English 11 Honors 2016-17

Welcome to English 11 Honors.

Before your year begins, it is necessary to explain expectations for your work, attitude, and comportment as scholars. You are obviously skilled English students; otherwise, you would not have chosen the rigorous coursework this class demands. You are expected to be dedicated and self-disciplined, teachable and self-motivated.

Being smart is fun, but often requires hard work. One of the keys to performing well is being well-read. As you read more widely, your vocabulary becomes broader and richer. Exposure to a variety of literature will allow you to recognize good writing styles and to emulate their correctness in your own writings.

Another key to performing well is developing a writing style which incorporates depth of thinking in analysis of a writer’s techniques, methods, style, and presenting intelligent papers about such concepts. A final key to passing the course is understanding argument and using research to back up your argument. Although you will do projects, the focus must be on content, purpose, and writing.

When you read, keep a dictionary close in order to define any words that you find unfamiliar; write these down for future reference. Be sure to use the pronunciation guides; all too often people sound less than knowledgeable when they mispronounce words or use a word incorrectly. Be aware of the many allusions that authors use for emphasis or for clarity; don’t be afraid to investigate if something is unfamiliar, and, please, don’t expect someone to give you all the answers.

In addition to required class work, you will read outside of class, but the primary focus of this course is reading and analyzing literature and the author’s purpose/argument, as well as writing and analyzing the style and purpose of various authors and types of writing, investigating schools of literary criticism and evaluating your personal and academic place in the world.

Be advised that technological proficiency and access is required for the course.  You will have ample time to access school resources if you do not have your own, of course, but you must use technology to participate in the course.

CAVEAT: This summer work is absolutely required.  Failure to complete it will have a major impact on your first quarter grade, up to and including failing the marking period.  Simply put, there is no way you will be able to reach the required proficiency level – that is, a grade of 80 or higher for Honors level – without fully completing these assignments.

 

Gina Dellatte, Lead  ELA Teacher

Newburgh Free Academy – North Campus

stave2spirit@gmail.com                                                 gdellatt@necsd.net

Remind App text @c3fba3h to 81010                       dellatteonline.net

Automated Voicemail  (845) 475-8723

 

11 Honors At A Glance

• Focus on all types of writing (fiction as well as personal essays, autobiographies/biographies, newspaper articles, etc).

• Consistent use of MLA formatting in produced work (check the OWL at Purdue to brush up).

• You will study grammar, syntax, diction, semantics, pragmatics, phonetics and morphology.

• This is considered a precollege-level prep course, therefore, students will be treated likethe mature, honest, responsible, self-motivated people they are. You MUST be able to trust yourself to keep up with the workload

• A non-negotiable late work policy applicable to excused absences only.

• You will speak in class – to others over academic topics, in Socratic Seminars, in response (both voluntary and involuntary) to direct questions from the teacher, as part of group presentations, as part of individual presentations and recitations, as readers in class, to stakeholders in the school community. This is a requirement, not an option, and you will be evaluated accordingly.

• The summer assignment will be the initial focus of the course. The summer assignment work will be due electronically on the FIRST DAY OF CLASS.

• You will be tested on literary terms during the first quarter of school.

• If you transfer into the class during the summer (from another class or another school), you are still required to complete the summer work. If you transfer on the first day of school, you will have until Tuesday, November 1^st to complete it and will make up the literary terms exams during the second quarter.

• You must plan for the inevitable technological glitches, and understand that these will not usually be accommodated.

 

11 Honors Pre-Loading Necessities

• Have a professional student email you can get into, which is attached to a Google account.

• Download the Remind app and text this – @c3fba3h – to 81010.

• Arrange for regular access to technology outside of school.

• LAST, fill out the Attestation Form located at DellatteOnline.net > 2016-17 > 11 Honors.

English 11 Honors 2016 Summer Assignment

Part I

Visit the Purdue OWL to read about rhetorical strategies.  These are persuasive strategies, used in arguments to support claims and respond to opposing arguments.  A good argument will generally use a combination of all three appeals to make its case.

Part II

Read Mornings on Horseback by David McCullough

 1. Create a two-column dialectical journal in which you choose at least two important direct quotations from each chapter (at least eight in all), and write a paragraph or so explaining why each is important to the text. You may discuss McCullough’s use of stylistic elements, his attitude toward his audience, his efficacy in achieving his purpose, or other rhetorical strategies; you should focus on analysis and avoid summary

2. Choose a 1-2 page passage from the text that represents how McCullough’s book serves as a social history. Read the passage very carefully. Then write a 500-750 word essay in which you analyze how he constructed the text in this way. Your analysis should consider stylistic elements as diction, imagery, syntax, structure, detail, tone, etc, as well as content.

 Read The Lost Painting by Jonathan Harr

3. Create a two-column dialectical journal in which you choose at least two important direct quotations from each chapter (at least eight in all), and write a paragraph or so explaining how Harr’s work is a good example of literary non-fiction. That is, write about how his stylistic choices and the literary devices in his writing transcend the usual dry, pedantic and unwieldy writing found in non-fiction; you should focus on analysis and avoid summary
4. After reading the book in its entirety, write a short 250-500 word response to the text as a whole. In this informal essay, you should discuss your initial reactions to the text, characters, plot, etc. You should certainly include not only your opinion of the text, but also your reasons for forming said opinion. For this essay, there is neither a right nor a wrong response, so you are encouraged to take risks and hold nothing back.

Part III

Become familiar with the following list of Literary Terms (they are also available at dellatteonline.net > 2016-17 > 11 Honors).  Because we will use them throughout the year, you will be expected to know their meanings.  You may want to define these terms on individual notecards, though this is not a requirement. A little over half of these terms are ones that you know already. You have to have the definitions completed and with you on the first day of class.

In the first quarter of the school year, you will have four quizzes on them in which you will be required to provide definitions, furnish examples and/or recognize them in text.