English II CP Pacing Guide.xlsx

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1	English II CP Pacing Guide
2	Two-week summary of major instructional content and skills • 36 instructional weeks
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4	Week(s)	Unit / Text	Major Content	Major Skills and Assessments
5	Weeks 1–2	Short Story: Plot and Character	11 instructional days total • Intro Activity / Story Swap Challenge — 2 days • Freytag Plot Review — 2 days • Vocab/Context — 1 day • The Bet Intro — 1 day • TheBetSkillsCharacterization — 2 days • IXL Fall Diagnostic — 1 day • The Bet: Speech and Characterization — 2 days	Analyze narrative structure, conflict, character development, and genre; apply Freytag’s Pyramid to film and short fiction; use semantic/context clues to determine vocabulary; and analyze character motivation/characterization in “The Bet” using dialogue, word choice, speech/actions, and textual evidence. Grammar: combine choppy sentences. Assessment: IXL Fall Diagnostic.
6	Weeks 3–4	Short Story: Plot and Character → Animal Farm	10 instructional days total • The Bet Writing Assessment — 1 day • A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings — 5 days • Intro/Anticipation — 1 day • Russian Rev., Communism, Allegory / Animal Farm Context — 3 days	Apply notes, quotations, and analysis in “The Bet” writing assessment; use genre, cultural, and point-of-view context plus vocabulary-in-context strategies to analyze “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” complex character motivations, conflict, and theme. Build Animal Farm background through anticipation/revolution activities and analysis of Russian Revolution, communism, allegory, and related political/literary/economic concepts. Grammar: fix run-ons/fragments; subject-verb agreement.
7	Weeks 5–6	Animal Farm	9 instructional days total • Animal Farm CH 1: Character Tracker / Old Major / Karl Marx — 3 days • Animal Farm: CH 2 — 3 days • Animal Farm CH 3: Literacy and Revolution — 3 days	Explain the purpose of allegory in Animal Farm; analyze characterization and allegorical connections in Chapters 1–2; and analyze the role and use of literacy in Chapter 3 within the revolution.
8	Weeks 7–8	Animal Farm	11 instructional days total • CH 4 ANIMAL FARM (Note taking, predictions, discussion) — 2 days • CH 5: Irony — 3 days • CH 6-In-class Audio / Reading Stamina — 1 day • CH 7: Narrative Voice and Tone — 2 days • CH 8: Writing/Cult of Personality — 3 days	Summarize Chapter 4, analyze character actions/motivations, and make predictions; reinforce irony and allegory in Chapter 5; build reading stamina and collect textual evidence in Chapter 6; use Greek/Latin roots and analyze diction, narrative voice, and tone in Chapter 7; and write about Napoleon in relation to a nonfiction “cult of personality” excerpt in Chapter 8.
9	Weeks 9–10	Animal Farm	10 instructional days total • AF Test Review CH 1-7 — 1 day • NJSLA Field Test — 1 day • CH 9: Inferences — 3 days • Maggie's Farm (Song Analysis) — 2 days • CH 10 — 3 days	Review vocabulary, allegorical character connections, propaganda techniques, and Chapters 6–7; analyze how propaganda/manipulation shape perceptions of truth; complete the NJSLA Field Test; make and support inferences from Chapter 9; develop theme statements using text evidence; and analyze Chapter 10 vocabulary, claims, evidence, major themes, and predictions through discussion.
10	Weeks 11–12	Animal Farm → Kafka's The Metamorphosis	9 instructional days total • AF Film — 2 days • Kafkaesque, Existentialism, Absurdism: Crash COurse — 3 days • Metamorphosis Graphic Novel: Part 1 — 4 days	Evaluate the 1954 Animal Farm film adaptation as a historical artifact, including allegory, irony, rhetoric, Cold War ideology, and the altered ending; connect Kafka’s life, historical context, and psychological struggles to his work while interpreting existentialism and absurdism; and analyze how the graphic-novel adaptation of The Metamorphosis uses visual/textual elements, pacing, narration, characterization, and mood. Grammar: fix run-ons/fragments.
11	Weeks 13–14	Kafka's The Metamorphosis	12 instructional days total • Annotations / Close Read — 2 days • ?Surgeon General: We Have Become a Lonely Nation. It's Time to Fix That. — 3 days • Part 2: Theme Visual — 3 days • Conclusion Activity: Absurdity Self Help — 4 days	Closely analyze Kafka’s transformation passage and narrative techniques through multi-perspective annotation; analyze Dr. Murthy’s argument about loneliness using evidence, structure, rhetoric, examples, and anecdote; represent and explain a central theme from Part 2 of The Metamorphosis; and analyze Gregor’s response to absurdity/identity while explaining Camus’s absurdity and rebellion and synthesizing literature/philosophy into practical advice. Grammar: fix run-ons/fragments and improve word choice.
12	Weeks 15–16	Ancients (Plato, Sophocles (Antigone)	10 instructional days total • Plato, Allegory of the Cave, Modern Technology — 4 days • Greek Theatre, Government, Philosophy, and Myth — 5 days • IXL Diagnostic (One day this week) — 1 day	Explain modern similarities between technology and Plato’s Allegory of the Cave; build background in Greek theatre, government, philosophy, myth, and the framing of Antigone’s conflict with authority; and complete the IXL Diagnostic. Grammar: improve word choice.
