English Department Syllabus

English Department Syllabus – LA 9 Honors
FRESHMAN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS
HONORS LEVEL (LA9H)
1 CREDIT – FRESHMAN ENGLISH REQUIRED
9 th GRADE HONORS FRESHMAN ENGLISH
TEXTS
A. Kinsella, Kate, et al.
Prentice Hall Literature: Timeless Voices,
Timeless Themes: Gold Level.
Glenview, Illinois: Pearson
Education, Inc., 2002.
B. Craig, Gail, et al.
English Workshop: Third Course.
Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1995.
C. Sebranek, Patrick, Verne Meyer, and Dave Kemper.
INC: A Student Handbook
for Writing and Learning.
Wilmington, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin, 2001.
PREREQUISITES
Students must have passed 8
th
Chicago:
Writers
grade language arts.
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Goals of literature for the HONORS LEVEL of FRESHMAN ENGLISH
GRAMMAR, COMPOSITION, & LITERATURE include having the
student evaluate literature, rela
te and empathize to the works
read, and develop a taste for qua
lity literature. Major goals for
composition and grammar include
recognition and application of
the eight parts of speech, phra
ses and clauses, punctuation,
grammar rules, and sentence stru
cture. Students will also be
expected to use these skills to create and to evaluate original
compositions.
Discussion and analyzation of each
work read is designed to help
the student evaluate what constitu
tes good literature. Vocabulary
is taught as a composition and communication tool.
Transfer of grammar knowledge to communication skills is
stressed in paragraph constructi
on. Paragraph construction
techniques are: narration, descri
ption, and exposition. Students
will be expected to create
three paragraph themes.
In addition the students are introduced to the library facilities.
Research tools and resources are studied, and students are given
“exploration assignments” to help acquaint them with the library.
Approximately eight book reports are required during the year.
VI.
COURSE CONTENT
FIRST SEMESTER
A. THEME: SPINE TINGLERS
1. Connell – “The Most Dangerous Game”
Mood, suspense, conflict
Pronouns & Antecedents
2. Thayer – “Casey at the Bat” (optional)
Possessive Nouns
3. Poe – “The Cask of Amontillado”
Mood
Proper & Common Nouns
4. Doyle – “The Red-headed League”
5. De la Mare – “The Listeners” (optional)
Types of Adjectives
Compositions
B. THEME: CHALLENGES AND CHOICES
1. Bradbury – “The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind”
Predicting and cause and effect
Compound Verbs
2. King – “I Have a Dream”
3. Frost – “The Road Not Taken”
Figurative language and questioning skills
Regular Verbs
4. Piercy – “To be of use”
Regular Verbs
5. Angelou – “New Directions”
Regular Verbs
6. Hamilton – “Perseus”
Active & Passive Verbs
7. Komunyakaa – “Slam, Dunk, & Hook” (optional)
Irregular Verbs
8. Morrison – “The Spearthrower” (optional)
Irregular Verbs
9. Nye – “Shoulders” (optional)
Irregular Verbs
C. THEME: MOMENTS OF DISCOVERY
1. Lopez – “Children of the Woods” (optional)
Prepositions
2. Tan – “Rules of the Game” (optional)
Prepositional Phrases
5. Rylant – “Checkouts”
Prepositional Phrases as Modifiers
6. Stafford – “Fifteen”
Prepositional Phrases as Modifiers
7. Dunbar – “Sympathy”
Prepositions or Adverbs
8. Angelou – “Caged Bird”
Prepositions or Adverbs
9. Dickinson – “We never know how high we are” (optional)
Prepositions or Adverbs
10. Hunter-Gault – “from In My Place” (optional)
Prepositions or Adverbs
11. Saki – “The Interlopers” (optional)
Conjunctions
14. Cardiff – “Combing” (optional)
