Welcome to the JCHS English Department!
"General Introduction Businessman and philanthropist W. Clement Stone claimed that “Definitiveness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement,” and standards provide that definition of purpose for each grade level. Standards should measure excellence, not just benchmark skills; therefore, the committee of Tennessee teachers, administrators, and higher education faculty developed a set of learning outcomes that embraces an overall expectation of 21st century literacy skills necessary to succeed in post-secondary and workforce arenas. Thus, critical and divergent thinking, problem solving, active listening, recognition of patterns and anomalies, and evaluation and questioning of source material are essential skills [in our courses]. Furthermore, these expectations reinforce the three ELA instructional shifts: regular practice with complex text and its academic vocabulary; reading and writing grounded in evidence from literary and informational text; and building knowledge through content rich literary and informational text" (TN.gov 2017).