Grade 10 English Curriculum

Family-facing version of the grade 10 English curriculum

Quarterly Overview of Grade 10 English

The objectives and outcomes for each unit are common across FCPS and based on the Virginia Standards of Learning.

Grade 10 English Language Arts teachers are expected to plan using Concept-Based Curriculum (CBC). Teachers are provided sample units and assessments for this course; this information reflects those samples.

Each school and teacher teams have autonomy over which CBC units they might use from the information below. Some schools have elected to write their own.

Families are encouraged to communicate with schools and teachers to receive accurate planning and pacing guides.

Units and Details

Why Stories Matter

Students will: 

  • Respond thoughtfully and tactfully to diverse perspectives, summarizing points of agreement and disagreement.
  • Choose vocabulary, language, and tone appropriate to the topic, audience, and purpose.
  • Create media messages for diverse audiences.
  • Analyze the impact of selected media formats on meaning.
  • Describe possible cause and effect relationships between mass media coverage and public opinion trends.
  • Monitor, analyze, and use multiple streams of simultaneous information.
  • Demonstrate ethical use of the Internet when evaluating or producing creative or informational media messages.
  • Extend general and cross-curricular vocabulary through speaking, listening, reading, and writing.
  • Make inferences and draw conclusions using references from the text(s) for support.
  • Analyze the similarities and differences of techniques and literary forms represented in the literature of different cultures and eras.
  • Interpret the cultural or social function of world and ethnic literature.
  • Critique how authors use key literary elements to contribute to meaning including, character development, theme, conflict, and archetypes.
  • Explain the influence of historical context on the form, style, and point of view of a literary text(s).
  • Evaluate how an author’s specific word choices, syntax, tone, and voice shape the intended meaning of the text.
  • Compare and contrast how literary devices convey a message and elicit a reader’s emotions.
  • Skim materials to develop an overview and locate information.
  • Draw conclusions and make inferences on explicit and implied information using textual support as evidence.
  • Analyze and synthesize information in order to solve problems, answer questions, and generate new knowledge.
  • Analyze ideas within and between selections providing textual evidence.
  • Summarize, paraphrase, and synthesize ideas, while maintaining meaning and a logical sequence of events, within and between texts.
  • Engage in writing as a recursive process.
  • Plan and organize writing to address a specific audience and purpose.
  • Adjust writing content, technique, and voice for a variety of audiences and purposes.
  • Objectively introduce and develop topics, incorporating evidence and maintaining an organized structure and a formal style.
  • Clearly state and defend a position using reasons and sufficient evidence from credible sources as support.
  • Show relationships among claims, reasons, and evidence and include a conclusion that follows logically from the information presented.
  • Blend multiple forms of writing including embedding a narrative to produce effective essays.
  • Elaborate ideas clearly through word choice.
  • Use textual evidence to compare and contrast multiple texts.
  • Revise writing for clarity of content, accuracy, and depth of information.
  • Write and revise to a standard acceptable both in the workplace and in postsecondary education.
  • Use complex sentence structure to infuse sentence variety in writing.

Art & Aesthetics

Students will: 

  • Make strategic use of multimodal tools.
  • Demonstrate the ability to work effectively with diverse teams including setting rules and goals for group work such as coming to informal consensus, taking votes on key issues, and presenting alternate views.
  • Include all group members and value individual contributions made by each group member.
  • Use a variety of strategies to listen actively and speak using appropriate discussion rules with awareness of verbal and nonverbal cues.
  • Respond thoughtfully and tactfully to diverse perspectives, summarizing points of agreement and disagreement.
  • Choose vocabulary, language, and tone appropriate to the topic, audience, and purpose.
  • Analyze the impact of selected media formats on meaning.
  • Analyze the purpose of information and persuasive techniques used in diverse media formats.
  • Monitor, analyze, and use multiple streams of simultaneous information.
  • Demonstrate ethical use of the Internet when evaluating or producing creative or informational media messages.
  • Discriminate between connotative and denotative meanings and interpret the connotation.
  • Explain the meaning of literary and classical allusions and figurative language in text.
  • Extend general and cross-curricular vocabulary through speaking, listening, reading, and writing.
  • Make inferences and draw conclusions using references from the text(s) for support.
  • Analyze the similarities and differences of techniques and literary forms represented in the literature of different cultures and eras.
  • Interpret the cultural or social function of world and ethnic literature.
  • Critique how authors use key literary elements to contribute to meaning including, character development, theme, conflict, and archetypes.
  • Interpret how themes are connected within and across texts.
  • Explain the influence of historical context on the form, style, and point of view of a literary text(s).
  • Evaluate how an author’s specific word choices, syntax, tone, and voice shape the intended meaning of the text.
  • Compare and contrast how literary devices convey a message and elicit a reader’s emotions.
  • Compare and contrast character development in a play to characterization in other literary forms.
  • Use reading strategies to monitor comprehension throughout the reading process.
  • Analyze text features and organizational patterns to evaluate the meaning of texts.
  • Recognize an author’s intended audience and purpose for writing.
  • Skim materials to develop an overview and locate information.
  • Draw conclusions and make inferences on explicit and implied information using textual support as evidence.
  • Analyze and synthesize information in order to solve problems, answer questions, and generate new knowledge.
  • Analyze ideas within and between selections providing textual evidence.
  • Summarize, paraphrase, and synthesize ideas, while maintaining meaning and a logical sequence of events, within and between texts.
  • Use reading strategies throughout the reading process to monitor comprehension.
  • Plan and organize writing to address a specific audience and purpose.
  • Adjust writing content, technique, and voice for a variety of audiences and purposes.
  • Communicate clearly the purpose of the writing using a thesis statement.
  • Objectively introduce and develop topics, incorporating evidence and maintaining an organized structure and a formal style.
  • Compose a thesis statement for persuasive writing that advocates a position.
  • Clearly state and defend a position using reasons and sufficient evidence from credible sources as support.
  • Show relationships among claims, reasons, and evidence and include a conclusion that follows logically from the information presented.
  • Elaborate ideas clearly through word choice.
  • Use textual evidence to compare and contrast multiple texts.
  • Write and revise to a standard acceptable both in the workplace and in postsecondary education.
  • Define the meaning and consequences of plagiarism and follow ethical and legal guidelines for gathering and using information.
  • Demonstrate ethical use of the Internet.

