Language Arts Priority Standards

Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spell correctly.

Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts, make effective choices for meaning or style and comprehend more fully when reading or listening.

Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences are drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.

Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text.

Employ the full range of research-based comprehension strategies, including making connections, determining importance, questioning, visualizing, making inferences, summarizing, and monitoring for comprehension.

Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including words with multiple meanings or language that is particularly fresh, engaging, or beautiful.

Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.

Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.

Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to the task, purpose, and audience.

Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.

Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 11–12 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

Present information, findings, and supporting evidence conveying a clear and distinct perspective, such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning, alternative or opposing perspectives are addressed, and the organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and a range of formal and informal tasks.

Participate in public performances.

Social Studies Priority Standards

Analyze the origins of government with attention to the purpose(s) of government, various theories of democracy, rule of law, and alternative models from other nations and groups.

Explain how changes in supply and demand cause changes in goods and services, labor, credit, and foreign currencies.

Analyze how diverse ideologies impacted political and social institutions during eras such as Reconstruction, the Progressive Era, and the Civil Rights movement.

Assess the impact of individuals and reform movements on changes to civil rights and liberties. 

Examine labor and governmental efforts to reform and/or maintain a capitalistic economic system in the Great Depression.

Analyze the effects of urbanization, segregation, and voluntary and forced migration within regions of the U.S. on social, political, and economic structures.

Examine how imperialism changed the role of the United States on the world stage prior to World War I.

Analyze the growth of and challenges to U.S. involvement in the world in the post-World War II Era.

Analyze change, continuity, and context across eras and places of study from the civil war to modern America.

Evaluate the impact of inventions and technological innovations on American society and culture.

Critique primary and secondary sources of information with attention to the source of the document, its context, accuracy, and usefulness such as the Reconstruction amendments, Emancipation Proclamation, Treaty of Fort Laramie, Chinese Exclusion Act, Roosevelt’s Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, Wilson’s Fourteen Points, New Deal Program Acts, Roosevelt’s Declaration of War, Executive Order 9066, Truman Doctrine, Eisenhower’s Farewell Speech, Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, Test Ban Treaty of 1963, Brown vs. Board of Education decision, Letter from a Birmingham Jail, and the Voting Act of 1965.

Analyze how regional, racial, ethnic, and gender perspectives influenced American history and culture.

Determine multiple and complex causes and effects of historical events in American history including, but not limited to, the Civil War, World War I and II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.

Compare various systems of government, such as monarchies, democracies/republics, empires, and dictatorships, and their methods of maintaining order and/or control. 

Employ maps to display and explain the spatial patterns of human and environmental characteristics.