English 9th/10th Grade Fall 2008 Course Description
We will begin with an introduction to Greek culture and theater, with a special focus on Aristotelian elements of drama. Our theme for the year will be “elements of literature” and we will explore how this manifests in drama, short stories and novels (as well as in poetry in Semester 2).
The class will start with Sophocles’ Electra. They will have a number of in-class essays to write on themes arising from our reading as well as one at-home essay to write. The students will be expected to read the whole play on their own and we will also read it together, out loud, taking parts.
We will focus on Greek theater and Electra for 3 weeks.
Then we will quickly move through Roman and Medieval European theater and stop for breath during the Renaissance. Shakespeare will be our focus and we will work with Twelfth Night for 3 weeks. The students’ in-class work will again include short, quick, on-your-toes essays and a quiz. We will read Twelfth Night as a class and “block out” the play. The students will also read it at home. We will finish this section of our class by watching a BBC production of the play either on a weekend day or on an evening, perhaps at my house…. or perhaps at a home with a widescreen TV….hint hint….!
Next we will turn to short stories. The students will read several over a 4 week period and examine the differences in how, for instance, a playwright works with plot and setting and an author works with the same. The students will have a number of creative writing assignments during these weeks.
The last 5 weeks of the semester will be devoted to the study of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. As with our other studies, we will place the author and the novel into their historical setting and then pick up on “elements of literature”, this time within a novel. We shall see what kinds of writing assignments I set for the students…!
As one might expect, we will be doing plenty of things other than studying literature during each hour and a half class! We will work on grammar and spelling mainly (but not exclusively) as issues arise from the students’ work and there will be numerous exercise focused on improving writing and use of language. A major focus of the class is on writing – on developing the ability to write clearly, coherently and gracefully, whether one is writing an essay, a report or a piece of creative writing. The students will also be challenged to express themselves equally well when they speak in class, whether they are answering questions, sharing their thoughts, or giving an oral presentation.
We will also spend time going over note taking and being organized – they will be expected to hand in their English Notebooks at the end of class for evaluation – one thing I will be looking at is how well they take notes. We will work with this throughout the year. And, of course, we will examine various literary terms such as use of allegory, onomatopoeia, simile and so on as we move through various kinds of literature. We might have a harmless little quiz or two on literary terms…
Each student will have a Greek and Latin roots workbook to work on throughout the year. We will work together as a class on vocabulary in the first few weeks of class – then I will give them the books. They will be expected to work on them at home but I will give occasional pop quizzes to see how things are progressing!
As 3 of the 7 students are sophomores, I will ensure that they are sufficiently challenged and that their requirements exceed those of their freshman classmates. They will be expected to go just that much deeper, be just that much clearer, extend themselves just that much further and will, from time to time, be given some additional work.
I would like to invite any student who wishes to opt for an Honors component to the class to do so. Students must hand in a written proposal to me by Tuesday 16 September and we will find a time to briefly discuss what they’d like to do. An example of a project could be reading 2 novels and writing a 7 – 8 page paper on a theme drawn from the two books. All Honors proposals must be approved by me and a deadline for first drafts and final work agreed upon. We’ll talk about this (and everything else!) on the first day of class.
I am aware that the Charter school uses a PASS/FAIL system. I will be creating a course description and written evaluation for each students to add to her portfolio. Any student who wishes to be awarded a grade in addition to a written evaluation needs to tell me by Tuesday 9 September.
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