1.) Analyze authors' use of literary elements including characterization, theme, tone, setting, mood, plot, and literary point of view, in American short stories, drama, poetry, or essays and other nonfiction literature, predominantly from 1900 to the present.

2.) Analyze use of figurative language and literary devices, including hyperbole, simile, metaphor, personification, and other imagery, to enhance specific literary passages.

3.) Read with comprehension a variety of informational and functional reading materials, including recognizing organizational patterns, evaluating strengths and weaknesses of argument, and identifying directions implied or embedded in a passage.

4.) Analyze twentieth and twenty-first century American literary selections for plot structure, cultural significance, and use of propaganda.

5.) Evaluate twentieth and twenty-first century American authors' use of language, including length and complexity of sentences, diction, and Standard English versus dialect.

6.) Determine word meaning in twentieth and twenty-first century American literature using word structure and context clues.

7.) Compare the writing styles of two or more American authors or public figures.

8.) Write the text for an oral presentation with attention to word choice, organizational patterns, transitional devices, and tone.

9.) Analyze writing for parallelism in literary selections and student writing.

10.) Edit writings, including student papers, for correct parallel form in clauses in a series and with correlative conjunctions and for correct use of subject-verb agreement with subjects with intervening phrases; subjects with collective nouns; subjects with indefinite pronouns when the verb form depends on the rest of the sentence; and subjects in sentences with correlative conjunctions or in inverted order.

11.) Differentiate between the use of active and passive voice.

12.) Use the research process to manage, document, organize, and present information to support a thesis on a literary topic.

13.) Compare the use of oral presentation skills of self and others.

14.) Identify propaganda in nonprint media.