ENG4U - Course Outline
ENG4U is intended to further prepare students for university, college, or the workplace. This course will emphasize the literacy, communication, analytical, critical, and creative thinking skills considered necessary for success not only in school but also in daily life. This course that will mainly focus on LITERATURE as the body of work written by humans using their imaginations and experience of the world to tell stories about people and their lives. The successes and failures they face in their daily lives will come from a variety of time periods, countries, and cultures. Special attention will be paid to themes related to sexism and gender inequality, racism and discrimination, as well as coming-of-age.
Students will analyze a range of literary texts and, hopefully, relate
to the characters and issues, as well as find meaning and connections to their own
experiences and lives. Students will be encouraged to embed themselves in
everything they read; in characters they admire or reject, and in situations
they could imagine themselves experiencing. Literature matters because it is
one of the ways we can learn to avoid mistakes, and become heroes in our own lives,
communities, and the world.
Another focus of the course is on building each student's literary and analytical vocabulary; enhancing each student's reading and writing fluency, abilities and strategies, using words and sentences accurately, coherently and confidently, to develop greater mastery of written and oral communication. Being able to reflect on and identify each student's strengths as readers, isolate areas that need improvement, and the strategies they found most helpful before, during, and after each unit will be another goal of this course.