Toronto District School Board
Northern Secondary School
Developed from: The Ontario Curriculum: Grades 11 and 12 English, Ministry of Education (Revised 2007)
Course Title: Ontario Literacy Course (OLC401)
Course Type: Open
Course Code: OLC401
Credit Value: 1.0 Credit(s)
Textbook: Various, Grade 10 Lit. Test Prep Book
Welcome to the Ontario Literacy Course. This course is a mandatory requirement if a student has failed the Grade 10 Literacy Test. Failure to pass the course will result in NOT graduating, so put forth your best effort. This course will help students in working on and improving both their reading and writing skills. Great focus will be placed on targeting areas of weakness and helping students become improved readers and writers. Students must maintain and manage a literacy portfolio to demonstrate and help themselves assess their growth in reading and writing skills throughout the course. The portfolio should include all works in progress and all work that has been evaluated. The portfolio will contain a writing journal as well, in which students should set goals to improve their reading and writing skills. |
Building Reading Skills
∙ 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.
Building Writing Skills
∙ 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.
Understanding and Assessing Growth in Literacy
∙ 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.
Learning Skills
This course requires students to work responsibly, both independently, as well as cooperatively in groups. Attendance and punctuality, regular completion of homework and timely submission of all assignments will enhance success in this course. Students are responsible for obtaining all missed work, and must provide a medical/court certificate for missed summative evaluations and culminating activities. Plagiarism will not be tolerated---all student work must be original.
This course employs a range of instructional strategies and both teacher-centered and student-centered cooperative techniques. Accommodations/modifications may be made on an individual case basis.
Category Reading | Weighting 25% | |
Writing | 25% | |
Journals | 10% | |
Language Conventions | 10% | |
Portfolio | 10% | |
Exam | 20% | |
Overview of the Achievement Chart in Percentages
Grade Range | Description of the Level of Literacy Achieved |
80-100% | A skillful and effective performance in reading and writing. The student has significantly exceeded the level of literacy required for graduation, and earns a credit for the course. |
65-79% | Performance that shows considerable skill in reading and writing. The student has exceeded the level of literacy required for graduation, and earns a credit for the course. |
50-64% | Performance that shows moderate skill in reading and writing. The student has achieved the level of literacy required for graduation, and earns a credit for the course. |
0-49% | Performance that shows limited reading and writing skills. The student may be approaching the level of literacy required for graduation but cannot be deemed to have met the requirement and does not earn a credit for the course. |
PLEASE NOTE:
A mark of 50 per cent represents both a pass in the course and the achievement of the literacy standard required for graduation.
The grade for each term/reporting period is based on the evaluations that have been conducted to that point in the course and will be preliminary and tentative. They will be based on the level of achievement to that point, but some of the overall expectations, strands, and units will not have been addressed. The student’s grades will most likely change when the student’s entire work is evaluated by the end of the course.
Students may speak with teachers during class regarding any questions or concerns, or go to the English office in Room 313. Individual computer mark records are available regularly and upon request. Parents wishing to speak with teachers may call the school at (416) 393-0284 X 20090
Reading includes 1) Understanding directly stated ideas and information.
2) Understanding indirectly stated ideas and information.
3) Making connections between personal knowledge and
experiences and the ideas and information in texts.
Writing includes: 1) Developing a good idea.
2) Providing supporting details.
3) Organizing and linking ideas and information.
4) Using an appropriate tone for the specified purpose and
audience.
5) Using correct grammar and punctuation.
6) Using correct spelling.
Building Reading Skills
Students need to be able to read and understand a variety of texts accurately for a variety of school and other real-life purposes. The competent reader, according to the OSSLT criteria, is able to read informational, narrative, and graphic texts4 with reasonable accuracy and proficiency, to understand directly and indirectly stated ideas and information, and to make connections between texts and his or her own experiences and knowledge. The competent reader reads for a variety of purposes, and is able to understand texts of varying levels of challenge.
Reading is an active process of thinking and constructing meaning from texts. Competent readers use strategies before they read, to preview the text and to activate their prior knowledge of the topic; while they read, to track and record ideas and monitor comprehension; and after they read, to consolidate and extend understanding. Competent readers know that reading plays a vital role in learning, opening the door to knowledge about themselves, others, and the world.
Building Writing Skills
Students need to be able to write competently for a variety of school and other real-life purposes. The competent writer, as defined by the OSSLT criteria, states and supports main ideas, organizes writing clearly and coherently, and uses the conventions of standard Canadian English.
Understanding and Assessing Growth in Literacy
This strand requires students to assess their growth in literacy. Students will set learning goals, monitor their improvement in literacy throughout the course, and confer with their teacher about their progress at regular intervals. Students will also maintain and manage a literacy portfolio containing their reading responses, pieces of writing, and a learning journal in which they record their goal-setting and self-monitoring activities during the course. Students will review this portfolio, both during the course and at its end, in order to assess their growth in literacy.
Evaluations During the Term: 70 Per Cent of the Student's Grade
Evaluations during the term will be based on a variety of teacher-assigned and student-selected reading and writing tasks and will take place towards the end of units.
Final Evaluation: 30 Per Cent of the Student's Grade
For the 30 per cent final evaluation, all students will independently demonstrate the reading and writing skills they have developed in this course and will reflect upon their growth in literacy skills.
This culminating demonstration of literacy knowledge and skills should be in the form of performance tasks that are designed to show the range of what students know and are able to do in reading and writing. The 30 per cent final evaluation should not be designed to replicate the OSSLT. To provide the optimum conditions for success, teachers should ensure that students have the opportunity to use the reading strategies they have learned to perform the reading tasks and to use the writing process to perform the writing tasks, demonstrating their skills under normal class conditions with sufficient time to allow them to do quality work.