Sophomore English:  Literature & Composition

Course Number:  0082
Level:  Honors
Department:  English

Course Description
Prerequisite: Freshman English
Open to:  Sophomores
Length:  Semester
Credit:  .5
Summary:  Honors Language & Composition continues the work with fundamental reading, writing (including grammar), and thinking skills begun at the honors freshman level and refines them further.  In their reading of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, students sharpen their ability to formulate insightful questions to aid their comprehension.  Defining tone, point-of-view, and theme; identifying the rhetorical elements of logos, pathos, and ethos in argumentative writing; and identifying common logical fallacies are skills to be honed.  Writing experiences include writing poetry, analyzing components of literature, the structuring of comparison and contrast essays, the work with inductive and deductive reasoning, and paraphrasing and summarizing.  Many of these reading, writing, and thinking skills anticipate the research paper to be completed second semester in World History.  Library orientation first semester acquaints students with more databases and trains students in evaluating web sites. 

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 those thoughts more fully

·        Analyzing rhetorical elements of imaginative literature and argumentative prose

·        Differentiating among clause and phrase structures and their appropriate punctuation; correcting errors in pronoun reference, misplaced and dangling modifiers, and parallel structure;

·        Applying reading, writing, and thinking skills to research

·        Accessing a variety of on-line databases and evaluating web sites

Textbooks and Materials:
Primary Texts for Annotation:  Of Mice and Men, Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Oedipus Rex
Other Primary Texts:  Lord of the Flies, Ordinary People, and The Chosen
Assorted poems and essays

Course Outline
Reading & Writing Experiences:
Formulating insightful questions to aid comprehension; analyzing rhetorical elements of prose and poetry (including characterization, metaphor and imagery, point-of-view, tone, theme, logos, pathos, and ethos); applying inductive/deductive reasoning; defining one’s purpose in writing, identifying the appropriate organization of thought, and developing paragraphs fully; writing a poem; composing comparison/ contrast essays; paraphrasing and summarizing.
Reading and Annotating Of Mice and Men, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Oedipus Rex
Grammar:  Distinguishing between essential and non-essential clauses and phrases and their correct punctuation; Correcting vague pronoun reference, misplaced and dangling modifiers, and parallel structure; identifying gerunds and infinitives; editing for errors in more sophisticated uses of  the comma, semicolon, colon, apostrophes, and quotation marks
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.)