Honors English 10

# Of Credit Hours

Room 36

Megan Marsnik

Contact Information

Megan.marsnik@mpls.k12.mn.us

Course Description/Purpose

Honors English 10 is designed to fulfill the requirements of the Middle Years Program and to prepare students to meet the demands of the International Baccalaureate program or the Advanced Placement program during their junior and senior years in high school. While it is understood some students may not wish to continue into the IB  or AP programs, Honors English 10 is designed to show the students examples of what will be expected during their final years of high school.

Course Goals/Learning Objectives

·         Improved writing skills

·         Improved spoken presentations

·         Improved literary analysis

·         Improved skills in debate and discussion

·         Improved organizational skills

·         Improved ability to articulate an opinion.

·         Work will concentrate on the following skills.

1. Remembering: Retrieving, recognizing, and recalling relevant knowledge from long-term memory.

2. Understanding: Constructing meaning from oral, written, and graphic messages through interpreting, exemplifying, Students will classify, summarize, infer, compare, and explain.

3. Applying: This work will be accomplished through essays, oral exams, written exams, commentaries, and discussions.

4. Analyzing: Breaking material into constituent parts, determining how the parts relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose through differentiating, organizing, and attributing.

5. Evaluating: Making judgments based on criteria and standards through checking and critiquing. See “Assessments”

6. Creating: Putting elements together to form a coherent or functional whole; reorganizing elements into a new pattern or structure through generating, planning, or producing evaluations, synthesis, analysis, applications, and show their comprehension of material and knowledge of that material.

Prerequisites/Technology Use

Honors English 10 students are expected to know the basic structures of a variety of essay formats. Descriptive work, comparison and contrast papers, basic essay structure, and informative essays should be understood. Honors 10 students will be doing a lot of reading and writing so they should expect homework just about every night and be ready for class the next day.

It is assumed all Honors 10 students have access to the internet and computers.

Required reading can either be bought in bookstores, online, or checked out in the Media Center.

The use of cell phones for personal use (including calling or texting Mom) is absolutely forbidden. Parents and families are expected to respect the time students spend in class and to avoid calling their children while school is in session.

Laptops, Kindles, Nooks, etc are welcome.

Required Textbooks/Equipment

Text/Assignment                                                Assessment

Quarter one

Short Stories                                                            Literary Analysis

Vocabulary                                                            Quizzes

Catcher in the Rye                                                Essay/ Test

Research Paper                                                Research Paper

Quarter Two

Vocabulary

Their Eyes Were Watching God                        Comparison/Contrast Essay

Maus  (Voices of the Holocaust Unit)            Creative Project           

Japanese Internment Camps                                    Poetry Response                       

Oedipus                                                             Exam

Quarter Three

Macbeth                                                            Evaluative Written Response +  Project

The Things they Carried                                    Controversial Issue Essay

Book Groups                                                             Book Review

Quarter Four

Kindred  by Octavia Butler                                    Writing to a prompt           

The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fisfight in Heaven   Memoir Project

Speeches

Classroom Procedures/Policies

·         Statement of your policies, teaching methods, and classroom procedures including attendance, missed work, arriving late, etc.

·         Reference School Handbook and District policy on excused absences

·         Statement of safety considerations (if applicable)

·         Differentiated Instruction: how you plan to meet different learning styles, needs, disabilities, etc.

Assessment

·         Design objectives with measureable, action oriented outcomes

·         Explain assignments/assessment(s) relation to course objectives

·         Include types and dates of assessments/assignments

·         Grading Rubrics (if desired)

·         Grading Scale – traditional

·         Explanation of IB assessment indicators

·         Statement regarding extra credit (if desired)

·         Statement of grade dispute procedures (if desired)

Grading students will b according to the following tools.

1.       The sheet below demonstrates what I am looking for in each paper the student turns in for assessment:

How to get an A on your paper

1.        An effective structure to the essay, clearly focused, well –developed and persuasive argument.

2.        An excellent understanding of the work(s) used to focus on your thesis as well as the subtleties of their meaning.

3.        Detailed and persuasive references to the work(s).

4.        Your ideas are convincing and show independence of thought, where appropriate.

5.        The analysis of the ideas is consistently detailed and persuasively illustrated by carefully chosen examples.

6.        The language is clear, varied, precise and concise. There are no significant lapses in grammar, precise use of wide vocabulary and varied idiom and style.

How to get a B on your paper.

