Compare Ontario’s Curriculum to Saskatchewan’s Secondary Level Learning Objectives: so short and sweet!

http://www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/docs/ela20/index1.html

Speaking

Speak to clarify and extend thinking.

Speak to express understanding.

Speak to share thoughts, opinions, and feelings.

Speak to build relationships and a sense of community.

Recognize and adjust verbal and nonverbal presentation elements (i.e., articulation, pronunciation, volume, tempo, pitch, stress, gestures, eye contact, facial expression, and poise) effectively and in keeping with purpose, audience needs, and individual cultural and linguistic background.

Review oral activities carefully for content, organization, presentation, and style.

Practise the roles of group members including:

• chairing
• participating
• moderating
• reporting

Speak to inform and persuade.

Present and defend a position in public.

Prepare a dramatic reading of a prose or poetry selection.

Introduce and thank a speaker.

Practise interviewing skills, informal and career-oriented.

Participate in a panel discussion.

Deliver formal speeches on familiar topics.

Listening

Recognize listening as an active process which requires listeners to:

• anticipate a message and set a purpose
• attend
• seek and check understanding by making connections, and by making and confirming predictions and inferences
• interpret and summarize
• evaluate and analyze.

Recognize factors that interfere with effective listening, including personal biases.

Be sensitive to ideas and purpose when listening.

Recognize speaker’s attitude, tone, and bias.

Recognize nonverbal indicators of speaker’s intent.

Recognize organization of an argument.

Identify persuasive techniques (e.g., propaganda) used by a speaker.

Provide appropriate feedback (e.g., supportive stance, eye contact, gesture, comment).

Respond personally, critically, creatively, and empathetically.

Listen for personal pleasure and aesthetic satisfaction.

Listen to:

• understand and learn
• analyze and evaluate
• empathize and make connections with others.

Assess own ability to listen effectively.

Assess the overall effectiveness of group discussions, dramatic readings, interviews, panel discussions, and speeches.

Evaluate a speaker’s qualifications to speak about a given subject.

Write a paraphrase and précis of an oral presentation.

Writing

Recognize writing as a process of constructing meaning for self and others.

Recognize and use what is known as the writing process.

Use appropriate pre-writing and planning strategies.

Develop ideas previously explored into draft forms.

Revise and polish compositions.

Share/present compositions.

Write introductions which engage interest and focus readers’ attention.

Achieve unity of thought and purpose.

Choose a method of development and organization suitable for a particular purpose and audience.

Write effective conclusions appropriate to the overall intent.

Analyze and evaluate own and others’ writing for ideas, organization, sentence clarity, word choice, and mechanics (i.e., capitalization, punctuation, and spelling).

Prepare final copy using appropriate conventions of publication (e.g., title page, parenthetical references, works cited or bibliography).

Evaluate compositions for unity, coherence, and emphasis (e.g., proportion).

Confer with peers and teachers.

Write for a variety of purposes including to:

• reflect, clarify, and explore ideas
• express understanding
• describe, narrate, inform, and persuade
• express self.

Present point of view in a personal or reflective essay.

Outline a multi-paragraph composition.

Write a paraphrase and précis of a passage read.

Write an analysis of a literary text.

Write a short research essay on a topic of own choosing.

Write a letter of application and a résumé.

Experiment with a variety of forms of writing such as poem, play, anecdote, or short story.

Reading

Recognize reading as an active process which requires readers to:

• make connections
• find meaning
• make and confirm predictions
• make and confirm inferences
• reflect and evaluate.

Respond personally, critically, and creatively.

Recognize author’s purpose, form, and techniques.

State and evaluate author’s theme, tone, and viewpoint.

Recognize the major literary forms, elements, and techniques.

Relate the structure of the work to the author’s purpose and theme.

Recognize the tone and organization of the formal and informal essay.

Recognize and explain allusions, symbols, figurative language, and stylistic devices in a literary text.

Recognize prominent symbols in a literary work.

Skim, scan, and read closely for required information.

Paraphrase a prose and poetry passage.

Summarize information.

Locate, assess, and summarize information from a variety of sources.

Relate literary experience to personal experience.

Read an increasingly wide range of material for personal enjoyment and extension of experiences.

Explore human experiences and values.

Test ideas and values against ideas in text.

Read to stimulate the imagination.

Make and defend an informed critical response.

Recognize major literary forms and techniques.

Assess an author’s ideas and techniques.

Assess a selection’s merit as a literary work.

Compare, contrast, and evaluate texts.

Write a paraphrase and précis of a prose and poetry passage.

http://www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/docs/ela20/index1.html