Parenthetical Expressions
15. Walker – “Women” (optional)
Parenthetical Expressions
16. Cummings – “maggie and milly and molly and may”
Parenthetical Expressions
17. Szymborska – “Astonishment” (optional)
Parenthetical Expressions
D. THEME: THE LIGHTER SIDE
1. Thurber – “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”
Irony
2. Chekhov – “The Inspector-General”
Compound Subjects and Predicates
3. Cosby – “Go Deep to the Sewer”
Direct Object
4. Helfer– “Fly Away” (optional)
Direct Object
5. Soto – “The Talk” (optional)
Indirect Object
6. Volk – “An Entomological Study of Apartment 4A” (optional)
Indirect Object
7. Courlander & Herzog – “Talk” (optional)
Predicate Nominative
8. Jackson – “One Ordinary Day, With Peanuts”
Direct Object or Object of Preposition
9. Carroll – “Jabberwocky”
E. THEME: VISIONS OF THE FUTURE
1. Gates – “from The Road Ahead”
Main & Subordinate Clauses
2. Asimov – “The Machine That Won the War”
Adverb & Noun Clauses
3. Frost – “Fire & Ice”
Adjective Clauses
4. Teasdale – “There Will Come Soft Rains” (War Time)
Adjective Clauses
5. Muir – “The Horses” (optional)
Adjective Clauses
6. Brautigan – “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving
Grace” (optional)
Adjective Clauses
7. Clarke – “If I Forget Thee, Oh Earth . . .” (optional)
Compound & Complex Sentences
8. Woolley – “To The Residents of A.D. 2029” (optional)
Compound & Complex Sentences
9. O. Henry – “Gift of the Magi”
Adverb Phrases
F. NOVEL
1. Dickens – Great Expectations
Writing Project
2. Dumas – The Count of Monte Cristo
Writing Project
G. GENRE: THE EPIC
1. Homer -- Odyssey
Writing Project
SECOND SEMESTER
H. GENRE: SHORT STORIES
1. Aiken – “Sonata for Harp and Bicycle”
Participial & Gerund Phrases
2. Hurst – “The Scarlet Ibis”
Participial & Gerund Phrases
3. Silko – “The Man to Send Rain Clouds”
Prepositional & Infinitive Phrases
4. Twain – “The Invalid’s Story”
Prepositional & Infinitive Phrases
5. de Maupassant – “The Necklace”
Appositive Phrases
6. Rivera – “The Harvest” (optional)
Appositive Phrases
Advanced Compositions
I. GENRE: NONFICTION
1. Ride – “Single Room, Earth View” (optional)
Subject-Verb Agreement
2. Singer – “The Washerwoman”
Consistency of Verb Tense
3. Hansberry – “On Summer” (optional)
Consistency of Verb Tense
4. Anaya – “A Celebration of Grandfathers” (optional)
Consistency of Verb Tense
5.Johnson - “from A White House Diary”
Subject-verb Agreement with Confusing Subjects
6. McPhee – “Arthur Ashe Remembered”
Subject-verb Agreement with Confusing Subjects
7. Didion – “Georgia O’Keeffe”
Subject-verb Agreement with Confusing Subjects
J. GENRE: DRAMA
1. Act I of ROMEO & JULIET
Pronoun Case in Elliptical Clauses
2. Act II of ROMEO & JULIET
Possessive Case of Personal Pronouns
3. Act III of ROMEO & JULIET
Who & Whom
4. Act IV of ROMEO & JULIET
Degrees of Comparison
5. Act V of ROMEO & JULIET
Agreement with Indefinite Pronouns
Writing Project/Research Report
K. GENRE: POETRY
1. Wordsworth – “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”
Semicolons and Colons
2. Hughes – “Dream Deferred”
Dashes & Figurative Language
3. Hughes – “Dreams”
Dashes & Figurative Language
4. Tennyson – “The Eagle”
Dashes & Figurative Language
5. Dickinson – “ Hope”
Dashes & Figurative Language
6. Kinnell – “Blackberry Eating”
Ellipsis Points & Imagery
7. Walker – “Memory”
Ellipsis Points & Imagery
8. Rossetti – “Uphill”
End Punctuation & Figures of Speech
9. Myers – “Summer”
End Punctuation & Figures of Speech
10. Poe – “The Raven”
Quotation Marks
11. Three Haiku
Poetry Project
VII.
