AMERICUS-SUMTER HIGH SCHOOL
Course Syllabus
The mission of Americus-Sumter High School is to provide a quality and equitable education to all students. We will endeavor to achieve a 100% graduation rate and have all students score above the state and national averages on all standardized tests.
Course Title: English 10
Prerequisite(s): English 9
Instructor Information: Jill Forehand ()
Kimberly Cooper ()
Cynthia DeMott ()
Samantha Williams ()
Required Textbooks: Georgia Collections, 10
Replacement cost for this textbook is $100.
Supplementary Materials: Close Reader Workbook, 10 (Replacement Cost=$25)
Common Core Assessment Workbook, 10(R. Cost = $25)
Holt, Rinehart’s & Winston’s Elements of Literature, 4th ed.
Possible Extended Texts: Life As We Knew It by S B. Pfeffer Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
The Metamorphosis by F. Kafka Night by Elie Wiesel
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini Animal Farm by George Orwell
Course Description: English 10 develops descriptive, personal narrative, expository, and persuasive writing skills and includes grammar, mechanics, and usage. Students are introduced to a variety of authors and selections from world literature, poetry, short stories, novels, drama, and classical mythology. The course engages students in the research process, stresses vocabulary development and requires written literary analysis through discussion of the elements of literature. Students develops thinking, organizing, interpersonal communication (both verbal and nonverbal), and use of analogies, metaphors and their application to writing.
Course Objectives: The general objectives of this course are to enhance a student’s skills in reading, writing, speaking, and listening. These general aims are designed to address the needs of eleventh grade students before and after graduation. The specific objectives of this course are to help students:
1) become better critical readers
2) write with greater ease, accuracy, and skill
3) read critically to evaluate and analyze text
4) develop persuasive and analytical writing skills for use in essay writing
5) speak orally about authors and their works
6) study and analyze how multicultural novels and plays reflect history and tradition
7) acquire a “working” knowledge of vocabulary for better writing and better test results
Required Materials (bring every day):
1. 3 ring binder with dividers
2. Notebook paper
3. Blue or black ink pen and pencil
4. Composition book
5. Sticky notes
6. Flash drive (for all school work)
7. 3-prong Pocket Folder
8. A positive attitude!
Grading Procedures (including weight for tests, quizzes, homework, projects)
Formative Assessments (Daily Language Practice, Class work, Homework, Quizzes) 40%
Summative Assessments (Tests, Projects, Presentations, Essays) 40%
Final Exam 20%
Student Growth Measurement
At the beginning and conclusion of each course/semester, students will be given a pre-, a mid- and a post- assessment. We are confident that your student will be able to show a remarkable growth between these opportunities. In order to help encourage students to do their best on these exams, the English department has opted to award students who show measurable growth the opportunity to award points to an assignment.
Make-up Requirements: Given the nature of block scheduling and the completion of a full year’s work in a single semester, attendance is of even greater importance. Essentially, each day of class is the equivalent of two days. Therefore, students must not miss class. Students are responsible for finding out what assignment was missed on days out. Tests are to be made up after school (unless other arrangements are made). Scheduling make-up work is the student’s responsibility—NOT THE TEACHER’S.
Late Work Policy: Students will be given up to 5 days after due dates to turn in missing, late, or incomplete assignments. Two percent (2%) will be deducted for each day that an assignment is late. Assignments WILL NOT be accepted after the 5 days and the student will receive a zero. Students who have an excused absence will be given the allotted time per the Student Handbook to complete missing assignments. After this allotted time, the above policy will be in effect. THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO WORK WHICH IS NOT COMPLETED BECAUSE OF LACK OF EFFORT ON THE PART OF THE STUDENT-THIS WILL BE SCORED AS A ZERO.
NO EXCEPTIONS!
Any student who does not complete a summative assessment (tests, performance tasks, etc.) within the required time may request a copy of REQUEST TO REASSESS. This will allow a student instruction with an alternate teaching strategy before completing an alternate assignment after having completed the requirements of the Request to Reassess (parent signature, completed notes and assignments for the unit of study, and three additional activities of which at least one will be teacher guided and the others will be student choice). Students will only have 5 additional days for this opportunity and may only receive a maximum grade of 70. Once both of these opportunities have passed, the student will have earned a grade of “0” and they WILL NOT be allowed to attempt this assignment again.
Plagiarism and Academic Honesty: Academic honesty – Americus-Sumter students are held to a high standard and are expected to demonstrate academic honesty and personal integrity in their work. This means they must demonstrate their own original thinking and not those of another student (cheating) or from another source (plagiarism).
From the Pearson/Prentice Hall website (http://wps.prenhall.com/hss_understand_plagiarism_1/0,6622,427065-,00.html): Plagiarism is defined as “using someone else's words and ideas in a paper and acting as though they were your own. This definition includes copying someone else's ideas, graphs, pictures, or anything that you borrow without giving credit to the originator of the words and ideas. It definitely includes anything you download from an Internet site or copy out of a book, a newspaper, or a magazine. It also includes stealing the ideas of another person without giving her or him proper credit.” Examples of plagiarism include:
● copying someone else's paper.
● taking short or long quotations from a source without identifying the source.
● turning in a paper you bought over the Internet.
● changing a few words around from a book or article and pretending those words are your own.
● rearranging the order of ideas in a list and making the reader think you produced the list.
● borrowing ideas from a source and not giving proper credit to the source.
● turning in a paper from another class.
● using information from an interview or an online chat or email, etc., without properly citing the source of the info.
