Page 186 - The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 11 and 12: English, 2007 (Revised)

explored in the texts (e.g., write an anecdote to explain a feeling of personal connection to a character or event in a text; create a website for a character from a play; create a cartoon strip to depict an important scene from a text; develop questions to ask in a mock TV interview with a fictional character; develop a dialogue between two fictional characters who meet twenty years into the future; retell an incident from a text in the style of a newspaper report and/or an elec- tronic text message; write a letter to a classmate reflecting on questions they thought of while reading a text; keep a graphic record, such as a scrapbook, of personal reactions to ideas from texts)
Teacher prompts: “Is the situation the charac- ter faces similar to anything you have experi- enced? In what way?” “After your book club meeting, what new questions did you have about the novel?“
Exploring Background Information
2.2 use information from secondary sources to understand how historical, political, and cul- tural contexts influence the presentation of ideas, issues, and themes in texts (e.g., create a timeline that includes events in a text and real- world events at the time and place of writing, and relate the subject matter of the text to its real-world context; use evidence from advertise- ments, songs, or movies from the time when a text was written to make inferences about the cultural and social values of the time)
Teacher prompts: “Does knowing the histori- cal background change your understanding of some of the conflicts in the text?” “What major themes emerged when you read vari- ous texts on the same topic?”
Analysing Texts
2.3 analyse texts in terms of the information, ideas, issues, and themes they explore, provid- ing evidence from the texts to support their analysis (e.g., participate in a debate about whether a character in a play acted correctly to resolve a moral dilemma; identify appropriate actors for the different characters in a film adap- tation of a story and justify their choices using evidence from the text; adopt the persona of a character from a short story to write a journal entry dated five years after the story ends; deter- mine whether a piece of humorous writing has a serious purpose, describing its themes and the issues it addresses; select a short piece of prose or poetry and create a series of tableaux to illus- trate its theme)
Teacher prompts: “What details in the text would you use to explain your character analysis to your classmates?” “Is there more than one possible interpretation of this character’s actions? What clues can you find in the text that support the different interpretations?”
Text Forms
2.4 explain how the characteristics of different text forms help communicate meaning in a variety of literary texts (e.g., explain how the conven- tions of the science fiction and the romance genres influence the endings of a short story of each type; explain how the organizational pat- tern of a poem helps communicate the theme)
Teacher prompt: “What similarities and differ- ences are there in the way short stories and narrative poems are written? How can we use this information about form to help us understand works of both types?”
Elements of Style
2.5 identify various elements of style used in texts and explain how they help communicate meaning and enhance the effectiveness of the text (e.g., compare the openings of two novels in terms of tone, mood, atmosphere, and style and make predictions about genre, theme, type of action, and characterization based on this pre- view; identify clues in the dialogue in a text that provide information about the social class and personality traits of the characters; compare a serious report of an incident with a parody or comic depiction of the event and describe how the different voices used in the two versions affect their perception of the event; identify and explain the effect of rhetorical devices used in song lyrics; identify the rhetorical devices and strategies used in a famous persuasive speech)
Teacher prompts: “When do you think it would be effective and appropriate to use slang in a literary text?” “What does the dia- logue reveal about this character?” “What rhetorical devices are used most effectively by your favourite singer/songwriter? How are they similar to those used by another writer you are studying in the course?”
3. Critical Literacy
By the end of this course, students will:
The Author’s Perspective
3.1 demonstrate an understanding of how an author’s writing has been influenced by factors such as gender, time period, cultural
STUDIES IN LITERATURE
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Studies in Literature
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