Each student will need an ample supply of notebook paper (college ruled, if
possible), blue and black pens, a colored pen for proofreading and
correcting, a three-ring binder, and a great attitude.
It would be very helpful if you brought a box of tissues for classroom use!
IF YOU COULD, PLEASE BRING PURELL HAND CLEANER FOR CLASSROOM USE AS WELL.
TEST DAYS ARE USUALLY ON FRIDAYS FOR ENGLISH!
SOMETIMES IT WORKS BEST TO E-MAIL ME DIRECTLY FROM YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS RATHER
THAN GOING THROUGH TEACHER WEB. SOMETIMES THE FILTERS DIRECT TEACHER WEB TO
SPAM. YOU MAY FIND ME AT pwbhha@gmail.com
The following items are handouts which I give to my classes at the beginning
of each year. You may want to refresh yourself occasionally by glancing over
our course requirements.
English V
AP® English Literature and Composition
Dear Parents and Seniors:
Welcome to Advanced Placement Literature and Composition! You will be
pleased to know that our course has been reviewed and approved by the AP®
board, and colleges all over the nation will recognize that you have received
credit for AP Certified work. As such, that extra point earned on your GPR
will be accepted and approved by your college of choice. This certainly has
me excited about the year, so I am on GO! for you. We have quite a bit to
accomplish, and you guys have the minds and the willpower to accomplish it
all. College is a brief twelve months away. We don’t have time to play, but
we do have time to enjoy exploring English literature together.
This class is a combination of Survey of British Literature and Advanced
Placement English. In addition to working through the British Lit. book, we
will study vocabulary; continue to write papers of argumentation,
explication, analysis, and comparison; read parallels; learn to appreciate
poetry, and do a bit – but only a bit – of practice testing. Your regimen
will be demanding but achievable.
In December we will take the Princeton AP Examination in Literature and
Composition practice test. This test is highly reliable as a guideline to
let you know how you may expect to score if you take the graded test in the
spring. As a general rule, the more you read and the more you allow yourself
to use analytical thinking, the higher you score; the more you “fake” read
and allow yourself to become dependent on memorization, the lower you score.
This is where your own experience as a student comes into play, and it is
where the old saying, “It will eventually catch up with you” does exactly
that. Taking this course does not ensure that you will exempt college
English. When we began this course over a decade ago, we decided to
emphasize what the college freshman English student would need to be prepared
to face college English. It has never been our intention to teach the AP
test. Many of our students, however, do find themselves beginning the
college experience with three hours of English credit on their records.
Others have told me that, because of this course, they have been able to
approach college English with confidence.
The practice test in December will not count on your GPA. That’s the good
news. The other news is that you will all take a comprehensive exam in May
that will count on your transcript. My purpose in this is twofold: It will
be to your advantage to step back and survey the points we have covered in
the year; it will also be a chance for you to prepare yourself for the
comprehensive exams that professors love at the college level.
Our projected parallels are as follow:
• Mythology by Edith Hamilton
• Hamlet by William Shakespeare
• Macbeth by William Shakespeare (in your lit. book)
• Murder in the Cathedral by T. S. Eliot
• Oedipus the King and Antigone by Sophocles
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard
• Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
Your summer reading assignments, A Doll’s House, Animal Farm, and Huck Finn,
are currently due. We will begin work with Orwell and then move to Ibsen and
test on both author on Wednesday, August 24. Then we will move to Huck Finn.
GRADING SYSTEM - Daily grades will count 34%; test grades will count 66%.
Vocabulary tests will count once in the test column; major tests will count
twice.
I will work as hard as
possible to get your work back to you in a way that will help you build your
writing powers as a student of literature and of life. You have my pledge
that I will do my best in teaching, advising, and guiding you in your study
and writing, and together we will do everything in our power to prepare you
for a great college experience.
Honors English III
Welcome to Honors English III! Prepare to be busy. This is a class packed
with instruction, writing, researching, working, and thinking, but I must
admit that it is also filled with challenge and fun. I will pledge this much
to you: I promise not to demand from you any more than you can handle.
Our objectives in this class are as follow:
1. promoting an understanding of the chronological development of
American literature;
2. utilizing critical thinking skills;
3. developing writing techniques in exposition, argumentation, and
comparison;
4. researching specialized topics;
5. expanding written and oral communications;
6. practicing for SAT and other standardized tests;
7. enriching your working vocabulary.
As we work together I hope you will offer input that you may have concerning
goals for our class, weaknesses that you would like to see strengthened, or
even titles of works that you would like to see us add to the curriculum.
Materials needed: We will use parallel reading from the list below and our
textbooks, Adventures in American Literature, Write for College, and a
vocabulary text. I have many supplemental materials of my own that I plan to
use. You should also bring plenty of notebook paper and pens, a dictionary,
a thesaurus, and an enthusiastic attitude. In addition, you must have access
to a computer with a word processing program and an Internet connection.
