Grade 12  Selected Top Priority Standards

• English
• Math
• Science
• Social Studies

• English

  Students apply their knowledge of word origins to determine the meaning of new words encountered in reading materials and use those words accurately.

  Analyze both the features and the rhetorical devices of different types of public documents (e.g., policy statements, speeches, debates, platforms) and the way in which authors use those features and devices.

  Analyze the way in which clarity of meaning is affected by the patterns of organization, hierarchical structures, repetition of the main ideas, syntax, and word choice in the text.

  Verify and clarify facts presented in other types of expository texts by using a variety of consumer, workplace, and public documents.

  Make warranted and reasonable assertions about the author's arguments by using elements of the text to defend and clarify interpretations.

  Students write coherent and focused texts that convey a well-defined perspective and tightly reasoned argument. The writing demonstrates students' awareness of the audience and purpose and progression through the stages of the writing process.

  Enhance meaning by employing rhetorical devices, including the extended use of parallelism, repetition, and analogy; the incorporation of visual aids (e.g., graphs, tables, pictures); and the issuance of a call for action.

  Use language in natural, fresh, and vivid ways to establish a specific tone.

  Develop presentations by using clear research questions and creative and critical research strategies (e.g., field studies, oral histories, interviews, experiments, electronic sources).

  Use systematic strategies to organize and record information (e.g., anecdotal scripting, annotated bibliographies).

  Integrate databases, graphics, and spreadsheets into word-processed documents.

  Revise text to highlight the individual voice, improve sentence variety and style, and enhance subtlety of meaning and tone in ways that are consistent with the purpose, audience, and genre.

  Students combine the rhetorical strategies of narration, exposition, persuasion, and description to produce texts of at least 1,500 words each. Student writing demonstrates a command of standard American English and the research, organizational, and drafting strategies outlined in.

  
  Writing Standard 1.0.
  
  Write reflective compositions: Explore the significance of personal experiences, events, conditions, or concerns by using rhetorical strategies (e.g., narration, description, exposition, persuasion); Draw comparisons between specific incidents and broader themes that illustrate the writer's important beliefs or generalizations about life; Maintain a balance in describing individual incidents and relate those incidents to more general and abstract ideas.

  Write job applications and résumés: Provide clear and purposeful information and address the intended audience appropriately; Use varied levels, patterns, and types of language to achieve intended effects and aid comprehension; Modify the tone to fit the purpose and audience; Follow the conventional style for that type of document (e.g., résumé, memorandum) and use page formats, fonts, and spacing that contribute to the readability and impact of the document.

  Deliver multimedia presentations: Combine text, images, and sound and draw information from many sources (e.g., television broadcasts, videos, films, newspapers, magazines, CD-ROMs, the Internet, electronic media-generated images); Select an appropriate medium for each element of the presentation; Use the selected media skillfully, editing appropriately and monitoring for quality; Test the audience's response and revise the presentation accordingly.
  
  

  Students write and speak with a command of standard English conventions.

  1. Demonstrate control of grammar, diction, and paragraph and sentence structure and an understanding of English usage.
  2. Produce legible work that shows accurate spelling and correct punctuation and capitalization.
  3. Reflect appropriate manuscript requirements in writing.

  
  Students formulate adroit judgments about oral communication. They deliver focused and coherent presentations that convey clear and distinct perspectives and demonstrate solid reasoning. They use gestures, tone, and vocabulary tailored to the audience and purpose.

  Recognize strategies used by the media to inform, persuade, entertain, and transmit culture (e.g., advertisements; perpetuation of stereotypes; use of visual representations, special effects, language).

  Interpret and evaluate the various ways in which events are presented and information is communicated by visual image makers (e.g., graphic artists, documentary filmmakers, illustrators, news photographers).

  Use rhetorical questions, parallel structure, concrete images, figurative language, characterization, irony, and dialogue to achieve clarity, force, and aesthetic effect.

  
  Distinguish between and use various forms of classical and contemporary logical arguments, including:

  1. Inductive and deductive reasoning
  2. Syllogisms and analogies

  
  Use research and analysis to justify strategies for gesture, movement, and vocalization, including dialect, pronunciation, and enunciation.

  Critique a speaker's diction and syntax in relation to the purpose of an oral communication and the impact the words may have on the audience.

  Analyze the four basic types of persuasive speech (i.e., propositions of fact, value, problem, or policy) and understand the similarities and differences in their patterns of organization and the use of persuasive language, reasoning, and proof.

