High School

Language Arts Benchmarks  

 

Michigan Teacher Network

 

Standard 1, 2, 3 Meaning and Communication

All students will read and comprehend general and technical material.

All students will demonstrate the ability to write clear and grammatically correct sentences, paragraphs, and compositions.

All students will focus on meaning and communication as they listen, speak, view, read, and write in personal, social, occupational, and civic contexts.

  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.

  2. Read with developing fluency a variety of texts, such as novels, poetry, drama, essays, research texts, technical manuals, and documents.

  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.

  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.

  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.  

Standard 2 Meaning and Communication

  1. Write fluently for multiple purposes to produce compositions, such as stories, poetry, personal narratives, editorials, research reports, persuasive essays, resumes, and memos.

  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.

  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.

  4. Demonstrate precision in selecting appropriate language conventions when editing text. Examples include complex grammatical constructions, sentence structures, punctuation, and spelling.  

Standard 3 Meaning and Communication

  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.

  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.

  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.

  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).

  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 p

  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.

  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.

  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.

 

Standard 4. Language
All students will use the English language effectively.

  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.

  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.

  3. Explore and explain how the same words can have different usages and meanings in different contexts, cultures, and communities.

  4. Demonstrate ways in which communication can be influenced through word usage. Examples include propaganda, irony, parody, and satire.

  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.

 

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 of our society.

  1. Select, read, listen to, view, and respond thoughtfully to both classic and contemporary texts recognized for quality and literary merit.
  2. Describe and discuss archetypal human experiences that appear in literature and other texts from around the world.
  3. Analyze how the tensions among characters, communities, themes, and issues in literature and other texts reflect the substance of the human experience.
  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.
  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.

 

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.

  1. Assess their use of elements of effective communication in personal, social, occupational, and civic contexts. Examples include use of pacing, repetition, and emotion.

  2. Evaluate the power of using multiple voices in their oral and written communication to persuade, inform, entertain, and inspire their audiences.

  3. Analyze the style and characteristics of authors, actors, and artists of classics and masterpieces to determine why these voices endure.

  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.

 

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.

  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.
  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.
  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.

  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.

 

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.

  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.

  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.
  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.
  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.

 

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.

  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.

  2. Synthesize from multiple texts representing varied perspectives, and apply the principles and generalizations needed to investigate and confront complex issues and problems.

  3. Develop and extend a thesis by analyzing differing perspectives and resolving inconsistencies in logic in order to support a position.

 

Standard 10. Ideas in Action
All students will apply knowledge, ideas, and issues drawn from texts to their lives and the lives of others.

  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.

  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.

  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.

 

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.

  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.

  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.

  3. Synthesize and evaluate information to draw conclusions and implications based on their investigation of an issue or problem.

  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.

Standard 12. Critical Standards
All students will develop and apply personal, shared, and academic criteria for the employment, appreciation, and evaluation of their own and others' oral, written, and visual texts.

  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.
  2. Analyze and apply individual, shared, and academic standards in various contexts.
  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.
  4. Create a collection of personal work based on individual, shared, and academic standards, justifying judgments about the craft and significance of each selection.
  5. Apply diverse standards (e.g. rhetorical and societal) to evaluate whether a communication is truthful, responsible, and ethical for a specific context.

 

Other Resources: Michigan Teacher Network.

Compiled by Imad Fadlallah, Stout Middle School, February 2002