COURSE FORMAT
The following instructional strategies may be used in the teaching
of this course: lecture, mini-lecture, small-group collaboration,
discussion, workshop, problem-based research, project-based
learning, technology-based learning
VIII. COURSE EXPECTATIONS
Students will be expected to complete all reading, writing,
grammar, and speaking assignments and fulfill all tasks for daily
homework. All will be expected to contribute to discussions and inclass activities as well as individual and group presentations. In
honors classes the discussions, compositions, and assessments
will include higher level thinking such as: analysis, application,
comparison and contrast, classification, synthesis, justification,
and evaluation. Approximately eight book reports are required.
Some cooperative learning experiences, individual projects,
vocabulary study, and research work will also be expected.
IX.
GRADES
Final course grades may include the following forms of
assessment: daily work, class participation, quizzes, exams,
projects, essays/compositions, oral presentations, technologybased presentations, portfolios, semester final exams, and
alternative assessments as determined by individual instructors.
X.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
A. Literature
1. The student will be able to recognize and define the
elements of a fictional story.
a. The student will be able to recognize and define the plot
structure.
(1) The student will be able to recognize and define
exposition.
(2) The student will be able to recognize and define
rising action.
(3) The student will be able to recognize and define
climax.
(4) The student will be able to recognize and define
falling action.
(5) The student will be able to recognize and define
denouement.
b. The student will be able to recognize and define theme.
c. The student will be able to recognize and define setting.
d. The student will be able to recognize and define
characterization techniques.
e. The student will be able to recognize and define point of
view.
f. The student will be able to recognize and define
foreshadowing.
g. The student will be able to recognize and define irony.
h. The student will be able to recognize and define
symbolism.
i. The student will be able to recognize and define
mood/tone.
j. The student will be able to recognize and define conflict.
k. The student will be able to recognize and define static
and dynamic characters and flat and round characters.
l. The student will be able to recognize and define jargon.
m. The student will be able to recognize and define allusion.
n. The student will be able to recognize and define satire.
2. The student will be able to trace the development of a
character in a novel.
3. The student will be able to distinguish the five parts of the
plot of a short story not discussed in class.
4. The student will be able to relate an aspect of a short story or
a novel read in class to his own life.
5. The student will be able to evaluate a story in terms of
character motivation.
6. The student will be able to compare characters from two
different fictional works.
7. The student will be able to specify how the events of an
author’s life influenced his writing.
8. The student will be able to compare a character of a class
novel to a character in another novel.
9. The student will be able to assess how an author’s theme
applies to today’s society.
10. The student will be able to recognize figurative language.
11. The student will be able to construct sentences using
figurative language.
12. The student will be able to recognize poetic devices.
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
The student will be able to recognize alliteration.
The student will be able to recognize assonance.
The student will be able to recognize rhyme.
The student will be able to recognize rhythm.
The student will be able to recognize meter.
The student will be able to recognize stanza.
The student will be able to recognize imagery.
The student will be able to recognize refrain.
i. The student will be able to recognize onomatopoeia.
j. The student will be able to recognize parallelism.
k. The student will be able to recognize free verse.
13. The student will be able to recognize different kinds of
poems.
a. The student will be able to recognize a sonnet.
b. The student will be able to recognize narrative poem.
(1) The student will be able to recognize a literary ballad.
(2) The student will be able to recognize a folk ballad.
c. The student will be able to recognize a dramatic poem.
14. The student will be able to identify poetic devices given by
the teacher.
15. The student will be able to paraphrase a poem given by the
teacher.
16. The student will be able to analyze and compare two poems.
17. The student will be able to interpret the tone of a poem.
18. The student will be able to identify and define dramatic
terms.
a. The student will be able to identify and define exposition.
b. The student will be able to identify and define rising
action.
c. The student will be able to identify and define climax.
d. The student will be able to identify and define falling
action.
e. The student will be able to identify and define
denouement.
f. The student will be able to identify and define prologue.
g. The student will be able to identify and define soliloquy.
19. The student will be able to trace character development in a
drama.
20. The student will investigate some aspect of life in a
playwright’s time.
21. The student will be able to analyze a play using dramatic
elements.
B. Grammar
1. The student will be able to identify the noun.
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
The student will be able to identify common nouns.
The student will be able to identify proper nouns.
The student will be able to identify collective nouns.
The student will be able to identify subjects.
The student will be able to identify direct objects.
The student will be able to identify indirect objects.