  Students deliver polished formal and extemporaneous presentations that combine traditional rhetorical strategies of narration, exposition, persuasion, and description. Student speaking demonstrates a command of standard American English and the organizational and delivery strategies outlined in Listening and Speaking Standard 1.0.

  Deliver reflective presentations: Explore the significance of personal experiences, events, conditions, or concerns, using appropriate rhetorical strategies (e.g., narration, description, exposition, persuasion); Draw comparisons between the specific incident and broader themes that illustrate the speaker's beliefs or generalizations about life; Maintain a balance between describing the incident and relating it to more general, abstract ideas.

  Deliver multimedia presentations: Combine text, images, and sound by incorporating information from a wide range of media, including films, newspapers, magazines, CD-ROMs, online information, television, videos, and electronic media-generated images; Select an appropriate medium for each element of the presentation; Use the selected media skillfully, editing appropriately and monitoring for quality; Test the audience's response and revise the presentation accordingly.

   

• Calculus

  Students demonstrate knowledge of both the formal definition and the graphical interpretation of limit of values of functions. This knowledge includes one-sided limits, infinite limits, and limits at infinity. Students know the definition of convergence and divergence of a function as the domain variable approaches either a number or infinity:

  • Students prove and use theorems evaluating the limits of sums, products, quotients, and composition of functions.
  • Students use graphical calculators to verify and estimate limits.
  • Students prove and use special limits, such as the limits of (sin(x))/x and (1-cos(x))/x as x tends to 0.

  
  Students demonstrate knowledge of both the formal definition and the graphical interpretation of continuity of a function.

  Students demonstrate an understanding and the application of the intermediate value theorem and the extreme value theorem.

  Students demonstrate an understanding of the formal definition of the derivative of a function at a point and the notion of differentiability:

  • Students demonstrate an understanding of the derivative of a function as the slope of the tangent line to the graph of the function.
  • Students demonstrate an understanding of the interpretation of the derivative as an instantaneous rate of change. Students can use derivatives to solve a variety of problems from physics, chemistry, economics, and so forth that involve the rate of change of a function.
  • Students understand the relation between differentiability and continuity.
  • Students derive derivative formulas and use them to find the derivatives of algebraic, trigonometric, inverse trigonometric, exponential, and logarithmic functions.

  
  Students know the chain rule and its proof and applications to the calculation of the derivative of a variety of composite functions.

  Students find the derivatives of parametrically defined functions and use implicit differentiation in a wide variety of problems in physics, chemistry, economics, and so forth.

  Students compute derivatives of higher orders.

  Students use differentiation to sketch, by hand, graphs of functions. They can identify maxima, minima, inflection points, and intervals in which the function is increasing and decreasing.

  Students know Newton's method for approximating the zeros of a function.

  Students use differentiation to solve optimization (maximum-minimum problems) in a variety of pure and applied contexts.

  Students use differentiation to solve related rate problems in a variety of pure and applied contexts.

  Students know the definition of the definite integral by using Riemann sums. They use this definition to approximate integrals.

  Students apply the definition of the integral to model problems in physics, economics, and so forth, obtaining results in terms of integrals.

  Students demonstrate knowledge and proof of the fundamental theorem of calculus and use it to interpret integrals as anti-derivatives.

  Students use definite integrals in problems involving area, velocity, acceleration, volume of a solid, area of a surface of revolution, length of a curve, and work.

  Students compute, by hand, the integrals of a wide variety of functions by using techniques of integration, such as substitution, integration by parts, and trigonometric substitution. They can also combine these techniques when appropriate.

  Students know the definitions and properties of inverse trigonometric functions and the expression of these functions as indefinite integrals.

  Students compute, by hand, the integrals of rational functions by combining the techniques in the standards with the algebraic techniques of partial fractions and completing the square.

  Students compute the integrals of trigonometric functions by using the techniques noted above.

  Students understand the algorithms involved in Simpson's rule and Newton's method. They use calculators or computers or both to approximate integrals numerically.

  Students understand improper integrals as limits of definite integrals.

  Students demonstrate an understanding of the definitions of convergence and divergence of sequences and series of real numbers. By using such tests as the comparison test, ratio test, and alternate series test, they can determine whether a series converges.

  Students calculate Taylor polynomials and Taylor series of basic functions, including the remainder term.

  Students know the techniques of solution of selected elementary differential equations and their applications to a wide variety of situations, including growth-and-decay problems.