● using words that were quoted in one source and acting and citing the original source as though you read it yourself.
According to the University of Georgia’s website on academic honesty (http://www.uga.edu/ovpi/academic_honesty/sect05.htm), cheating is defined as “giving or receiving assistance in connection with any examination or other academic work that has not been authorized” by your instructor. Examples of cheating include:
Copying, or allowing another to copy, answers to an examination;
Transmitting or receiving, during an examination, information that is within the scope of the material to be covered by that examination (including transmission orally, in writing, by sign, electronic signal, or other manner);
Giving or receiving answers to an examination scheduled for a later time;
Completing for another, or allowing another to complete for you, all or part of an assignment (such as a paper, exercise, homework assignment, presentation, report computer application, laboratory experiment, or computation);
Submitting a group assignment, or allowing that assignment to be submitted, representing that the project is the work of all of the members of the group when less than all of the group members assisted substantially in its preparation.
Consequences for ANY type of academic dishonesty will result in: a grade of zero, a written referral will be submitted to the student’s administrator, and the student will NOT be allowed to make up the work.
Tutoring and Detention: Ms. Forehand is available for tutoring and detention after school on Wednesdays, Ms. Cooper is available on Thursday afternoons, and Ms. DeMott will be available on Mondays. If you cannot stay on one of these days, please contact your instructor to set up another time to stay after school. Additionally, one English teacher will be available each day M-TH for tutoring.
Extra Credit: Extra credit may be handed out on an individual basis to students who request it. Extra credit WILL NOT be awarded to students who have failed to complete all original assignments.
Encouraging Words: You will be expected to work diligently and with enthusiasm at all times. We are confident that you will come to class prepared, eager, and positive. Much of what we do is collaborative; therefore, we will learn to work together and to enjoy making new acquaintances and forging new friendships. Our desire is that we come together to function as a community of learners. We have much to teach you; similarly, you have much to teach us. We will learn from each other.
Again, welcome to this class. We are excited about learning with and from you this semester. Let’s make the most of our time together and have a wonderful experience discovering what makes literature unique.
Course Outline (general topics)
The following is a tentative outline for the semester. Plans are subject to change based upon the discretion of the teacher.
Unit 1: Struggle for Identity Unit 2: Moral Courage
Unit 3: Absolute Power Unit 4: Struggle for Freedom
English 10 POWER STANDARDS:
ELAGSE9-10RL/RI1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
ELAGSE9-10RL/RI2: Determine a theme or central idea of text and closely analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.
ELAGSE9-10RL3: Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.
ELAGSE9-10RL4/RI4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language evokes a sense of time and place; how it sets a formal or informal tone.)
ELAGSE9-10RL5: Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) to create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise.
ELAGSE9-10RL5: Analyze in detail how an author’s ideas or claims are developed and refined by particular sentences, paragraphs, or larger portions of a text (e.g., a section or chapter).
ELAGSE9-10RI6: Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how an author uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or purpose.
ELAGSE9-10W1: Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence. (a) Introduce precise claim(s), distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or opposing claims, and create an organization that establishes clear relationships among claim(s), counterclaims, reasons, and evidence. (b) Develop claim(s) and counterclaims fairly, supplying evidence for each while pointing out the strengths and limitations of both in a manner that anticipates the audience’s knowledge level and concerns. (c) Use words, phrases, and clauses to link the major sections of the text, create cohesion, and clarify the relationships between claim(s) and reasons, between reasons and evidence, and between claim(s) and counterclaims. (d) Establish and maintain a formal style and objective tone while attending to the norms and conventions of the discipline in which they are writing. (e) Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the argument presented.
ELAGSE9-10W9: Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research. (a) Apply grades 9-10 Reading standards to literature (e.g., “Analyze how an author draws and transforms source material in a specific work [e.g., how Shakespeare treats a theme or topic from Ovid or the Bible or how a later author draws on a play by Shakespeare]”). (b) Apply grades 9-10 Reading standards to literary nonfiction (e.g., “Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; identify false statements and fallacious reasoning”).
ELAGSE9-10L1: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking. (a) Use parallel structure. (b) Use various types of phrases (noun, verb, adjectival, adverbial, participial, prepositional, absolute) and clauses (independent, dependent; noun, relative adverbial) to convey specific meanings and add variety and interest to writing and presentations.
ELAGSE9-10L2: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing. (a) use a semicolon (and perhaps a conjunctive adverb) to link two or more closely related independent clauses. (b) Use a colon to introduce a list or quotations. (c) Spell correctly. (d) Produces legible work that shows accurate spelling and correct use of conventions of punctuation and capitalization.
ELAGSE9-10L4: Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words or phrases based on grade 9-10 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.(a) Use context (e.g., the overall meaning of a sentence, paragraph, or text; a word’s position or function in a sentence) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase. (b) Identify and correctly use patterns of word changes that indicate different meanings or parts of speech (e.g., analyze, analysis, analytical; advocate, advocacy). (c) Consult general and specialized reference materials (e.g., dictionaries, glossaries, thesauruses), both print and digital, to find the pronunciation of a word or determine or clarify its precise meaning, its part of speech, or its etymology. (d) Verify the preliminary determination of the meaning of a word or phrase (e.g., by checking the inferred meaning in context or in a dictionary).
Dear Parents and Students,
Learning in tenth grade is a time of strong academic growth. Students and teachers have developed productive working relationships and significant improvement with critical thinking and writing skills occurs as students mature. This semester, we will read a variety of texts, write reflectively and critically, and make connections to the overall theme of studies. This course will require the student: