Honors+English+Syllabus

Teacher: Miss Shelly A. Miller
 * Syllabus for: Honors English** School Year: 2011-2012

Honors English introduces students to a variety of reading, writing, speaking, listening, and thinking skills. The class includes the study of a multitude of genres from various angles. The literature studied includes short stories, myths, poetry, plays, and novels from a variety of cultures and time periods. Literary terminology will be studied as a basis for discussing the texts. Students will learn to explicate the significance of literature and to relate the text to their own lives. Students will also engage in a variety of class activities, including large and small group discussions, oral presentations, and collaborative learning. Students will work on analytical essays and timed writing pieces. Students are required to write, conference, and revise compositions and to do independent reading projects each marking period. Students are expected to read at a mature level, simultaneously analyzing both context and form, and to write with clarity, precision, and sophistication about both literature and personal experiences.
 * COURSE DESCRIPTION/OVERVIEW:**

1. //Wuthering Heights// by Emily Bronte 2. //Moby Dick// by Herman Melville 3. //The Sun Also Rises// by Ernest Hemingway 4. //The Jungle// by Upton Sinclair 5. //Heart of Darkness// by Joseph Conrad
 * RESOURCES/INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS/TEXT:**
 * Novels**

1. //Othello// by William Shakespeare
 * Drama**

Short Stories 1. “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner 2. “A Good Man is Hard to Findt” byFlannery O'Connor

1. "The Unknown Citizen" by W.H. Auden 2. "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer Day" by William Shakespeare 3. How Do I Love Thee? By Elizabeth Barrett Browning 4. “On My First Son” by Ben Jonson 5. “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke 6. “The Ruined Maid” by Thomas Hardy 7. “The Silken Tent” by Robert Frost 8. “My Son, My Executioner” by Donald Hall 9. “Eight O’clock” by A.E. Housman 10. “The Hollow Men” by T.S. Eliot 11. “The Lamb” by William Blake 12. “The Tyger” by William Blake 13. “ I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth 14. “These are the Days When Birds Come Back” by Emily Dickenson 15. “Safe in Their Alabaster Chambers” by Emily Dickenson 16. “There’s a Certain Slant of Light” by Emily Dickenson 17. “He Put the Belt Around My Life” by Emily Dickenson 18. “It Was Not death, For I Stood Up” by Emily Dickenson 19. “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickenson 20. "Piano" by D.H. Lawrence 21. " Stopping by Woods" by Robert Frost 22. "Count That Day Lost" by George Eliot 23. "Gradatim" by Josiah Gilbert Hollan 24. "Village Blacksmith" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
 * Poetry:**

PSSA Test Preparatory Materials from the Pennsylvania Department of Education


 * NOTE:** Copies of all novels and works of drama will be provided by the school. However, students are allowed to purchase their own copies of these works, as they may want to make notes within the text. Students are supplied with copies of all poems and essays to be covered during the course.

Honors English covers four marking periods of nine weeks each.

Since writing and reading are reciprocal skills, these are taught in concert with each other. In reading, students are taught the techniques of inferential reading, elements of plot and structure, and literary techniques and devices. By reading pieces of literary quality, students learn how to emulate literary quality within their own work. During writing instruction, modeling is utilized to teach various rhetorical and literary techniques, as well as different formats and modalities of writing. The teacher instructs students in the steps of the writing process: brainstorm, outline, rough draft, and editing and revising into final copy. Teacher editing and peer editing are used during the writing process for various assignments so that individual expertise in these areas is strengthened. As we progress through the school year, less emphasis is given to teacher and peer editing, and more emphasis is placed on individual creation. The goal of this course, after all, is to produce strong independent writers and readers. Post assignment instruction includes the examination of quality benchmark papers and various challenge areas incurred in different assignments. Students keep all graded writing assignments within their HONORS binders, so they can examine their personal academic growth throughout the two semesters.
 * WRITING AND READING INSTRUCTION:**

Writing assignments are graded via a rubric that incorporates the five domains in the Pennsylvania State Standards for Effective Writing: Focus, Content, Organization, Style, and Conventions. Each of these areas is graded as: Advanced (A), Proficient (B), and Basic (C-D), or Below Basic (F), per the state standards. By reading the attached rubric and the notes made by the teacher on the essay itself, students will be able to evaluate their own individual writing strengths and to improve in their own individual challenge areas. All writing assignments include the following steps: brainstorm, outline, rough draft, editing and revising into final copy. The steps of brainstorm, outline, and rough draft are graded as class work or as homework and are used by the teacher as an assessment tool to evaluate student research, organization, synthesis, editing, and proofreading skills. The final copy is assessed via the writing rubric and is graded as a writing assignment.
 * ASSESSMENT OF WRITING ASSIGNMENTS:**

Assessment of a student’s understanding of reading assignments is achieved in a variety of ways that includes but is not limited to: class discussion, written reading response questions, quizzes, tests, and analytical essays. In HONORS English, reading assessment goes far beyond rote knowledge. Assessment of reading includes the student’s ability to infer, extrapolate, deduce, predict, evaluate, analyze, synthesize, and to clarify cause and effect, among other things.
 * ASSESSMENT OF READING ASSIGNMENTS:**

Course work Percent of Final Grade Class Work: In-class writings, discussion, and activities 10% Homework/Binder: Out of class writings and activities. Students are required to keep an HONORS Binder in which they are to place all class handouts and graded assignments. These binders will be checked at the end of each marking period for completeness. The binder is an important assessment tool in viewing a student’s growth in literary analysis and writing. 10% Quizzes 30% Writing Assignments/Tests: Writing assignments include literary analysis, the college essay, and various creative pieces 50%
 * GRADING SCALE**

Numerical Average Letter Grade 93-100 A 85-92 B 75-94 C 70-74 D 0-69 F No work submitted O

∑ 3- inch loose- leaf binder ∑ 1 pack of adhesive tab markers ∑ 1 pack of 50 standard weight sheet protectors – clear ∑ 1 highlighter – any color 1 red pen
 * MATERIAL REQUIREMENTS**: (to be purchased by student)

∑ HONORS binder to store all class handouts and graded assignments ∑ Relevant homework and class-work ∑ Reading of pertinent novels, short stories, essays, poems, expository prose; handouts. ∑ Practice HONORS exams ∑ Quizzes ∑ Essays
 * ACADEMIC REQUIREMENTS:**


 * DUE DATES FOR CLASSWORK/HOMEWORK:** Work is absolutely due on the date assigned or the student will receive a grade of a zero. If a student is tardy, leaving early, or absent from class due to a field trip or extracurricular activities or other school activities the day that an assignment is due, he or she must submit that assignment to me by 3:10 of that day by placing it in my mailbox.


 * MAKEUP WORK**: It is the student’s responsibility to keep track of any work owed due to absence. To do this, check Power Grade on a daily basis. It a student has an excused absence the day that an assignment is due, it is the student’s responsibility to make up any missed work within one week from the due date. If this is not done, then a grade of a zero will be issued. You may reach me personally by leaving a telephone message in the school office, and I will return your call as soon as possible. You may also reach me at my teacher e-mail: tmiller@jtasd.org


 * Summer reading** of a novel is required for HONORS English. The reading response questions are due on the first day of school and will be graded as a first marking period assignment. Summer readings will be discussed in class and followed with a concluding test.