   

• Physics

  Standards that all students are expected to achieve in the course of their studies are unmarked.
  Standards that all students should have the opportunity to learn are marked with an asterisk (*).

  Motion and Forces
  
  Newton's laws predict the motion of most objects. As a basis for understanding this concept:

  • Students know how to solve problems that involve constant speed and average speed.
  • Students know that when forces are balanced, no acceleration occurs; thus an object continues to move at a constant speed or stays at rest (Newton's first law).
  • Students know how to apply the law F=ma to solve one-dimensional motion problems that involve constant forces (Newton's second law).
  • Students know that when one object exerts a force on a second object, the second object always exerts a force of equal magnitude and in the opposite direction (Newton's third law).
  • Students know the relationship between the universal law of gravitation and the effect of gravity on an object at the surface of Earth.
  • Students know applying a force to an object perpendicular to the direction of its motion causes the object to change direction but not speed (e.g., Earth's gravitational force causes a satellite in a circular orbit to change direction but not speed).
  • Students know circular motion requires the application of a constant force directed toward the center of the circle.
  • Students know Newton's laws are not exact but provide very good approximations unless an object is moving close to the speed of light or is small enough that quantum effects are important.
  • Students know how to solve two-dimensional trajectory problems.
  • Students know how to resolve two-dimensional vectors into their components and calculate the magnitude and direction of a vector from its components.
  • Students know how to solve two-dimensional problems involving balanced forces (statics).
  • Students know how to solve problems in circular motion by using the formula for centripetal acceleration in the following form: a=v2/r.
  • Students know how to solve problems involving the forces between two electric charges at a distance (Coulomb's law) or the forces between two masses at a distance (universal gravitation).

  Conservation of Energy and Momentum
  
  The laws of conservation of energy and momentum provide a way to predict and describe the movement of objects. As a basis for understanding this concept:

  • Students know how to calculate kinetic energy by using the formula E=(1/2)mv2 .
  • Students know how to calculate changes in gravitational potential energy near Earth by using the formula (change in potential energy) =mgh (h is the change in the elevation).
  • Students know how to solve problems involving conservation of energy in simple systems, such as falling objects.
  • Students know how to calculate momentum as the product mv.
  • Students know momentum is a separately conserved quantity different from energy.
  • Students know an unbalanced force on an object produces a change in its momentum.
  • Students know how to solve problems involving elastic and inelastic collisions in one dimension by using the principles of conservation of momentum and energy.
  • Students know how to solve problems involving conservation of energy in simple systems with various sources of potential energy, such as capacitors and springs.

  Heat and Thermodynamics
  
  Energy cannot be created or destroyed, although in many processes energy is transferred to the environment as heat. As a basis for understanding this concept:

  • Students know heat flow and work are two forms of energy transfer between systems.
  • Students know that the work done by a heat engine that is working in a cycle is the difference between the heat flow into the engine at high temperature and the heat flow out at a lower temperature (first law of thermodynamics) and that this is an example of the law of conservation of energy.
  • Students know the internal energy of an object includes the energy of random motion of the object's atoms and molecules, often referred to as thermal energy. The greater the temperature of the object, the greater the energy of motion of the atoms and molecules that make up the object.
  • Students know that most processes tend to decrease the order of a system over time and that energy levels are eventually distributed uniformly.
  • Students know that entropy is a quantity that measures the order or disorder of a system and that this quantity is larger for a more disordered system.
  • Students know the statement "Entropy tends to increase" is a law of statistical probability that governs all closed systems (second law of thermodynamics).
  • Students know how to solve problems involving heat flow, work, and efficiency in a heat engine and know that all real engines lose some heat to their surroundings.

  Waves
  
  Waves have characteristic properties that do not depend on the type of wave. As a basis for understanding this concept:

  • Students know waves carry energy from one place to another.
  • Students know how to identify transverse and longitudinal waves in mechanical media, such as springs and ropes, and on the earth (seismic waves).
  • Students know how to solve problems involving wavelength, frequency, and wave speed.
  • Students know sound is a longitudinal wave whose speed depends on the properties of the medium in which it propagates.
  • Students know radio waves, light, and X-rays are different wavelength bands in the spectrum of electromagnetic waves whose speed in a vacuum is approximately 3×108 m/s (186,000 miles/second).
  • Students know how to identify the characteristic properties of waves: interference (beats), diffraction, refraction, Doppler effect, and polarization.

