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2560 Soquel Avenue Suites 201, 204, 205, Santa Cruz, CA 96062 | 831-331-5611 | santacruzlearningcenter@gmail.com
a-g Functional English
Meets for 2 hours once per week
(COUNTS FOR HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH CREDIT)
Instructor: Jay Dane
$600 per semester, $1200 annually
Students may attend in person at our physical address listed below OR live via Zoom or some combination. The attendance method is flexible from week to week.
Finally, a high school course where we can confidently answer when a student asks, "How will we use this in real life?"
Description: This course is appropriate for grades 9-12 high school students. We will use a syllabus approved through Ocean Grove to meet a-g requirements. However, students from any school are invited to join us. Functional English is a year-long course designed to meet the literacy requirement that all readers should be able to comprehend reading materials related to daily core job responsibilities and to read occupational materials related to organizations, trade journals, etc. Career and academic achievement are directly related to a student’s ability to read and comprehend informational text. With that in mind, this course will allow students to research a question of their choice and, through close reading and analysis of primary and secondary resources, increase their comprehension of informational texts. Sources may include newspaper or journal articles, photographs, technical drawings, maps, cartoons, artifacts, instruction manuals, books, letters, government publications, professional blogs, and other online resources, in addition to scientific data presented in words or expressed mathematically. Students are encouraged to use creativity in the synthesis portion of their research, with final projects chosen from but not limited to research papers, lab notebooks, media presentations, models, websites, and schematic drawings. Given the nature of this course, several units of study will be ongoing and completed concurrently. Assessment will be based on rigor and creativity of research, evaluation of sources, key assignments, and classroom participation.
Although there is no textbook, we will have a selection of readings from articles, books, blogs, and journals that discuss research and writing in different disciplines. Many students take this course to fulfill one year of high school English. They can take it at any high school grade level.