Perspectives

Students will: 

  • Make strategic use of multimodal tools.
  • Credit information sources.
  • Demonstrate the ability to work effectively with diverse teams including setting rules and goals for group work such as coming to informal consensus, taking votes on key issues, and presenting alternate views.
  • Assume responsibility for specific group tasks.
  • Include all group members and value individual contributions made by each group member.
  • Use a variety of strategies to listen actively and speak using appropriate discussion rules with awareness of verbal and nonverbal cues.
  • Choose vocabulary, language, and tone appropriate to the topic, audience, and purpose.
  • Access, critically evaluate, and use information accurately to solve problems.
  • Use reflection to evaluate one’s own role and the group process in small-group activities.
  • Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, use of evidence, rhetoric, and identify any faulty reasoning.
  • Create media messages for diverse audiences.
  • Credit information sources.
  • Evaluate sources for relationships between intent, factual content, and opinion.
  • Analyze the impact of selected media formats on meaning.
  • Evaluate the motives (e.g., social, commercial, political) behind media presentation(s).
  • Demonstrate ethical use of the Internet when evaluating or producing creative or informational media messages.
  • Use structural analysis of roots, affixes, synonyms, and antonyms, to understand complex words.
  • Use context, structure, and connotations to determine meanings of words and phrases.
  • Discriminate between connotative and denotative meanings and interpret the connotation.
  • Extend general and cross-curricular vocabulary through speaking, listening, reading, and writing.
  • Make inferences and draw conclusions using references from the text(s) for support.
  • Analyze the similarities and differences of techniques and literary forms represented in the literature of different cultures and eras.
  • Interpret the cultural or social function of world and ethnic literature.
  • Analyze universal themes prevalent in the literature of different cultures.
  • Examine a literary selection from several critical perspectives.
  • Critique how authors use key literary elements to contribute to meaning including, character development, theme, conflict, and archetypes.
  • Interpret how themes are connected within and across texts.
  • Evaluate how an author’s specific word choices, syntax, tone, and voice shape the intended meaning of the text.
  • Compare/contrast details in literary and informational nonfiction texts.
  • Use reading strategies to monitor comprehension throughout the reading process.
  • Analyze text features and organizational patterns to evaluate the meaning of texts.
  • Draw conclusions and make inferences on explicit and implied information using textual support as evidence.
  • Analyze and synthesize information in order to solve problems, answer questions, and generate new knowledge.
  • Analyze ideas within and between selections providing textual evidence.
  • Summarize, paraphrase, and synthesize ideas, while maintaining meaning and a logical sequence of events, within and between texts.
  • Engage in writing as a recursive process.
  • Plan and organize writing to address a specific audience and purpose.
  • Adjust writing content, technique, and voice for a variety of audiences and purposes.
  • Objectively introduce and develop topics, incorporating evidence and maintaining an organized structure and a formal style.
  • Compose a thesis statement for persuasive writing that advocates a position.
  • Clearly state and defend a position using reasons and sufficient evidence from credible sources as support.
  • Identify counterclaims and provide counter - arguments.
  • Blend multiple forms of writing including embedding a narrative to produce effective essays.
  • Elaborate ideas clearly through word choice.
  • Use textual evidence to compare and contrast multiple texts.
  • Use complex sentence structure to infuse sentence variety in writing.
  • Analyze the writing of others and suggest how writing might be improved.
  • Verify the accuracy, validity, and usefulness of information.
  • Analyze information gathered from diverse sources by identifying misconceptions, main and supporting ideas, conflicting information, and point of view or bias.
  • Demonstrate ethical use of the Internet.