  Electric and Magnetic Phenomena
  
  Electric and magnetic phenomena are related and have many practical applications. As a basis for understanding this concept:

  • Students know how to predict the voltage or current in simple direct current (DC) electric circuits constructed from batteries, wires, resistors, and capacitors.
  • Students know how to solve problems involving Ohm's law.
  • Students know any resistive element in a DC circuit dissipates energy, which heats the resistor. Students can calculate the power (rate of energy dissipation) in any resistive circuit element by using the formula Power = IR (potential difference) × I (current) = I2R.
  • Students know the properties of transistors and the role of transistors in electric circuits.
  • Students know charged particles are sources of electric fields and are subject to the forces of the electric fields from other charges.
  • Students know magnetic materials and electric currents (moving electric charges) are sources of magnetic fields and are subject to forces arising from the magnetic fields of other sources.
  • Students know how to determine the direction of a magnetic field produced by a current flowing in a straight wire or in a coil.
  • Students know changing magnetic fields produce electric fields, thereby inducing currents in nearby conductors.
  • Students know plasmas, the fourth state of matter, contain ions or free electrons or both and conduct electricity.
  • Students know electric and magnetic fields contain energy and act as vector force fields.
  • Students know the force on a charged particle in an electric field is qE, where E is the electric field at the position of the particle and q is the charge of the particle.
  • Students know how to calculate the electric field resulting from a point charge.
  • Students know static electric fields have as their source some arrangement of electric charges.
  • Students know the magnitude of the force on a moving particle (with charge q) in a magnetic field is qvB sin(a), where a is the angle between v and B (v and B are the magnitudes of vectors v and B, respectively), and students use the right-hand rule to find the direction of this force.
  • Students know how to apply the concepts of electrical and gravitational potential energy to solve problems involving conservation of energy.

   

• Democracy

  Students explain the fundamental principles and moral values of American democracy as expressed in the U.S. Constitution and other essential documents of American democracy.

  • Discuss the character of American democracy and its promise and perils as articulated by Alexis de Tocqueville.

  Students evaluate and take and defend positions on the scope and limits of rights and obligations as democratic citizens, the relationships among them, and how they are secured.

  • Discuss the meaning and importance of each of the rights guaranteed under the Bill of Rights and how each is secured (e.g., freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, petition, privacy).
  • Explain how economic rights are secured and their importance to the individual and to society (e.g., the right to acquire, use, transfer, and dispose of property; right to choose one's work; right to join or not join labor unions; copyright and patent).
  • Discuss the individual's legal obligations to obey the law, serve as a juror, and pay taxes.
  • Understand the obligations of civic-mindedness, including voting, being informed on civic issues, volunteering and performing public service, and serving in the military or alternative service.
  • Describe the reciprocity between rights and obligations; that is, why enjoyment of one's rights entails respect for the rights of others.
  • Explain how one becomes a citizen of the United States, including the process of naturalization (e.g., literacy, language, and other requirements).

  Students evaluate and take and defend positions on what the fundamental values and principles of civil society are (i.e., the autonomous sphere of voluntary personal, social, and economic relations that are not part of government), their interdependence, and the meaning and importance of those values and principles for a free society.

  • Explain how civil society provides opportunities for individuals to associate for social, cultural, religious, economic, and political purposes.
  • Explain how civil society makes it possible for people, individually or in association with others, to bring their influence to bear on government in ways other than voting and elections.
  • Discuss the historical role of religion and religious diversity.
  • Compare the relationship of government and civil society in constitutional democracies to the relationship of government and civil society in authoritarian and totalitarian regimes.

  Students analyze the unique roles and responsibilities of the three branches of government as established by the U.S. Constitution.

  • Discuss Article I of the Constitution as it relates to the legislative branch, including eligibility for office and lengths of terms of representatives and senators; election to office; the roles of the House and Senate in impeachment proceedings; the role of the vice president; the enumerated legislative powers; and the process by which a bill becomes a law.
  • Explain the process through which the Constitution can be amended.
  • Identify their current representatives in the legislative branch of the national government.
  • Discuss Article II of the Constitution as it relates to the executive branch, including eligibility for office and length of term, election to and removal from office, the oath of office, and the enumerated executive powers.
  • Discuss Article III of the Constitution as it relates to judicial power, including the length of terms of judges and the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.
  • Explain the processes of selection and confirmation of Supreme Court justices.

