English Language Arts Benchmarks
Standard 1. Meaning and Communication
All students will read and comprehend general and technical material.
1.1. Use reading for multiple purposes, such as enjoyment, learning complex procedures, completing technical tasks, making workplace decisions, evaluating and analyzing information, and pursuing in-depth studies.(Survey: High Test: Medium Priority: High)
1.2. Read with developing fluency a variety of texts, such as novels, poetry, drama, essays, research texts, technical manuals, and documents.(Survey: Low Test: Medium Priority: Medium)
1.3. Selectively employ the most effective strategies to construct meaning, such as generating questions, scanning, analyzing, and evaluating for specific information related to a research question, and deciding how to represent content through summarizing, clustering, and mapping.(Survey: High Test: Medium Priority: Medium)
1.4. Selectively employ the most effective strategies to recognize words as they construct meaning, including the use of context clues, etymological study, and reference materials.(Survey: High Test: Medium Priority: Medium)
1.5. Respond personally, analytically, and critically to a variety of oral, visual, written, and electronic texts, providing examples of how texts influence their lives and their role in society.(Survey: High Test: High Priority: High)
Standard 2. Meaning and Communication:
All students will demonstrate the ability to write clear and grammatically correct sentences, paragraphs, and compositions.
2.1. Write fluently for multiple purposes to produce compositions, such as stories, poetry, personal narratives, editorials, research reports, persuasive essays, resumes, and memos.(Survey: High Test: High Priority: High)
2.2. Recognize and approximate authors' innovative techniques to convey meaning and influence an audience when composing their own texts. Examples include experimentation with time, stream of consciousness, multiple perspectives, and use of complex grammatical conventions.(Survey: High Test: Medium Priority: High)
2.3. Plan, draft, revise, and edit their texts, and analyze and critique the texts of others in such areas as purpose, effectiveness, cohesion, and creativity.(Survey: High Test: Low Priority: Medium)
2.4. Demonstrate precision in selecting appropriate language conventions when editing text. Examples include complex grammatical constructions, sentence structures, punctuation, and spelling.(Survey: High Test: High Priority: High)
Standard 3. Meaning and Communication
All students will focus on meaning and communication as they listen, speak, view, read, and write in personal, social, occupational, and civic contexts.
3.1. Integrate listening, viewing, speaking, reading, and writing skills for multiple purposes and in varied contexts. An example is using all the language arts to complete and present a multi-media project on a national or international issue.(Survey: High Test: Low Priority: Medium)
3.2. Consistently use strategies to regulate the effects of variables on the communication process. An example is designing a communication environment for maximum impact on the receiver.(Survey: High Test: Medium Priority: High)
3.3. Read and write fluently, speak confidently, listen and interact appropriately, view critically, and represent creatively. Examples include speaking publicly, demonstrating teamwork skills, debating formally, performing literature, and interviewing for employment.(Survey: High Test: Low Priority: Medium)
3.4. Consistently use effective listening strategies (e.g., discriminating, assigning meaning, evaluating, and remembering) and elements of effective speaking (e.g., message content, language choices, and audience analysis).(Survey: High Test: Low Priority: Medium)
3.5. Employ the most effective strategies to construct meaning while reading, listening to, viewing, or creating texts. Examples include generating focus questions; deciding how to represent content through analyzing, clustering, and mapping; and withholding personal bias while listening.(Survey: High Test: High Priority: High)
3.6. Determine the meaning of specialized vocabulary and concepts in oral, visual, and written texts by using a variety of resources, such as context, research, reference materials, and electronic sources.(Survey: High Test: Medium Priority: High)
3.7. Recognize and use varied innovative techniques to construct text, convey meaning, and express feelings to influence an audience. Examples include experimentation with time, order, stream of consciousness, and multiple points of view.(Survey: High Test: High Priority: High)
3.8. Analyze their responses to oral, visual, written, and electronic texts, providing examples of how texts affect their lives, connect them with the contemporary world, and transmit issues across time.(Survey: Medium Test: High Priority: High)
Standard 4. Language
All students will use the English language effectively.