Reading List: Huck Finn (Twain)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee)
The Scarlet Letter (Hawthorne)
A Separate Peace (Knowles)
Death of a Salesman (Miller)
Deliverance (Dickey) or South of Broad (Conroy)
A Painted House (Grisham)
I’d like to say a word about the nature of your presence in this class:
1. If you don’t plan to read your assignments, this class is NOT for you.
2. While this class does call upon your critical thinking skills, I
openly admit that I have seen some memorizers do exceptionally well. I have
also seen students make well on tests for novels that they have “faked”
read. Trust me when I tell you that this will eventually catch up with you.
Nothing can replace the experience that reading gives.
3. Please understand that your presence in this class does not ensure
that you will automatically test to exempt your college English classes. At
the end of your senior year, you will have the option of taking the Princeton
AP test. In December of your senior year, you will take a practice test; we
find that the results of this test are highly reliable, so that you may
accurately predict how you will score. 100% of the students who took the
2005 AP test, for example, earned the exact grade on the “real” test that
they earned on the practice test.
YOU ARE IN THE RIGHT CLASS IF. . .
1. You are serious about your approach to study for Honors English;
2. You wish to improve your writing skills;
3. You want to develop critical thinking skills;
4. You have an interest not only in what the language says, but also in
how to say it most effectively;
5. You hope to discover not only what happens in great American fiction,
but also how the author manipulates the reader by using sight, sound,
suggestions, allusions, imagery, satire, and a world of other techniques
evident to the true Student of Literature;
6. You want to be as prepared for college English as possible.
We’re going to have a great time.
English II - Honors
Dear Parents and Ninth Grade Students:
How exciting it is to begin another venture: Honors II English. In my
original note home to you (sent August 17). I called us pioneers. I like
that term and think that it applies well to us. We were happy to create a
new course for Honors I, and now it is my privilege to work together with you
to build an Honors II curriculum. Some of our work will continue along the
same lines:
PURPOSE
1. To further develop reading comprehension skills. This is our surface
task, and before we can move mountains or anything else, I need you to make
sure that all assignments are read. A DVD, full-color movies, and good
friends who tell you what the plot seems to be can’t ever take the place of
reading the written word! Remember, studies show that the more you read, the
higher your verbal score will be on the SAT.
2. To expand written communication and expression of ideas. We shall
explore the writing process from brainstorming to proofreading.
3. To expose students to opportunities for spoken communication and
expression of ideas. How many of us suffer panic when called upon to speak?
Hopefully, we have discovered that the more we do something, the easier it
becomes. That is what we will do here. We will share original writings
orally, recite a passage or two, and near the end of the year, put on
several plays for fellow classmates if time permits.
4. To develop a more expanded vocabulary. Vocabulary lists will
accompany many classroom reading assignments. We will work with them to
incorporate them into your own language warehouse.
5. To promote creative thought and analytical skills. This is my
favorite, but I must admit that sometimes it frightens eighth graders. Too
often schoolwork deteriorates into a memory game where the best memorizers
are confused with the best learners and thinkers. We are going to try to put
as many wrinkles into the brain as we can, so please bear with the
probability that every question may not have only one answer.
I have worked with this age group long enough to realize that sometimes
students’ feelings get hurt if an answer to a question does not receive the
maximum credit that a question is worth. Please remember that you are
working to put your best foot forward, and even the best writers sometimes
have off days. Work hard. Set your own standards for excellence. No one
can do better than you are doing if you do your best! That’s all I ask.
HOMEWORK: Some kind of homework, usually reading work, will be made daily.
It is imperative that you keep up with your assignments on a day-to-day
basis. Lengthy writing assignments and tests are assigned several days in
advance in order that you may gauge your time wisely.
VOCABULARY – We will use a vocabulary series that begins with English I and
carries throughout English IV and V.
MAJOR TESTS: Major tests will consist of material from assignments,
lectures, and any reading that may have been assigned. If you should happen
to miss a class, it is your responsibility to make up work and get notes from
another classmate. Generally speaking, test day for the English II-H course
is
Friday.
POP QUIZZES – I believe that this is one of the best ways to check to see if
students are reading and comprehending their assignments, so you may count on
at least one pop quiz a week. As long as you keep up with your assignments
daily, you should have nothing to worry about. These quizzes count as a
daily grade.
GRADING SYSTEM: Major test grades and vocabulary test grades compose 66% of
your grade; daily grades and pop quizzes count 34%.
MATERIALS NEEDED: You will write all formal papers and announced hand-in
work in blue or black ink, so always bring at least one good pen to class.
You will need a three-ring binder (either a separate binder or a section in
your school binder), loose-leaf notebook paper, and access to a comuter and
the internet. If the latter is a problem, please let me know.
A PERSONAL NOTE: I love teaching literature and writing! I am serious about
what I do and I expect the best from each of my students. I also pledge to
give you the best of myself as a teacher. With the pleasure of teaching
writing, however, comes the burden of paperwork. I will go ahead and admit
to you that, after today, I will be behind in grading. It comes with my
territory. I ask you to be patient with me, especially when I am grading
essays, discussions, and reports. I spend hours writing constructive
criticism that is my most personal teaching aid for your child. Take time to
read over these remarks. This is my opportunity for one-on-one work with the
writing process. It’s a good thing. Your child's progress is important to
me, and I want to give him/her my best.
Sincerely,
Penny W. Brown. Instructor
SCISA Master Teacher
Class of 2006