  Students summarize landmark U.S. Supreme Court interpretations of the Constitution and its amendments.

  • Understand the changing interpretations of the Bill of Rights over time, including interpretations of the basic freedoms (religion, speech, press, petition, and assembly) articulated in the First Amendment and the due process and equal-protection-of-the-law clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.
  • Analyze judicial activism and judicial restraint and the effects of each policy over the decades (e.g., the Warren and Rehnquist courts).

  Students evaluate issues regarding campaigns for national, state, and local elective offices.

  • Analyze the origin, development, and role of political parties, noting those occasional periods in which there was only one major party or were more than two major parties.
  • Discuss the history of the nomination process for presidential candidates and the increasing importance of primaries in general elections.
  • Evaluate the roles of polls, campaign advertising, and the controversies over campaign funding.
  • Describe the means that citizens use to participate in the political process (e.g., voting, campaigning, lobbying, filing a legal challenge, demonstrating, petitioning, picketing, running for political office).
  • Discuss the features of direct democracy in numerous states (e.g., the process of referendums, recall elections).
  • Analyze trends in voter turnout; the causes and effects of reapportionment and redistricting, with special attention to spatial districting and the rights of minorities; and the function of the Electoral College.

  Students analyze and compare the powers and procedures of the national, state, tribal, and local governments.

  • Explain how conflicts between levels of government and branches of government are resolved.
  • Identify the major responsibilities and sources of revenue for state and local governments.
  • Explain how public policy is formed, including the setting of the public agenda and implementation of it through regulations and executive orders.
  • Compare the processes of lawmaking at each of the three levels of government, including the role of lobbying and the media.
  • Identify the organization and jurisdiction of federal, state, and local (e.g., California) courts and the interrelationships among them.
  • Understand the scope of presidential power and decision making through examination of case studies such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, passage of Great Society legislation, War Powers Act, Gulf War, and Bosnia.

  Students evaluate and take and defend positions on the influence of the media on American political life.

  • Discuss the meaning and importance of a free and responsible press.
  • Describe the roles of broadcast, print, and electronic media, including the Internet, as means of communication in American politics.
  • Explain how public officials use the media to communicate with the citizenry and to shape public opinion.

  Students analyze the origins, characteristics, and development of different political systems across time, with emphasis on the quest for political democracy, its advances, and its obstacles.

  • Explain how the different philosophies and structures of feudalism, mercantilism, socialism, fascism, communism, monarchies, parliamentary systems, and constitutional liberal democracies influence economic policies, social welfare policies, and human rights practices.
  • Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of federal, con federal, and unitary systems of government.
  • Describe for at least two countries the consequences of conditions that gave rise to tyrannies during certain periods (e.g., Italy, Japan, Haiti, Nigeria, Cambodia).
  • Identify the forms of illegitimate power that twentieth-century African, Asian, and Latin American dictators used to gain and hold office and the conditions and interests that supported them.
  • Describe the ideologies that give rise to Communism, methods of maintaining control, and the movements to overthrow such governments in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland, including the roles of individuals (e.g., Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Pope John Paul II, Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel).
  • Identify the successes of relatively new democracies in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the ideas, leaders, and general societal conditions that have launched and sustained, or failed to sustain, them.

  Students formulate questions about and defend their analyses of tensions within our constitutional democracy and the importance of maintaining a balance between the following concepts: majority rule and individual rights; liberty and equality; state and national authority in a federal system; civil disobedience and the rule of law; freedom of the press and the right to a fair trial; the relationship of religion and government.
  
  

  Civics

  The students will have a broader understanding of the historical foundations of the US government. Further, they will gain knowledge on how to take part in the government processes as well as develop responsible citizenship. Responsibility toward the government is a crucial focus of this study.
  
  

  South-East Asia

  The students will be able to review the historical highlights of the countries of South-East Asia. They will be able to value and appreciate the cultural dimensions unique to the Asian cultures. Moreover, the students may be equipped with insights and know-how in applying and contextualizing the best of Western cultures and ideas into their own local government processes.

  
  PSYCHOLOGY

  Show an understanding of the science of psychology and the scientific method in written formats such as assignments and exams.   

  Through exams and other assessments, display a breadth of knowledge of current research, concepts, ethical principles, theories and perspectives in psychology, including recent developments and key figures in the field.

  Apply the theoretical concepts to personal life as well as to synthesize psychological concepts with local and global consciousness and awareness.

  Do independent assignments such as library orientations and writing skills workshops.