Courageous Choices

Students will:

  • Make strategic use of multimodal tools.
  • Credit information sources.
  • Demonstrate the ability to work effectively with diverse teams including setting rules and goals for group work such as coming to informal consensus, taking votes on key issues, and presenting alternate views.
  • Assume responsibility for specific group tasks.
  • Include all group members and value individual contributions made by each group member.
  • Use a variety of strategies to listen actively and speak using appropriate discussion rules with awareness of verbal and nonverbal cues.
  • Respond thoughtfully and tactfully to diverse perspectives, summarizing points of agreement and disagreement.
  • Choose vocabulary, language, and tone appropriate to the topic, audience, and purpose.
  • Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, use of evidence, rhetoric, and identify any faulty reasoning.
  • Evaluate sources for relationships between intent, factual content, and opinion.
  • Monitor, analyze, and use multiple streams of simultaneous information.
  • Demonstrate ethical use of the Internet when evaluating or producing creative or informational media messages.
  • Use structural analysis of roots, affixes, synonyms, and antonyms, to understand complex words.
  • Use context, structure, and connotations to determine meanings of words and phrases.
  • Extend general and cross-curricular vocabulary through speaking, listening, reading, and writing.
  • Make inferences and draw conclusions using references from the text(s) for support.
  • Analyze the similarities and differences of techniques and literary forms represented in the literature of different cultures and eras.
  • Interpret the cultural or social function of world and ethnic literature.
  • Analyze universal themes prevalent in the literature of different cultures.
  • Examine a literary selection from several critical perspectives.
  • Critique how authors use key literary elements to contribute to meaning including, character development, theme, conflict, and archetypes.
  • Interpret how themes are connected within and across texts.
  • Evaluate how an author’s specific word choices, syntax, tone, and voice shape the intended meaning of the text.
  • Compare/contrast details in literary and informational nonfiction texts.
  • Compare and contrast how literary devices convey a message and elicit a reader’s emotions.
  • Compare and contrast character development in a play to characterization in other literary forms.
  • Use reading strategies to monitor comprehension throughout the reading process.
  • Analyze text features and organizational patterns to evaluate the meaning of texts.
  • Recognize an author’s intended audience and purpose for writing.
  • Compare and contrast informational texts for intent and content.
  • Interpret and use data and information in maps, charts, graphs, timelines, tables, and diagrams.
  • Draw conclusions and make inferences on explicit and implied information using textual support as evidence.
  • Analyze and synthesize information in order to solve problems, answer questions, and generate new knowledge.
  • Analyze ideas within and between selections providing textual evidence.
  • Summarize, paraphrase, and synthesize ideas, while maintaining meaning and a logical sequence of events, within and between texts.
  • Use reading strategies throughout the reading process to monitor comprehension.
  • Engage in writing as a recursive process.
  • Plan and organize writing to address a specific audience and purpose.
  • Adjust writing content, technique, and voice for a variety of audiences and purposes.
  • Objectively introduce and develop topics, incorporating evidence and maintaining an organized structure and a formal style.
  • Clearly state and defend a position using reasons and sufficient evidence from credible sources as support.
  • Identify counterclaims and provide counter - arguments.
  • Show relationships among claims, reasons, and evidence and include a conclusion that follows logically from the information presented.
  • Blend multiple forms of writing including embedding a narrative to produce effective essays.
  • Elaborate ideas clearly through word choice.
  • Use textual evidence to compare and contrast multiple texts.
  • Revise writing for clarity of content, accuracy, and depth of information.
  • Use parallel structure across sentences and paragraphs.
  • Use complex sentence structure to infuse sentence variety in writing.
  • Distinguish between active and passive voice.
  • Use colons correctly.
  • Analyze the writing of others and suggest how writing might be improved.
  • Verify the accuracy, validity, and usefulness of information.
  • Analyze information gathered from diverse sources by identifying misconceptions, main and supporting ideas, conflicting information, and point of view or bias.
  • Evaluate and select evidence from a variety of sources to introduce counter claims and to support claims.
  • Define the meaning and consequences of plagiarism and follow ethical and legal guidelines for gathering and using information.
  • Demonstrate ethical use of the Internet.

