English Transition IV Syllabus: Mrs. Hays
Textbooks: Elements of Literature and Mercury Reader
Major Writing SkillsHow to effectively summarize and annotate; paragraph building; syntax, and vocabulary
How to effectively argue, critique, and analyze using various texts.
How to analyze style in an argumentative literary analysis.
Reading Skills: How to read persuasive text; how to glean universal ideas and themes; how to identify author’s purpose and how the author achieves that purpose through style markers (diction, figurative language, syntax). Vocabulary building will focus on contextual and structural analysis.
Weekly Language Practice (ACT revisited) through sentence combo: compound sentences, compound elements, items in a series, modifiers before a noun, coordinate and compound adjectives, set-off adjectives and other modifiers, contrasting elements, appositives, possessive apostrophes, adjective phrases, verbal phrases as adjectives, adjective clauses, subject-verb agreement, adverb clauses, nonessential adjective clauses, conjunctive adverbs, and correlative conjunctions.
Literary Concepts:
Students will be required to apply the following literary terms and concepts:
Allegory / Alliteration / Analogy / Antagonist / AsideAutobiography / Ballad / Biography / Caesura / Characterization
Climax / Conflict / Connotation / Dialect / Dialogue
Drama / Dramatic Monologue / Dynamic Character / Epic / Figurative Language
Figure of Speech / Denotation / Flat Character / Foil / Foreshadowing
Genre / Flashback / Gothic / Hero/Heroine / Hyperbole
Imagery / Irony / Metaphor / Mood / Monologue
Narrator / Nonfiction / Oxymoron / Parable / Paradox
Parallelism / Personification / Persuasion / Plot / Legend
Protagonist / Repetition / Speaker / Suspense / Subplot
Point of View / Symbol / Theme / Tone / Rhyme Scheme
Romanticism / Round Character / Satire / Setting / Short Story
Simile / Schools of Literary Criticism / Discourse Community / Soliloquy / Motivation
Speaking and Technology: Students will be expected to address the class with presentations of various work and utilize technology to create various products.
I . Anglo-Saxon Beowulfand The Seafarer:
How to Mark a Book A246 by Adler 5 pp.
Russell Baker A007 School vs. Education
A079 Lewis Thomas Notes on Punctuation
Write a personal essay: “What does Education Mean to Me?”
“What Is Style?” by Gallant
Culture Study supplementing Anglo-Saxon Unit
Dave Berry A914 Guys vs. Men
Richard Rodriguez: The Fear of Losing a Culture A071
Various readings from Psychology Today
(Write short summary from supplemental reading; write argument on Anglo-Saxon test)
II. Middle Ages—February: History, Ballads, Chaucer, King Arthur, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Michael Levin: A952 A Case for Torture, 3pp. (goes with history)
A344 Martha Bayles, Body and Soul: The Musical Miseducation of Youth 13 pp. (nice ballad supplement)
Evan Wolfson: A10001 What is Marriage?, 13pp. or Scott Adams A507 Glass Ceiling 2pp. (Wife of Bath)
(Write short argument on any essay or theme in this unit; writing on Middle Age Test)
III. Night;
A097: Bruno Bettelheim TheHolocaust
Comprehension Multiple Choice focus
IV. Renaissance—March: History, Shakespearean sonnets, John Donne, and Macbeth
A572: Mavis Gallant What is Style? A395: We Are Own Metaphor by Mary Catherine Bateson
A571: Don’t You Think it’s Time to Start Thinking?
A655 WendyKaminer “Let’s Talk about Gender, Baby”
A116: Stephen King, Why We Crave Horror Movies
Write short argument on any essay in this unit.
Macbeth test (literary analysis section 2)
Romantic Period—First 2 weeks of April Wordsworth; Coleridge, Blake, and Keats
Independent Novel assignment
Albert Camus A205 The Myth of Sisyphus 4 pp.
A017: Children of Affluence 11pp.
A815 The Sun ins Your Enemy 3 pp.
A211 Annie Dillard So This Was Adolescence 4pp.
A384 KathleenFackelmann It’s a Girl
Write a short argument on any essay from unit.
Satire—End of April-May Pope and Swift and a few modern short stories (Lawrence, Joyce, Tolstoy)
A006: Little Red Riding HoodRevisited by Russell Baker
A962: The Onion; All Seven Deadly Sins Committed at Church Bake Sale
A163: Dave Berry’s Just Say No to Rugs
A824 PaulFeine’sMcBastards: McDonald’s and Globalization 4pp.
Write a short argument based on any essay in unit
Finals Week: Date depending on snow day
Exam similar to EKU English 095: Nelson Denny and On-Demand Writing
Student Accountability:
1 nine weeks = 90%
Final Exam = 10%
2nd nine weeks = 90%
Final exam = 10%
Grading Scale: A = 90-100 B = 80-89 C = 70-79 D = 60-69 F = 59 and below