This course is designed to help students acquire and demonstrate the cross-curricular literacy skills that are evaluated by the Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test. Students who complete the course successfully will meet the provincial literacy requirement for graduation. Students will read a variety of informational, narrative, and graphic texts and will produce a variety of forms of writing, including summaries, information paragraphs, opinion pieces, and news reports. Students will also maintain and manage a literacy portfolio containing a record of their reading experiences and samples of their writing.
The overall expectations are as follows:
| 1. Building Reading Skills | |
| 1.1 | Demonstrate understanding of the organizational structure and features of a variety of informational, narrative, and graphic texts, including information paragraphs, opinion pieces, textbooks, newspaper reports and magazine stories, and short fiction; |
| 1.2 | Demonstrate understanding of the content and meaning of informational, narrative, and graphic texts that they have read using a variety of reading strategies; |
| 1.3 | Use a variety of strategies to understand unfamiliar and specialized words and expressions in informational, narrative, and graphic texts. |
| 2. Building Writing Skills | |
| 2.1 | Demonstrate the ability to use the writing process by generating and organizing ideas and producing first drafts, revised drafts, and final polished pieces to complete a variety of writing tasks; |
| 2.2 | Use knowledge of writing forms, and of the connections between form, audience, and purpose, to write summaries, information paragraphs, opinion pieces (i.e., series of paragraphs expressing an opinion), news reports, and personal reflections, incorporating graphic elements where necessary and appropriate. |
| 3. Understanding and Assessing Growth in Literacy | |
| 3.1 | Demonstrate understanding of the importance of communication skills in their everyday lives – at school, at work, and at home; |
| 3.2 | Demonstrate understanding of their own roles and responsibilities in the learning process; |
| 3.3 | Demonstrate understanding of the reading and writing processes and of the role of reading and writing in learning; |
| 3.4 | Demonstrate understanding of their own growth in literacy during the course. |
| Time Allocated | Online/Offline Component | |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Unit 1: Reading | ||
This unit will focus on developing students’ reading skills through active reading strategies. Students will read a variety of self-selected and teacher selected texts. | 12hrs | 6 Online/ 6 Offline |
| 2. Unit 2: Newspaper Writing | ||
In this unit students will learn to read, write and analyze newspaper articles and complete newspapers. | 18hrs | 9 Online / 9 Offline |
| 3. Unit 3: Informational Texts + Graphic Texts | ||
In this unit students will learn to read, write and critically analyze informational texts and graphic texts. | 24hrs | 12 Online / 12 Offline |
| 4. Unit 4: Opinion Essays | ||
In this unit, students will learn to identify opinion pieces with supporting evidence and learn to form and support their own opinions. | 24hrs | 12 Online/ 12 Offline |
| 5. Unit 5: Summary Writing + Reading | ||
In this unit, students will learn to effectively summarize a variety of narrative, informational and graphic texts. | 29 hrs | 14 Online / 15 Offline |
| 6. Final Evaluation | ||
Final Exam | 3 hours (1.5 hr sessions) | Online |
| Total | 110 Hours | |
This course is organized into a semester format. Lessons and activities will be presented to students via the internet. Synchronous lessons will be provided through live online teaching and lessons, and student to student discussion forums.
A variety of strategies will be used in the online delivery of this course. Instructional strategies will include but are not limited to:
Learning goals will be discussed at the beginning of each assignment and success criteria be provided to students. The success criteria are used to develop the assessment tools in this course, including rubrics and checklists.
A variety of assessment and evaluation methods, strategies and tools are required as appropriate to the expectation being assessed. These include diagnostic, formative and summative within the course and within each unit. We strictly follow the Ministry of Education’s Growing Success document.
Assessment FOR Learning and Assessment AS Learning is obtained through a variety of means, including the following:
Evidence of student achievement (assessment OF learning) is collected through ongoing observations of most consistent work, with consideration given to most recent work from various sources.
Assessment and evaluation in this course will be based on the provincial Ontario Curriculum expectations. Students will be provided with numerous and varied opportunities to demonstrate the full extent of their achievement. Categories of assessment and breakdowns are as follows:
A final grade will be determined as follows:
Students with special needs and English Language Learners will be provided with accommodation, including additional time, assistive technology and scribe where available. Teachers who are planning a program in this subject make an effort to take into account considerations for program planning that align with the Ontario Ministry of Education policy and initiatives in a number of important areas.
Learning Skills listed below are key to student success. Learning Skills are assessed independently of achievement and are determined through observation and participation. A checklist and student conference will be used to determine the level in each category.
This course will be entirely administered online, with most resources being available for free. You may choose to purchase a hard copy of the following books:
$549.00
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