Power

Students will: 

  • Make strategic use of multimodal tools.
  • Credit information sources.
  • Choose vocabulary, language, and tone appropriate to the topic, audience, and purpose.
  • Access, critically evaluate, and use information accurately to solve problems.
  • Create media messages for diverse audiences.
  • Credit information sources.
  • Evaluate sources for relationships between intent, factual content, and opinion.
  • Analyze the impact of selected media formats on meaning.
  • Analyze the purpose of information and persuasive techniques used in diverse media formats.
  • Evaluate the motives (e.g., social, commercial, political) behind media presentation(s).
  • Describe possible cause and effect relationships between mass media coverage and public opinion trends.
  • Monitor, analyze, and use multiple streams of simultaneous information.
  • Demonstrate ethical use of the Internet when evaluating or producing creative or informational media messages.
  • Use context, structure, and connotations to determine meanings of words and phrases.
  • Explain the meaning of literary and classical allusions and figurative language in text.
  • Extend general and cross-curricular vocabulary through speaking, listening, reading, and writing.
  • Make inferences and draw conclusions using references from the text(s) for support.
  • Analyze the similarities and differences of techniques and literary forms represented in the literature of different cultures and eras.
  • Interpret the cultural or social function of world and ethnic literature.
  • Analyze universal themes prevalent in the literature of different cultures.
  • Critique how authors use key literary elements to contribute to meaning including, character development, theme, conflict, and archetypes.
  • Interpret how themes are connected within and across texts.
  • Evaluate how an author’s specific word choices, syntax, tone, and voice shape the intended meaning of the text.
  • Compare/contrast details in literary and informational nonfiction texts.
  • Compare and contrast how literary devices convey a message and elicit a reader’s emotions.
  • Use reading strategies to monitor comprehension throughout the reading process.
  • Recognize an author’s intended audience and purpose for writing.
  • Compare and contrast informational texts for intent and content.
  • Draw conclusions and make inferences on explicit and implied information using textual support as evidence.
  • Analyze and synthesize information in order to solve problems, answer questions, and generate new knowledge.
  • Analyze ideas within and between selections providing textual evidence.
  • Use reading strategies throughout the reading process to monitor comprehension.
  • Engage in writing as a recursive process.
  • Plan and organize writing to address a specific audience and purpose.
  • Adjust writing content, technique, and voice for a variety of audiences and purposes.
  • Communicate clearly the purpose of the writing using a thesis statement.
  • Objectively introduce and develop topics, incorporating evidence and maintaining an organized structure and a formal style.
  • Compose a thesis statement for persuasive writing that advocates a position.
  • Clearly state and defend a position using reasons and sufficient evidence from credible sources as support.
  • Show relationships among claims, reasons, and evidence and include a conclusion that follows logically from the information presented.
  • Blend multiple forms of writing including embedding a narrative to produce effective essays.
  • Elaborate ideas clearly through word choice.
  • Use textual evidence to compare and contrast multiple texts.
  • Revise writing for clarity of content, accuracy, and depth of information.
  • Write and revise to a standard acceptable both in the workplace and in postsecondary education.
  • Use complex sentence structure to infuse sentence variety in writing.
  • Distinguish between active and passive voice.
  • Use colons correctly.
  • Analyze the writing of others and suggest how writing might be improved.
  • Verify the accuracy, validity, and usefulness of information.
  • Analyze information gathered from diverse sources by identifying misconceptions, main and supporting ideas, conflicting information, and point of view or bias.
  • Evaluate and select evidence from a variety of sources to introduce counter claims and to support claims.
  • Cite sources for both quoted and paraphrased ideas using a standard method of documentation, such as that of the Modern Language Association (MLA) or the American Psychological Association (APA).
  • Define the meaning and consequences of plagiarism and follow ethical and legal guidelines for gathering and using information.
  • Demonstrate ethical use of the Internet.

Reflection

Students will: 

  • Make strategic use of multimodal tools.
  • Use a variety of strategies to listen actively and speak using appropriate discussion rules with awareness of verbal and nonverbal cues.
  • Respond thoughtfully and tactfully to diverse perspectives, summarizing points of agreement and disagreement.
  • Choose vocabulary, language, and tone appropriate to the topic, audience, and purpose.
  • Access, critically evaluate, and use information accurately to solve problems.
  • Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, use of evidence, rhetoric, and identify any faulty reasoning.
  • Create media messages for diverse audiences.
  • Analyze the purpose of information and persuasive techniques used in diverse media formats.
  • Evaluate the motives (e.g., social, commercial, political) behind media presentation(s).
  • Monitor, analyze, and use multiple streams of simultaneous information.

Virginia Department of Education Resources

Assessments

Student assessments are part of the teaching and learning process.

  • Teachers give assessments to students on an ongoing basis to
    • Check for understanding.
    • Gather information about students' knowledge or skills.
  • Assessments provide information about a child's development of knowledge and skills that can help families and teachers better plan for the next steps in instruction.

For testing questions or additional information about how schools and teachers use test results to support student success, families can contact their children's schools.

In Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS), tenth grade tests focus on measuring content knowledge and skill development.

Other High School Information