1.        A clear and logical structured to the essay.

2.        Supporting examples are appropriately integrated into the body of the essay.

3.        A good understanding of the work used. Detailed and pertinent references to the work.

4.        The ideas are carefully explored and include a considered personal response where appropriate. The analysis of the ideas is generally detailed and well illustrated by relevant examples.

5.        Pertinent and detailed analysis of the effects of the literary features in relation to the question.

6.        Clear and logical structure to the essay. Supporting examples are appropriate integrated into the essay.

How to get a C on your paper.

1.        An adequate structure to the essay where ideas are generally presented in an ordered and logical sequence.

2.        Supporting examples are sometimes appropriately integrated into the body of the essay.

3.        An adequate understanding of the work with adequate and appropriate references to the works.

4.        Ideas are relevant and the analysis of the ideas is adequate and illustrated by some relevant examples.

5.        Adequately clear and coherent use of language. Some degree of accuracy in grammar, spelling and sentence construction.

How to get a D on your paper.

1.        Some evidence of a structure to the essay with some attempt to present ideas in an ordered or logical sequence.

2.        Some knowledge or familiarity with the work.

3.        Superficial understanding of the works.

4.        The ideas are sometimes irrelevant

5.        The essay consists mainly of unsubstantiated generalizations.

6.        Some consideration of the literary features of the work in relation to the question

7.        A superficial analysis of the literary features mentioned.

8.        Some degree of clarity and some degree of accuracy in grammar, spelling, and spelling construction.

9.        Vocabulary is sometimes appropriate.

How to get an F on your paper.

1.        Little evidence of a structure or little attempt to present ideas in an ordered or logical sequence

2.        Little knowledge of the work

3.        Ideas are insignificant or irrelevant

4.        The essay consists mainly of paraphrases and/or narration and/or repetition of content.

5.        Little mention or consideration of the literary features of the work.

6.        The use of language is not readily comprehensible

7.        Many lapses in grammar, spelling, and sentence construction.

How to get a zero on your paper.

1.        Don’t write it.

2.        Write it but forget to hand it in.

3.        Write it in pencil.

As students write their papers they will have the following sheet to guide their editing process:

What I am looking for as I read your papers.

Presentation details

1. Use the correct format for the first page.

Your name

Ms. Marsnik

Class and period

Date: day month year        i.e. 10 July 2010

2. Number the pages. Write your last name and the page number in the upper right corner. For example, Smith 2
3. Never hand in a paper in pencil. I won’t even read it.
4. When making reference to a writer, use their last name. Never use their first name unless you are discussing Dante. i.e. Mary Oliver should be called “Oliver” and not “Mary”. You don’t know her that well to be on a first name basis.
5. Never use the second person voice in a formal paper. Second person voice is far too informal.
6. Double space all through the paper.
7. Don’t double-double space between paragraphs.
8. Give your paper a title.
9. Give the paper a title beyond “Catcher in the Rye” or “King Lear” or “Literary Analysis” Use your thesis as the basis of your title.
10. Do not make your title a different font or bold. Just center the title and be done with it. Regular double space before and after the title.
11. While first person voice isn’t awful, it can make your paper sound weak. An example could be the following: “I think Dostoyevsky was wrong” as opposed to “Dostoyevsky was wrong.” The second example is stronger. Therefore, use the first person voice as a last resort.
12. Novels are novels, plays are plays, stories are stories, and poems are poems. None of these should be called “books”.
13. Proofread your paper. Don’t trust the spellchecker on your computer to fix everything.
14. Use a font of 12 pt.
15. Use “Times New Roman” or some other normal font. None of those silly fonts.
16. Avoid enclosing comments in parentheses. (It takes away from the paper and makes it too informal.)

Opening Paragraph

17.  Does the introduction give the author’s name and the title of the work?  Does it include a specific thesis that states how the work will be analyzed and what the analysis will attempt to show?
18. Always name the text and the author early in the first paragraph.
19. When writing the name of a short story use “quotation marks”.
20. When writing the name of a book or novel, underline the title.
21. You could use italics for either and not bother to use “quotation marks” or underline the title.
22. State a clear thesis.
23. Watch out for getting too broad in your opening paragraph. Get to the point. Often broad statements read more like an attempt to pad the paper with words rather than to deal with the subject at hand.
24. Evaluate the beginning. How does it prepare the reader for the essay?

