Syllabus

English 10 Honors

Barry Rich

Room G-110

Block 1 

2012-2013

Course description and units of study: As its title implies, and by way of tradition and past practices, “English 10 Honors” is an upper-level, voluntary alternative, two-semester course that guides students to becoming better readers, writers, speakers, listeners, viewers, studiers, researchers, spellers,

technology-users, and critical thinkers—in order that students may enhance their academic, personal, and occupational lives. Prospective students provisionally apply for acceptance into this course. By past practice and tradition, this class is a “college preparatory” course of elevated rigor. Students bring “honor” and integrity to this course by maintaining high performance in their assigned readings, writings, and motivations and attitudes toward learning. A strong emphasis on literature exploration/interpretation and writing skills-building exists. In class, students read, discuss, and analyze a spectrum of literary genres and complete a variety of formal and informal writing assignments. A typical class day opens with a reading comprehension quiz for a previous homework reading assignment, a corresponding literature interpretation discussion, an in-class writing assignment, and a follow-up assessment, writing exercise, or  WESTest preparation exercise. Other class days may solely involve drafting longer writing assignments and researching. English 10 Honors emphasizes literature crafted by "world" authors, thereby focusing upon other than American and British writers. Likewise, the course inherently addresses cultural-diversity issues. Remediation of course material occurs by way of review and retesting.

Course objectives (upon course completion): By studying literature, students might increase their appreciation for the arts and humanities. Students will write works devoid of sentence-fragment errors, run-on errors, and comma-splice errors. Students will master Standard American English grammar rules of the sophomore level. Students will be very familiar with narrative, descriptive, informative, and persuasive writing forms and will demonstrate proficiency by adequately writing formal works of diverse formats. Students will increase their technology repertoires by constructing multimedia artifacts and frequently utilze Edmodo and DropBox. Students will write well-written literature-analysis essays and research essays.

Evaluation (grade determinants): Students’ grades are numerically and objectively based upon

heavily-weighted writing assignments, quizzes, tests, and mid-semester and end-of-term exam grades (to be calculated per county policy). Students’ grades are determined by averaging many graded assignments of varying point “weights.” Formal writings are more heavily weighted than other daily

in-class work. Likewise, students should always be monitoring Edline.net for grade reports and missed assignments. Late-work policy: Formal writings submitted late receive five-point deductions (on the

100-point scale) per school day.

Attendance: Issues regarding attendance may be remedied by referring to the student planner and reviewing the County Policy contained therein. 

Homework: Out of class, students need self-discipline in completing their reading assignments.

Make-up work: Make-up work is the dread of teachers and students alike. Notably however, it is a student’s responsibility to retrieve all work upon the day the student returns to school (as dictated within the student handbook/planner). Assignments and handouts usually appear on Edline.net the day they are assigned. Virtually ALL of the students who failed English 10 courses taught by me did so because those students had excessive absences and chose to not complete their make-up work. I normally eat a brown-bag lunch within my classroom so I can assist students with their work. This year I have 3rd Block planning, so there exists no excuses for not meeting with me about make up assignments during your A-Day lunch period.

Materials: Everyday, students need a freshly-charged computer netbook and a stiff cardboard covered, cloth-tape bound paper notebook—like the ones with black and white patterned covers, non-tear-out pages, sometimes called “composition” notebooks, and costing around a dollar. Students also need a copy of the novel currently being read. Students also need writing implements and loose-leaf or spiral-bound notebook paper for turning in quizzes, exams, and other assignments. Coming to class unprepared shows a lack of character and is actually a violation of student conduct. Textbooks will remain within my classroom. Current textbooks used are Glencoe's Literature: The Reader's Choice, Course 5, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston's Elements of Language: Fourth Course, and several older classroom sets of textbooks I can't bear to discard.