Page 86 - The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 11 and 12: English, 2007 (Revised)

Teacher prompts: “How have discussions with your peers and family about your research project helped you progress with it?” “What does plagiarism mean, and why do you think people plagiarize? Why is it wrong?”
Organizing Ideas
1.4 identify, sort, and order main ideas and supporting details for writing tasks, using several different strategies and organizational patterns suited to the content and the purpose for writing (e.g., in small groups, cluster key ideas to develop an agenda for a meeting of the yearbook committee; use a storyboard to order elements chronologically for a comic strip;3 use a form such as a T-chart to list and to compare and contrast the qualities of two products, in preparation for writing a report recommending one of the products over the other)
Teacher prompts: “What criteria are you using to determine the most important items for your agenda and the ‘supporting ideas’ that would be discussed under each item?” “What ele- ments would you put on a labelled diagram to explain how a DVD player works?”
Reviewing Content
1.5 determine whether the ideas and information gathered are relevant to the topic, sufficient for the purpose, and meet the requirements of the writing task (e.g., skim their notes to pinpoint the ideas and information most relevant to their topic, marking them with sticky notes, and then determine if any important information is missing)
Teacher prompts: “Is your information com- plete, and does it represent all relevant per- spectives? If not, what further research could you do to minimize gaps?” “What information from your survey of the summer job experi- ences of your peers will help you to design your résumé?”
2. Using Knowledge of Form and Style
By the end of this course, students will:
Form
2.1 write for different purposes and audiences, using several different informational, graphic, and literary forms (e.g., a magazine article about a human interest story; a poem, based on the model of a poem studied in class; a supported opinion, in the form of a letter to the editor, about gender stereotyping in the media; an illustrated short story or poem for preschool children)
Teacher prompt: “You’ve been asked to tell this human interest story in a magazine arti- cle. In what other forms have you encoun- tered human interest stories? In what ways would a news report differ from a magazine article on the story?”
Voice
2.2 establish an identifiable voice in their writing, modifying language and tone to suit the form, audience, and purpose for writing (e.g., use the appropriate level of language, including slang or jargon, to create a rap; use vivid descriptive lan- guage to create a particular mood or tone in a poem; use a businesslike tone and an appropriate level of language in a memo to staff about emer- gency evacuation procedures in case of a fire)
Teacher prompt: “Pretend you are writing an advertisement. How can you make the voice distinctive, so that the ad will be memorable?”
Diction
2.3 use appropriate descriptive and evocative words, phrases, and expressions to make their writing clear and vivid for their intended audience (e.g., describe a location in some detail; make a list of active verbs that could depict a character’s way of walking or talking, and choose the most evocative ones to use in a descriptive paragraph4)
Teacher prompts: “Which of the descriptions in this piece of writing could be more vivid?” “How does a good description affect you? Can you visualize the scene, or feel the character’s emotions as a result of the description?”
Sentence Craft and Fluency
2.4 write complete sentences that communicate their meaning clearly and accurately, varying sentence type, structure, and length for different purposes and making logical transitions between ideas (e.g., combine short sentences, where appropriate, to clarify meaning and improve flow; use transitional words to show the relationship between the ideas in
two or more sentences5)
Teacher prompt: “Are you using the same few transitional words over and over? Make a list of transitional words, and keep it handy for future reference.”
3. TLE 10-12 “Reading Different Text Forms” 36 4. TLE 10-12 “Sentence Starters” 46 5. TLE 10-12 “Revising and Editing: The Verb ‘To Be’” 56
WRITING
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English
ENG3E