OLC4O

The unit builds on diagnostic and formative assessments of reading and writing to evaluation of reading and writing. Students examine their reading habits, strategies, and attitudes, and review and apply stages of the writing process to produce required forms of writing. Students have multiple opportunities to practice their skills and strategies, receive feedback as they build their reading and writing skills. They are encouraged to take personal responsibility for their learning. The structure of daily classes is established as students engage in independent reading, and cross-curricular work. They set goals and reflect about their reading and writing skills in the learning journal. The emphasis in this unit is on graphic texts, which are examined in students’ course materials as well as in their reading outside of school.

Students broaden their focus from reading and writing for personal purposes, to understanding the many ways that reading and writing help to create and maintain vital communities. Students define community and start by examining the variety of reading and writing forms used in their school to create a school community. They apply reading strategies to understand a variety of community publications, including news reports, and write their own new reports that reflect community concerns and interests. Students find and discuss the stories that are important to their community and use their understanding of narrative texts and demonstrate their understanding of the community issues and values reflected in these. They also examine the relationship between language and power, reflect upon “new” language forms, (e.g., text messaging) and their audiences, and make choices about appropriate language for different cultural and social situations.

Students continue to work in the strands that weave throughout the course. The issues of community introduced in Unit 2 are used to focus on informational reading and writing. Students explore how reading skills are essential to access the practical information necessary to living in a community. Students research and evaluate practical informational writing on online community websites, where possible, and explore examples of how reading and writing skills can affect significant local and global change. Students use a variety of writing forms, including letters that express an opinion, to participate as responsible citizens in local or global communities.

In this evaluation unit comprising 30% of the final mark, students demonstrate their achievement of the literacy expectations. Using a combination of teacher-selected texts and tasks, and student-selected texts and topics, students answer questions to demonstrate their reading skills. They demonstrate their writing skills by producing a summary and an information paragraph. They write a self-reflection assessing their growth in reading and writing skills in the course. After completing these assigned tasks, students create an anthology of “best works” by selecting examples of reading and writing tasks they consider successful from their literacy portfolios. These, together with the competed tasks form Unit 4, their reading logs and writing records, comprise the anthology. Students reflect upon these selections to write an introduction for the anthology in the form of a series of paragraphs expressing an opinion about their growth in literacy