13	Weeks 17–18	Ancients (Plato, Sophocles (Antigone)	10 instructional days total • Oedipus The King: Informational — 2 days • Antigone Sc 1 — 2 days • Midterm Review / Essay Drafting — 2 days • Midterm Exams — 4 days	Analyze the Oedipus legend to build Greek-mythology background and identify traits of the tragic hero, including prophecy, choice, misunderstanding, rise, and downfall; analyze Antigone’s response to patriarchal law and the effect of Creon/Chorus figurative language; review major course topics and draft the midterm essay using the rubric/study guide; and complete midterm exams. Grammar: improve word choice.
14	Weeks 19–20	Ancients (Plato, Sophocles (Antigone) → The Novel / Lord of the Flies	9 instructional days total • Antigone: Father + Son, pp. 40-55 — 2 days • Antigone: Prophets, 55-74 — 2 days • Antigone: END, 74-end — 2 days • INSERVICE 2/9/26 — 1 day • Background / Context — 2 days	Analyze character attitudes, leadership philosophies, and consequences in Antigone’s father-son confrontation; track the Chorus’s mood, analyze Teiresias’s prophecy and Creon’s response, and connect pride/refusal to listen with escalating conflict; explain final events, conflict resolution, peripeteia, and repeated warnings. Account for the scheduled inservice day, then build Lord of the Flies context through WWII, the Milgram Experiment, and Golding’s purpose. Grammar: add sentence variety.
15	Weeks 21–22	The Novel / Lord of the Flies	12 instructional days total • CH 1: Characterization / Exposition — 4 days • Ch 2 — 2 days • Symbols — 3 days • CH 3: Fig Lang + Setting — 3 days	Analyze Ralph and Piggy through characterization evidence; distinguish literal and figurative meaning in Chapter 2, including the beastie, fire, and predictions about Piggy; explain the significance of the fire and Piggy’s glasses; and apply figurative-language analysis to connect setting and character in Chapter 3. Grammar: add sentence variety.
16	Weeks 23–24	The Novel / Lord of the Flies	11 instructional days total • CH 4 — 3 days • CH 5 — 3 days • CH 6-8 + grammar spiral colons + Semicolons — 5 days	Analyze civilization versus savagery in Chapter 4; perform Chapter 5 and infer Ralph’s internal/external conflict and the effect of fear on group dynamics; closely read Chapter 6 for imagery, fear, diction, and conflict; and analyze the Ralph–Jack power struggle plus the symbolic/thematic significance of the “Lord of the Flies” across Chapters 7–8. Grammar spiral: colons and semicolons.
17	Weeks 25–26	The Novel / Lord of the Flies	11 instructional days total • CH 8 — 4 days • IXL Day — 1 day • CH 9: The Banality of Evil (TEST on Weds.) — 4 days • CH 10 — 2 days	Explain the literal, symbolic, and thematic meaning of the “Lord of the Flies”; address IXL-recommended skills from diagnostic results; develop thesis statements about the descent into savagery using strong evidence from Chapter 9 and apply Arendt’s philosophy; and create objective Chapter 10 summaries explaining the boys’ rationale for Simon’s murder. Grammar: eliminate wordiness and shift passive to active voice.
18	Weeks 27–28	The Novel / Lord of the Flies → Macbeth	10 instructional days total • CH 11-12 — 5 days • Macbeth-Background and Act 1 — 5 days	Summarize major plot events and character details in Chapter 11; use assigned vocabulary accurately in context and imagery while applying “show, don’t tell” and correct conventions; then build Macbeth context and read Act I performatively, using comprehension pauses, soliloquy analysis, paraphrasing, and character-motivation analysis. Grammar: eliminate wordiness and shift passive to active voice.
19	Weeks 29–30	Macbeth	6 instructional days total • Macbeth Act 2 / IXL Practice — 6 days	Describe and explain character motivations and development in Macbeth Act II through close reading of key scenes and interactions, including their impact on plot; incorporate IXL practice. Grammar: eliminate wordiness and shift passive to active voice.
20	Weeks 31–32	Macbeth	10 instructional days total • Macbeth Act 3 — 6 days • Reading on Stage in Auditorim / Test Review — 2 days • Review / Macbeth Act 1 and 2 Test — 2 days	Analyze Act III imagery using textual evidence and demonstrate comprehension of character motivations and plot through performative reading; use dramatic readings from Acts I–II to track speaker, scene, and context; complete the Acts I–II test with recall, literary-term, close-reading, and inference questions; and begin the mini research essay by finding and evaluating credible sources. Grammar: eliminate wordiness and shift passive to active voice.
21	Weeks 33–34	Macbeth	9 instructional days total • Act 4 — 4 days • Act 5 — 5 days	Read Macbeth Acts IV–V as a class, tracking character development, plot conclusions, and key passages through close analysis; continue the mini research essay with note-taking, an annotated bibliography, thesis development, and outlining.
22	Weeks 35–36	Macbeth	5 instructional days total • Final Exam Essay — 4 days • Additional Review — 1 day	Analyze responsibility for Macbeth’s downfall using textual evidence in a structured MLA-formatted literary analysis; compare Lady Macbeth’s supernatural experiences with Simon’s in relation to guilt, evil, and shame; complete the mini research essay through drafting with source integration, MLA formatting, Works Cited, and revision; and complete additional review.
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