5 September 2017
Dear American Studies English Student,
Welcome back, and welcome to room 131. My name is Dr. Struzziero, and I am excited to be your English teacher this year! Junior year is very important: you are preparing for graduation and for life after high school. This year we will help you on your way by exploring your identity. These questions will guide us: How does a work of literature give insight into American values such as freedom and individuality? How do these values change for different people in different times and places? What is the American Dream? What is the nature of the American story- its past, present, and future?
We will find our answers in the study of a variety of great works such as:The Crucible, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby, and Catcher in the Rye. Along the way we will supplement your study of novels with short fiction, memoirs, poems and essays by famous authors such as William Bradford, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Abigail Adams, Phillis Wheatley, Benjamin Franklin, Washington Irving, William Cullen Bryant, Oliver Wendall Holmes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, Langston Hughes, TS Eliot, William Carlos Williams, and Robert Frost. We want to make you better readers by building your background knowledge of American literature, practicing reading purposefully, making accurate inferences while you read, and evaluatingthe texts that you read. We will also take as many opportunities as possibleto make connections between what we are studying and current events.
During the year you will write a lot. You will write many theme-based critical analysis essays, a personal narrative(also known as the college essay), poems, short stories, a speech, personal reflections, and a research paper. I hope to teach you important writing skills includinghow to use each step of the writing process, how to write coherently, how to write persuasively with in-depth analysis, how to make a persuasive argument by synthesizing texts, how to write with better diction, how to write with control of grammar and mechanics, and how to write with proper MLA format. Ultimately, I hope to help you find your voice as a writer. When you leave this room, you will be better able to write what you want, when you want, and how you want.
Again, welcome. I look forward to getting to know you and to being part of your success this year. Good luck!
Sincerely,
Dr. Struzziero