Welcome to English III at Hillcrest High School! I am so honored to be your teacher this year! These are a few things you need to know about what we will be doing in class, and a few guidelines to follow in order to make this the best year ever!
COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course incorporates the components of balanced literacy by providing instruction and practice in reading a variety of genres in British and world literature, analyzing literary forms, and interpreting the influence of history. Students engage in listening and speaking and write a wide variety of compositions including informative, persuasive, and literary discourse demonstrating sophisticated syntax and vocabulary. Students use technology to produce error-free text and research with documentation. Students also present and critique oral communications that include visuals and other media. Through text-dependent reading and evidence-based writing and discussion, students will master grade-level ELAR standards (and ELPS as applicable).
COURSE OVERVIEW:
- Foundations and Encounters: Early American Literature; Building a Democracy
- The Quest for Freedom: The Civil War and Its Aftermath; America Transformed
- Building a Democracy: The Individual and Society
- America Transformed: Contemporary Voices and Vision
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
- Developing and sustaining foundational language skills: listening, speaking, discussion, and thinking--oral language. The student develops oral language through listening, speaking, and discussion.
- Developing and sustaining foundational language skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking--vocabulary. The student uses newly acquired vocabulary expressively.
- Comprehension skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student uses metacognitive skills to both develop and deepen comprehension of increasingly complex texts.
- Response skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student responds to an increasingly challenging variety of sources that are read, heard, or viewed.
- Multiple genres: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts--literary elements. The student recognizes and analyzes literary elements within and across increasingly complex traditional, contemporary, classical, and diverse literary texts.
- Multiple genres: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts--genres. The student recognizes and analyzes genre-specific characteristics, structures, and purposes within and across increasingly complex traditional, contemporary, classical, and diverse texts.
- Author's purpose and craft: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student uses critical inquiry to analyze the authors' choices and how they influence and communicate meaning within a variety of texts. The student analyzes and applies the author's craft purposefully in order to develop his or her own products and performances.
- Composition: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts--writing process. The student uses the writing process recursively to compose multiple texts that are legible and use appropriate conventions.
- Composition: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts--genres. The student uses genre characteristics and craft to compose multiple texts that are meaningful.
- Inquiry and research: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student engages in both short-term and sustained recursive inquiry processes for a variety of purposes.
MATERIALS NEEDED: I will provide most of your materials; however, you will be writing every single day, so you will need a Laptop, notebook, and a writing utensil each day in class. Students will access the English Textbook through HMH via the Clever Portal. Failure to bring necessary supplies may affect your grade.
GRADE WEIGHTS:
- 40%--Classwork/Homework
- 25%--Quizzes (Labeled Test)
- 20%--Projects/Writing
- 15%--Cycle Test (Six Week)
LATE / ABSENT WORK: Work is due at the end of the class period unless otherwise stated. Work submitted after it has been entered in the gradebook is considered late and must be submitted with written correspondence or made up in tutorials. No late work will be accepted the last week of the grading period. If you need an extension, email me BEFORE the work is due and graded. Test and Quizzes must be made up in-person within two days. Any student with an excused absence will not receive deductions if completed within their equivalent absent time frame. See district policy.
For any late work, you must leave a private comment on the assignment on Google Classroom when submitting for me to grade. Failure to add a comment will result in the assignment not being graded. Work that has been graded will appear in the PowerSchool gradebook.
GENERAL DAY-TO-DAY EXPECTATIONS:
- You may do anything that does not interfere/disrupt the teacher instructing, your learning or the learning of others. This applies to food, drinks, gum, speaking (sounds) and moving.
RESTROOM POLICY: You will receive a designated number of restroom passes per cycle. Once your passess are gone, you will need to make other arrangements for using the restroom before or after class. There are 5 passes periods, so please plan your restroom breaks according. Students are not permitted to use the restroom during the first and last 15 minutes of class or during direct instruction.
CONSEQUENCES:
In general, If you cause a problem, I will ask you to fix it. If you cannot find a solution (or choose not to), I will find one for you.
- Everyone will get one warning (today also counts as a warning, so you are really getting two warnings!)
- If that does not work, we will have a private one-on-one conversation in the hallway or before/after class
- If the behavior proceeds, you will get a call or email home, and I will schedule a time to have a conference with you and your parent ( I do not meet with your parent without you present)
I promise, as your teacher, to do my best to uphold every single one of these guidelines, everyday, 24/7. I strive to be fair, firm, and consistent. I will treat you with respect as students and never intentionally humiliate you. I ask that you have the same respect for me and our classroom rules.