Grade 12 Expository Reading and Writing(ERWC) Essential Outcomes What’s Next? Thinking About Life After High School

What is ERWC? The ERWC (Expository Reading and Writing Course) is a college preparatory, rhetoric-based English language arts course for grade 12 designed to develop academic literacy (advanced proficiency in rhetorical and analytical reading, writing, and thinking). The ERWC also offers curriculum for grades 7-11, with four extended modules per grade level.

What does it mean to read rhetorically? Today we use the term to refer to all the techniques a writer or speaker might use to influence readers or listeners and modify their understanding of a subject.

Performance Tasks To generate a portfolio that documents their research and findings about potential paths after high school • To write a final personal application letter for college or a letter of introduction to a work community

Module Objectives In addition to the focus on Common Core State Standards, the module targets the skill areas listed below. Students will be able to: • Become familiar with college and career expectations for reading independently • Become familiar with the intellectual habits necessary for success in college and careers, including curiosity, openness, engagement, creativity, persistence, flexibility, responsibility, and metacognition • Organize information from online research and textual study for use in developing writing

Essential Outcomes • Generate questions about ideas, arguments, analyses, perspectives, or the rhetorical presentation of text for the purpose of making an informed response to what others say • Apply the rhetorical framework to reading and writing situations • Manage information gathered through reading in preparation for writing • Develop academic vocabulary through reading and writing • Understand writing as a situated process of decision-making grounded in rhetorical contexts • Understand writing as a response to an audience, situation, or intention • Apply writing as the development of thought rather than the representation or ornamentation of thought • Write prose that is coherent, clear, and organized • Write sentences that demonstrate variety

Skills Addressed Making Predictions and Asking Questions Understanding Key Vocabulary Surveying the Text Writing in a Dialectical Journal Synthesizing, Summarizing and Responding Summarizing Research Findings Several AVID Strategies are used: Marking the Text, Writing IN The MarGIns, Rhetorical Precis, Identifying Key Vocabulary

ERWC: Key Principles Key Principles of an Effective Expository Reading and Writing Curriculum The integration of interactive reading and writing processes; A rhetorical approach to texts that fosters critical thinking and engagement through a relentless focus on the text; Materials and themes that engage student interest; Classroom activities designed to model and foster successful practices of fluent readers and writers; Research-based methodologies with a consistent relationship between theory and practice; Built-in flexibility to allow teachers to respond to varied students' needs and instructional contexts; and Alignment with the California Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy