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 (OSSLT). 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 portfolio containing a record of their reading experiences and samples of their writing.
Overall Curriculum Expectations
A. Building Reading Skills
By the end of this course, students will:
• demonstrate the ability to read and respond to a variety of texts;
• 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; • demonstrate understanding of the content and meaning of informational, narrative, and graphic texts that they have read using a variety of reading strategies;
• use a variety of strategies to understand unfamiliar and specialized words and expressions in informational, narrative, and graphic texts.
B. Building Writing Skills
By the end of this course, students will:
• 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;
• 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.
C. Understanding and Assessing Growth in Literacy
By the end of this course, students will:
• demonstrate understanding of the importance of communication skills in their everyday lives – at school, at work, and at home;
• demonstrate understanding of their own roles and responsibilities in the learning process;
• demonstrate understanding of the reading and writing processes and of the role of reading and writing in learning;
• demonstrate understanding of their own growth in literacy during the course