The student will be able to identify objects of a
preposition.
h. The student will be able to identify appositives.
i. The student will be able to identify direct address.
j. The student will be able to identify predicate nouns.
k. The student will be able to identify singular nouns.
l. The student will be able to identify plural nouns.
m. The student will be able to identify possessive nouns.
2. The student will be able to recognize the pronoun.
3. The student will be able to identify an adjective.
a. The student will be able to identify a predicate adjective.
b. The student will be able to identify a direct adjective.
c. The student will be able to identify pronominal adjective.
4. The student will be able to recognize the verb.
a. The student will be able to recognize linking verbs.
b. The student will be able to recognize action verbs.
c. The student will be able to recognize helping verbs.
5. The student will be able to explain the function of linking
verbs.
6. The student will be able to recognize the adverb in a
sentence.
7. The student will be able to recognize the preposition in
sentence.
8. The student will be able to recognize the conjunction in a
sentence.
9. The student will be able to identify and use coordinate
conjunctions correctly in sentences.
10. The student will be able to identify subordinate
conjunctions.
11. The student will be able to recognize the interjection in a
sentence.
12. The student will be able to identify the parts of a sentence.
a. The student will be able to identify subjects.
b. The student will be able to identify predicates.
c. The student will be able to identify complements.
(1) The student will be able to identify predicate
nominatives.
(2) The student will be able to identify predicate
adjectives.
(3) The student will be able to identify direct objects.
(4) The student will be able to identify indirect objects.
d. The student will be able to identify the phrase.
(1) The student will be able to identify prepositional
phrases.
(2) The student will be able to identify appositive phrases.
(3) The student will be able to identify participial phrases.
(4) The student will be able to identify infinitive phrases.
e. The student will be able to identify the clause.
(1) The student will be able to identify main clause.
(2) The student will be able to identify subordinate
clauses.
(a) The student will be able to identify adjective
clauses.
(b) The student will be able to identify adverb clauses.
(c) The student will be able to identify noun clauses.
13. The student will be able to create his own sentences using
complements, phrases, and clauses.
14. The student will be able to demonstrate correct usage of
subject/verb agreement.
15. The student will be able to demonstrate correct usage of
pronoun/antecedent agreement.
16. The student will be able to demonstrate adjective/adverb
usage.
C. Mechanics
1. The student will be able to use punctuation correctly.
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
The student will be able to use commas correctly.
The student will be able to use semicolons correctly.
The student will be able to use end punctuation correctly.
The student will be able to use apostrophes correctly.
The student will be able to use quotation marks correctly.
The student will be able to use italics and underlining
correctly.
2. The student will be able to write the applicable comma
rules.
3. The student will be able to capitalize correctly.
D. Composition
1. First Semester
a. The student will be able to write using complete
sentences.
b. The student will be able to write a thesis statement.
c. The student will be able to write a unified paragraph of
100 –150 words when given a topic sentence.
d. The student will use transitional devices in paragraphs.
e. The student will be able to construct a topic sentence for a
paragraph.
f. The student will be able to write one unified descriptive
paragraph using figurative language.
g. The student will be able to write one unified narrative
paragraph.
h. The student will be able to complete a research unit as
stipulated by the teacher.
i. The student will be able to complete four book reports as
stipulated by the teacher.
2. Second Semester
a. The student will be able to write using complete
sentences.
b. The student will be able to write a thesis statement.
c. The student will be able to write a unified paragraph of
100 – 150 words when given a topic sentence.
d. The student will use transitional devices in paragraphs.
e. The student will be able to construct a topic sentence for a
paragraph.
f. The student will be able to transfer the concept of a topic
sentence to a thesis statement in a five-paragraph
expository theme.
g. The student will evaluate a paragraph in terms of unity,
sentence variety, logical order, and coherence.
h. The student will be able to write a five-paragraph
expository theme.
i. The student will be able to write a short research report
as stipulated by the teacher.
j. The student will be able to complete four book reports as
stipulated by the teacher.
E. Research Skills
1. The student will be able to use computerized card catalog.
2. The student will utilize the Dewey Decimal system to find
a book in the library.
3. The student will be able to use the on-line data base.
4. The student will be able to use a special reference book.