English

9th Grade: 9th grade English introduces students to more advanced rhetorical strategies, which will be applied to both personal endeavors as students become active consumers of media and academic sources of analysis. Students will use the language of rhetoric to engage with writing as a process that requires asking questions of genre, audience, and purpose. Students will also explore the various ways in which messages persuade by learning about ethos, pathos, and logos and using rhetorical appeals to guide their analyses of speeches and written works. To achieve this aim, students will read and listen to speeches by well-known orators, as well as popular TED talks. In addition to analytical writing, students will write personal narratives, research-based informative essays, and persuasive essays aligned with individual interests and, therefore, motivated by personal curiosity. There is an additional emphasis on integrating vocabulary and grammar as students engage new vocabulary in context by applying it to new sentence structures. New sentence patterns, grammar work, and vocabulary serve the dual purpose of enriching students’ readings and promoting increasingly sophisticated skills in writing. By engaging a variety of literary genres, the course aims to provide students with an opportunity to identify themes in texts by formulating opinions, supporting claims with reasons, and recognizing and using figurative language.

 

10th Grade: 10th-grade English builds on the skills learned in the 9th-grade curriculum by asking students to engage in more complex analytical writing activities. This includes more purposeful efforts in the writing process, such as brainstorming and invention, peer editing and review strategies, and the technical aspects of citations, formatting, and formal research. Students will understand that good writers revise, edit, and produce multiple drafts; they will reflect on personal strengths and weaknesses as writers and readers, and they will look more closely at the ways in which authors’ tone and purpose work to establish distinct moods in literature. Through independent and in-class readings, students can identify themes in texts and relate them to themselves and others. To support efficient learning strategies, students will practice effective note-taking and annotation strategies and hone skills in differentiating between main ideas and supporting details. Students will also compare & contrast the effects of literary elements in different texts and establish relationships between similar and disparate elements through analysis and inference. Vocabulary will be introduced in context, focusing on syntax and style. 

 

11th Grade: Language Arts and Literature in eleventh grade places a great deal of emphasis on essay writing, critical thinking skills, and preparation for high-stakes college entry exams. The writing focuses include drafting personal statements and admissions essays for college and seminary applications, resumes and CVs, cover letters, and thesis-based research essays driven by student interest. In 11th-grade English, students engage in more rigorous analytical work by consistently responding to literature in writing and integrating research with attention to style. Furthermore, students will learn distinctions between MLA and APA styles, the most commonly used style and formatting guidelines in college and university-level courses. Course readings are chosen for the explicit purpose of analyzing intertextuality, or how literature produced in different periods correlates to texts that came before. Through the readings, students can make connections between the literature emerging from the Old English and Medieval Period, the Renaissance, and Modern and Postmodern socio-cultural contexts. Students will continue to identify themes in texts, and they will work to formulate original, sophisticated opinions that claim with reasons they can support. Additionally, students will work with complex and classical poetic forms, which will introduce more complex poetic conventions. To promote students’ success on college entrance exams, students will learn new SAT vocabulary and continue practicing diverse sentence structures through assessment and writing. 

 

12th Grade: The components of the course, as in previous years, are based on developing students’ skills as writers, readers, and thinkers. In the twelfth grade, students are encouraged and expected to demonstrate both mastery of the knowledge and skills taught in previous years, as well as demonstrate the ability to independently analyze literature that is simultaneously interesting and challenging to them. Students will focus on broadening their scope of analytical inquiry through literary analysis and becoming purposeful writers with distinct voices and styles. Technical skills, such as listening for academic purposes, reinforcing personalized note-taking strategies, and synthesizing previous knowledge with original commentary, are key elements of 12th-grade English and are further developed through collaborative learning strategies and peer review activities common in university and college-level writing courses. 

 

AP Literature (11th & 12th grade): In the AP English Literature and Composition course, students study literary works written in—or translated into—English. Careful reading and critical analysis of such works of fiction, drama, and poetry provide rich opportunities for students to develop an appreciation of ways literature reflects and comments on a range of experiences, institutions, and social structures. Students will examine the choices literary writers make and the techniques they utilize to achieve purposes and generate meanings. Students develop the skills of literary analysis and composition as they repeatedly practice analyzing poetry and prose and then compose arguments about an interpretation of a literary work. Texts in this course include The Odyssey, Macbeth, The Taming of the Shrew, The House of the Spirits, Beloved, and The Things They Carried.

 

AP Language and Composition (11th & 12th Grade): The AP English Language and Composition course focuses on the development and revision of evidence-based analytic and argumentative writing, the rhetorical analysis of nonfiction texts, and the decisions writers make as they compose and revise. Students evaluate, synthesize, and cite research to support their arguments. Additionally, they read and analyze rhetorical elements and their effects in nonfiction texts—including images as forms of text— from a range of disciplines and historical periods. Exemplary authors include Kurt Vonnegut, Stephen King, and Anne Lammot. Students will also analyze the rhetorical success of orators and thinkers like Martin Luther King Jr., Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Virginia Woolf, and others.

 

Dual Enrollment Coursework

Sha'arei Bina is working to meet the increasingly competitive demands of post-high school education by offering dual enrollment courses in partnership with Florida International University, Miami-Dade College, and Broward College. 

 

Dual enrollment promotes students' success by familiarizing them with the demands of college coursework across various disciplines, promoting student agency & time management, and - in the case of FIU courses - providing support for qualified SBTAG educators via co-curricular development, mentorship, and resources.

 

Dual enrollment is an ideal option for students seeking more demanding coursework in general studies to earn credit for Florida colleges and universities.

 

Dual Enrollment English 

Sha’arei Bina proudly offers Dual Enrollment courses in Writing & Composition 1101 & 1102. ENC 1101 focuses on writing across multiple genres with a strong focus on rhetorical awareness. 

 

ENC 1102 builds on skills from the 1101 course to teach students the importance of responsible research practices as part of the writing process and to develop writing skills for digital platforms. Both courses emphasize the role of social responsibility and informed citizenship as driving forces for learning and inquiry.