4.1. Demonstrate how language usage is related to successful communication in their different spoken, written, and visual communication contexts, such as job interviews, public speeches, debates, and advertising.(Survey: High Test: Low Priority: Medium)
4.2. Use an understanding of how language patterns and vocabularies transmit culture and affect meaning in formal and informal situations. An example is identifying distinctions in the verbal and non-verbal communication behaviors of national or world leaders.(Survey: High Test: Low Priority: Medium)
4.3. Explore and explain how the same words can have different usages and meanings in different contexts, cultures, and communities.(Survey: High Test: Low Priority: Medium)
4.4. Demonstrate ways in which communication can be influenced through word usage. Examples include propaganda, irony, parody, and satire.(Survey: Medium Test: High Priority: High)
4.5. Recognize and use levels of discourse appropriate for varied contexts, purposes, and audiences, including terminology specific to particular fields. Examples include community building, presentations integrating different disciplines, lessons comparing fields of study, promotional material created for an interdisciplinary project, and videos designed to inform or entertain diverse audiences.(Survey: Medium Test: High Priority: High)
Standard 5. Literature
All students will read and analyze a wide variety of classic and contemporary literature and other texts to seek information, ideas, enjoyment, and understanding of their individuality, our common heritage and common humanity, and the rich diversity in our society.
5.1. Select, read, listen to, view, and respond thoughtfully to both classic and contemporary texts recognized for quality and literary merit.(Survey: Medium Test: High Priority: High)
5.2. Describe and discuss archetypal human experiences that appear in literature and other texts from around the world.(Survey: Low Test: High Priority: Medium)
5.3. Analyze how the tensions among characters, communities, themes, and issues in literature and other texts reflect the substance of the human experience.(Survey: Medium Test: High Priority: High)
5.4. Analyze how cultures interact with one another in literature and other texts, and describe the consequences of the interaction as it relates to our common heritage.(Survey: High Test: Low Priority: Medium)
5.5. Analyze and evaluate the authenticity of the portrayal of various societies and cultures in literature and other texts. An example is critiquing print and non-print accounts of historical and contemporary social issues.(Survey: High Test: Low Priority: Medium)
Standard 6. Voice
All students will learn to communicate information accurately and effectively and demonstrate their expressive abilities by creating oral, written, and visual texts that enlighten and engage an audience.
6.1. Assess their use of elements of effective communication in personal, social, occupational, and civic contexts. Examples include use of pacing, repetition, and emotion.(Survey: High Test: Low Priority: Medium)
6.2. Evaluate the power of using multiple voices in their oral and written communication to persuade, inform, entertain, and inspire their audiences.(Survey: High Test: High Priority: High)
6.3. Analyze the style and characteristics of authors, actors, and artists of classics and masterpieces to determine why these voices endure.(Survey: Low Test: High Priority: Medium)
6.4. Document and enhance a developing voice with authentic writings for different audiences and purposes. Examples include portfolios, video productions, submissions for competitions or publications, individual introspections, and applications for employment and higher education.(Survey: High Test: Low Priority: Medium)
Standard 7. Skills and Processes
All students will demonstrate, analyze, and reflect upon the skills and processes used to communicate through listening, speaking, viewing, reading, and writing.
7.1. Use a combination of strategies when encountering unfamiliar texts while constructing meaning. Examples include generating questions; scanning for specific information related to research questions; analyzing tone and voice; and representing content through summarizing, clustering, and mapping.(Survey: High Test: High Priority: High)
7.2. Monitor their progress while using a variety of strategies to overcome difficulties when constructing and conveying meaning, and demonstrate flexible use of strategies across a wide range of situations.(Survey: High Test: Medium Priority: High)
7.3. Reflect on their understanding of literacy, assess their developing ability, set personal learning goals, create strategies for attaining those goals, and take responsibility for their literacy development.(Survey: Low Test: Low Priority: Low)
7.4. Demonstrate flexibility in using strategies for planning, drafting, revising, and editing complex texts in a variety of genre, and describe the relationship between form and meaning. Examples include preparing text for publication and presentation and using strategies appropriate for purposes, such as editorializing an opinion, and developing and justifying a personal perspective on a controversial issue.(Survey: High Test: Medium Priority: High)
Standard 8. Genre and Craft of Language:
All students will explore and use the characteristics of different types of texts, aesthetic elements, and mechanics (including text structure, figurative and descriptive language, spelling, punctuation, and grammar) to construct and convey meaning.