Body

                Mechanics

25. Does the body of the essay present a complete and convincing analysis that develops the theme statement?   Do details, incidents, and quotations from the work support each point in the analysis?
26. Is enough summary given so an unfamiliar audience will understand the essay?  Is too much summary avoided for an audience familiar with the work? Have definitions been given for all words, images, characters, and other elements that the audience might not know?
27. When comparing two different texts, work to keep the comparisons related to a specific theme, motif or idea. Try not to write about one text first and then the second text. This tends to read like two separate papers thrown together rather than a true comparison and contrast paper.
28. Each paragraph needs a topic sentence.
29. Use direct quotations within each paragraph to justify your ideas.
30. Watch out for using quotations that are too long. Get to your point and move on

Quotations of four lines or fewer should be enclosed in quotation marks and run in with the text. Longer quotations should be set off from the text in a block – to do this, indent ten spaces from the left margin and triple space above and below the quotation. If the quotation begins with a new paragraph, indent an additional three spaces. Prose quotations of more than four typed lines and poetry of more than three lines should be set off in this way.

31. Cite the page where you found the quote.  The first time you cite an author use the writer’s last name and the page number. (Salinger 34) after that, if it is the only work of literature you are using, you should simply use the page number. (45).
32. Place the citation location within parentheses after the quotation marks. Example: .” (4)
33. If you are citing different writers, write the citation using the writers name and page number (Dostoyevsky 235).
34. When citing a play use the act, scene and line numbers whenever possible. (I. ii. 23 – 46).
35. Do not write quotes in italics. Simply use quotation marks.
36. Two to three pages mean two full pages as a minimum length.
37. When making reference to the writer, use his or her name, not “the author”.

Content

38. Do not retell the story. Every paper you write in this class will be read by someone who knows the source material. Use examples from the story to justify your ideas.
39. In literary analysis, keep the focus on the writer. What is the writer doing with these characters? Why is the writer creating this situation, this mood, this conflict? Always remember that characters are tools of the writer’s imagination and not independent entities.
40. To be convincing, literary analysis must be grounded in specific textual evidence.
41. Textual evidence should be clearly related to a specific point.
42. Ideas must not only be supported with textual evidence, but they must also be fully explained.
43. Avoid any ideas that seem unrelated to the thesis, disconnected from other ideas, or contradictory.
44. Literary analysis occasionally needs to relate details of the plot. Be careful, however, that too much space is devoted to plot summary and not enough to analysis.

Conclusion

45. Does the conclusion summarize how the analysis has developed the idea(s) stated in the thesis?
46. Don’t write a quick conclusion. Yes, you’re almost done, but be complete in your work all the way through.
47. Evaluate the ending. Is it too abrupt or mechanical? Does it oversimplify your argument or distort the thesis?

Papers are expected to be turned in time. Once the paper has been read I will sit with each student and go over their paper. If we have time, I will let them rewrite the paper according to the following guidelines.

Revising your essay

Rewrite Policy

1. You get one week from the day you received your paper to do a rewrite. Late rewrites are never accepted.
2. You must return the original paper along with the new version. If I don’t have both papers, I will not read the new version.
3. The highest grade you can receive on a rewrite is 93%.

Issues to consider in rewriting a paper

Revising to strengthen the argument

1. Reconsider your interpretation of the story. Can your thesis be refined? Should you add more evidence or explain more specifically how your evidence supports your thesis?
2. Can you strengthen the logical connections among your ideas?
3. Reread your argument with your readers in mind. Have you fully considered the likelihood that they might interpret the story in some other way and that therefore you need to show them not only how you see it but why you see it as you do?
4. Consider each of the main ideas. Are they now in the best possible order, or should they be presented in some other order?

Revising for readability

1. Reconsider the beginning. Could you better prepare readers to follow your argument?
2. Do you need to provide more explicit transitions between sentences and paragraphs?
3. Do you sometimes give more details than you need to?
4. Reconsider the ending. How can you improve it? Can you see any other point in the essay that would be a stronger place to end?

Essa

Extra Credit

Assignments

·         Assignments are broken into categories, so students can identify strengths and weakness. However, they are not weighted by category. I assign small point values to formative work and high point value to summative work (essays and projects).  Grades are determined by a straight percentage using the standard MPS grading scale.

Student Code of Conduct

All students are expected to adhere to the Southwest High School and Minneapolis District Citywide Discipline Policy, designed to promote a safe and respectful learning environment. For more information about your rights and responsibilities consult your Southwest Student/Parent Handbook

Academic Integrity: Plagiarism/Consequences

It is expected that members of this class will observe strict policies of academic honesty and will be respectful of each other. Any instances in which cheating, including plagiarism and unauthorized use of copyrighted materials, computer accounts, or someone else’s work is determined, will be referred to Student Services and will be investigated to its full extent.

Consider providing a definition of plagiarism and examples if desired or referring students to page 10 of the Southwest Handbook