lessons 1–3 using their delineation and evaluation of the text “AI Doesn’t Eliminate Jobs, It Creates Them” by Michael Xie and the data and information from “The Future of Employment: How Susceptible are Jobs to Computerisation?” by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne to address the following prompt:

    • “Based on your reading and class discussion, determine your own perspective and position regarding the issue of artificial intelligence’s effect on the job market.”

  • Teaching Notes in the Teacher Edition provide a rationale and guidance for this activity, including:

    • “This timed write provides an opportunity for students to practice and demonstrate their developing abilities to synthesize information across multiple sources and develop a perspective and position based on their reading and analysis.”

  • In Section 5, students research and analyze texts to complete the Culminating Task, an argumentative essay that establishes and supports a position in response to a current issue related to artificial intelligence, choosing from one of the following subtopics: Job Market, Machine Learning, and Privacy. Students read a variety of material within the unit on all of the subtopics and decide which to use as sources for their subtopic and argumentative position. Students analyze and then synthesize the various sources to answer the prompt and develop their position and support it with evidence-based claims, use at least one counterargument refuting an opposing position, and support their claims with evidence from multiple credible sources.

• Students are provided with opportunities for both short and long projects across the course of a year and grade bands.

  • In the Foundation Unit, How Can I Prepare for Life After High School, Section 1, Lesson 2, students participate in a short research project to create group presentations that summarize assigned sections of “The College Payoff: Education, Occupations, Lifetime Earnings” by Anthony P. Carnevale, Stephen J. Rose, and Ban Cheah. Subsequently, in Section 4, Lesson 1, students work on the unit Culminating Task, a longer research project to investigate a postsecondary pathway (e.g., four-year university, two-year community college, vocational or technical profession, or military) in a research team, and individually create a portfolio of artifacts (e.g., resume, Common App essay, sample application, and mock interview) needed to enter into that pathway.

  • In the Development Unit, 1984, students research contemporary issues to complete the unit Culminating Task during which they write both a narrative to send a message to society and a brief literary analysis defending their narrative choices and evaluating their effectiveness. Throughout the unit, students engage in shorter projects to help them develop skills and ideas for the longer Culminating Task. In Section 2, Lesson 9, for example, students work in pairs to research how a central idea presented in the novel, 1984, is reflected in contemporary society. Subsequently, in Section 4, Lesson 8, students participate in a Socratic Seminar where they use evidence from texts read in the section to develop a more critical understanding of the themes and ideas found in 1984.

  • In the Application Unit, What Do I Want to Research?, Section 1, Lesson 1, students discuss the importance of a researched perspective and the research process. Students form small research teams and begin developing their research topics. The teacher discusses each phase of the Research Plan and the Research Portfolio Description section. In Section 1, Lesson 2, students begin the first section of a shorter research project using the Exploring a Topic Tool to identify one or two potential Central Research Questions that may lead to valuable questions and problems to explore for the longer research project that will complete the unit and the grade level materials. Students may choose from any of the prior units: How Can I Prepare for Life after High School?, Community, Hamlet, In the Time of the Butterflies, 1984, and Artificial Intelligence, and from all of the texts and topics within these units. The Application Unit provides students with an opportunity to self-direct their research process, build a research portfolio, and develop a presentation for their learning community that shares their research findings. Tools and Reference Guides students utilize in previous units are available for students in the Literacy Toolbox throughout the unit-long project.

The materials reviewed for Grade 12 meet the criteria for Indicator 2g.

The instructional sequence begins with a Foundation Unit, followed by teacher-selected Development Units, and concludes with an Application Unit. Materials include Model Yearlong Paths as suggested guidance. The Foundation Unit serves as the starting point of student-led inquiry; instructional content addresses a large number of the Reading: Informational Text, Writing, Speaking & Listening, and Language standards. The Development Units include opportunities to revisit these standards and also address the Reading: Literature standards. The Application Unit is the recursive conclusion to students’ inquiry, and instructional content revisits the standards addressed in the Foundation Unit.

As part of the program’s Monitor, Diagnose, Evaluate practice, instruction and assessments are closely linked. Instruction is coherently sequenced, preparing students to respond to standards-aligned, analytical questions and tasks based on the complex texts of study. Questions and tasks are coherently sequenced and prepare students for Section Diagnostics. Each Section Diagnostic builds to the end-of-unit Culminating Task.

Materials spend the majority of instructional time on content that falls within grade-level aligned instruction, practice, and assessments. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Over the course of each unit, the majority of instruction is aligned to grade-level standards.

  • The CCSS Alignment document illustrates coverage of each standard strand. During all three model pathway options, materials address the majority of Reading: Literature, Reading: Informational Text, Writing, Speaking & Listening, and Language standards.

• Over the course of each unit, the majority of questions and tasks are aligned to grade-level standards.

  • As students closely read and analyze complex text, they respond to standards-aligned, text-based questions. Questions and tasks require students to cite textual evidence and draw upon the text to infer what is not explicitly stated. Questions and tasks build to and prepare students for the Section Diagnostic and end-of-unit Culminating Task.

• Over the course of each unit, the majority of assessment questions are aligned to grade-level standards.

  • Section Diagnostics and the end-of-unit Culminating Task align to grade-level standards. Each lesson includes standards-aligned explicit instruction, as well as questions and tasks, that prepares students for the corresponding Section Diagnostic. Each Section Diagnostic prepares students for the Culminating Task.

• By the end of the academic year, standards are repeatedly addressed within and across units to ensure students master the full intent of the standard.

  • The instructional sequence begins with the Foundation Unit, progresses through four Development Units, and ends with the Application Unit. Instruction and assessments within the Foundation Unit and Application Unit address a large number of the Reading: Informational Text, Writing, Speaking & Listening, and Language standards. Development Units revisit these standards and address Reading: Literature standards.