Freshman English

Course Number:  0032
Level:  Honors
Department:  English

Course Description
Prerequisite:  None
Open to:  Freshmen
Length:  Year
Credit:  1 
Summary:  All reading, writing, and thinking skills are honed at a more sophisticated level in Freshman Honors English.  Reading includes fiction, poetry, and non-fiction:  the understanding of the means of characterization, defining the implied cause-and-effect in plot structures, the significance of setting in storytelling, identifying common archetypes in human experience, deciphering metaphors, and identifying the rhetorical elements of logos and pathos in argumentative essays.  In all of their reading, honors students are expected to formulate exceptionally insightful questions to aid their comprehension.  Writing experiences include personal narratives, the work with inductive and deductive reasoning, the structuring of comparison and contrast essays, and paraphrasing and summarizing.  With respect to research skills, students become familiar with the school library on-line catalog, the organization of library shelving according to the Dewey Decimal System, and several on-line databases.

Course Goals:

• Formulating exceptionally insightful questions to aid reading comprehension
• Improving vocabulary by deciphering contextual clues and word formations
• Focusing a purpose in writing, identifying the most advantageous organization of thought, and developing one’s thoughts fully
• Identifying basic components of sentence and clause structure, defining participial constructions, and editing writing for redundancy and wordiness
• Accessing on-line databases and evaluating their authority and quality

Textbooks and Materials:
Primary Texts for Annotation:  Macbeth and To Kill A Mockingbird
Other Required Texts:  The Odyssey and Night
Supplementary Texts:  Black Boy, Lovely Bones, Curious Incident, Slaughter House Five, Monster, Color of Water, Hiroshima
Assorted poems and essays

Course Outline
First Semester
Reading & Writing Experiences:
Identifying means of characterization; formulating insightful questions to aid reading comprehension; understanding imagery and figurative language in poetry; deductive/ inductive reasoning; defining the main idea of an expository or argumentative text and the reasoning supporting its development; defining one’s purpose in writing and identifying the organization of thought supporting it; writing a personal narrative; creating a poem; paraphrasing and summarizing.
Two of the following primary texts:  Macbeth, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Odyssey, Night
Grammar:  Understanding basic sentence and clause structure and the correct punctuation thereof; identifying parts of speech; distinguishing between transitive and intransitive verbs and active and passive voice
Orientation to school library shelving; on-line school library catalog; several on-line databases
Major Assessments:  Reading exams, essay assignments, and assessment of grammar knowledge and editing skills

Second Semester
Reading  & Writing Experiences:
Identifying means of characterization; formulating insightful questions to aid reading comprehension; understanding imagery and figurative language in poetry; identifying logical fallacies; interviewing; defining the main idea of an expository or argumentative text and the reasoning supporting its development; defining tone and point-of-view in prose and poetry; defining one’s purpose in writing and the organization and fuller development of thought; composing  comparison/contrast essays; paraphrasing and summarizing.
Two of the primary texts not read first semester:  Macbeth, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Odyssey, Night
Grammar:  Identifying participial constructions; proofreading and revising for redundancy and unnecessary words
Major Assessments:  Reading exams, essay assignments, and assessment of grammar knowledge and editing skills

(Parents and students: please consult individual teachers for grading policies, extra credit info, class procedures, etc.)