8.1. Identify and use selectively mechanics that facilitate understanding. Examples include organizational patterns, documentation of sources, appropriate punctuation, grammatical constructions, conventional spelling, and the use of connective devices, such as transitions and paraphrasing an oral message completely and accurately.(Survey: High Test: High Priority: High)
8.2. Describe and use characteristics of various narrative genre and complex elements of narrative technique to convey ideas and perspectives. Examples include use of symbol, motifs, and function of minor characters in epics, satire, and drama.(Survey: High Test: High Priority: High)
8.3. Describe and use characteristics of informational genre (e.g., manuals, briefings, documentaries, and research presentations) and complex elements of expository texts (e.g., thesis statement, supporting ideas, and authoritative and/or statistical evidence) to convey ideas.(Survey: High Test: High Priority: High)
8.4. Identify and use aspects of the craft of the speaker, writer, and illustrator to formulate and express their ideas artistically. Examples include imagery, irony, multiple points of view, complex dialogue, aesthetics, and persuasive techniques.(Survey: High Test: High Priority: High)
8.5. Describe and use the characteristics of various oral, visual, and written texts (e.g., debate, drama, primary documents, and documentaries) and the textual aids they employ (e.g., prefaces, appendices, lighting effects, and microfiche headings) to convey meaning and inspire audiences.(Survey: High Test: High Priority: High)
Standard 9. Depth of Understanding:
All students will demonstrate understanding of the complexity of enduring issues and recurring problems by making connections and generating themes within and across texts.
9.1. Analyze and reflect on universal themes and substantive issues from oral, visual, and written texts. Examples include human interaction with the environment, conflict and change, relationships with others, and self-discovery. (Survey: Low Test: High Priority: Medium)
9.2. Synthesize from multiple texts representing varied perspectives, and apply the principles and generalizations needed to investigate and confront complex issues and problems.(Survey: High Test: High Priority: High)
9.3. Develop and extend a thesis by analyzing differing perspectives and resolving inconsistencies in logic in order to support a position.(Survey: High Test: High Priority: High)
Standard 10. Ideas in Action:
All students will apply knowledge, ideas, and issues drawn from texts to their lives and the lives of others.
10.1. Use themes and central ideas in literature and other texts to generate solutions to problems and formulate perspectives on issues in their own lives.(Survey: High Test: High Priority: High)
10.2. Function as literate individuals in varied contexts within their lives in and beyond the classroom. Examples include using text resources while thinking creatively, making decisions, solving problems, and reasoning in complex situations.(Survey: High Test: Low Priority: Medium)
10.3. Utilize the persuasive power of text as an instrument of change in their community, their nation, and the world. Examples include identifying a community issue and designing an authentic project using oral, written, and visual texts to promote social action.(Survey: High Test: Low Priority: Medium)
Standard 11. Inquiry and Research: All students will define and investigate important issues and problems using a variety of resources, including technology, to explore and create texts.
11.1. Generate questions about important issues that affect them or society, or topics about which they are curious; narrow the questions to a clear focus; and create a thesis or a hypothesis.(Survey: High Test: Low Priority: Medium)
11.2. Determine, evaluate, and use resources that are most appropriate and readily available for investigating a particular question or topic. Examples include knowledgeable people, field trips, prefaces, appendices, icons/headings, hypertext, menus and addresses, Internet and electronic mail, CD-ROM/laser disks, microfiche, and library and interlibrary catalogue databases.(Survey: High Test: Low Priority: Medium)
11.3. Synthesize and evaluate information to draw conclusions and implications based on their investigation of an issue or problem.(Survey: High Test: Low Priority: Medium)
11.4. Research and select the medium and format to be used to present conclusions based on the investigation of an issue or problem. Examples include satire, parody, multimedia presentations, plays, and mock trials.(Survey: High Test: Low Priority: Medium)
Standard 12. Critical Standards: All students will develop and apply personal, shared, and academic criteria for the enjoyment, appreciation, and evaluation of their own and others' oral, written, and visual texts.
12.1. Apply sets of standards for individual use according to the purpose of the communication context. An example is comparing and contrasting standards in the evaluation of a popular movie, television program, article, or presentation on the same topic.(Survey: High Test: Low Priority: Medium)
12.2. Analyze and apply individual, shared, and academic standards in various contexts.(Survey: High Test: Low Priority: Medium)
12.3. Use literary history, tradition, theory, terminology, and other critical standards to develop and justify judgments about the craft and significance of oral, visual, and written texts.(Survey: High Test: Low Priority: Medium)
12.4. Create a collection of personal work based on individual, shared, and academic standards, justifying judgments about the craft and significance of each selection.(Survey: Medium Test: Low Priority: Medium)
12.5. Apply diverse standards (e.g. rhetorical and societal) to evaluate whether a communication is truthful, responsible, and ethical for a specific context.(Survey: High Test: Low Priority: Medium)