Course Syllabus

WHAT WE ARE STUDYING IN THIS COURSE

Overview:

This is a year long college prep level course.There will be several opportunities during this course for students to try “honors challenges” ,in case they are interested in doing Honors or AP level courses in the upper grades. To qualify for Honors English next year, a student must get a 90 or better as an end of year grade in this class AND have tried several (half or more) ,honors challenges. However, a student can still get an “A” in this class without trying any “honors challenges”, and there is no overall “Honors” credit assigned for this class.

Grading in this class will be based on homework assignments, quizzes, presentations, projects and in class work. Grades will be based on a point system with assignments be assigned 50, 100,200, 300, or 400 points based on the difficulty of and amount of time required for each assignment.

 At the end of the year, there will a cumulative documentary project and presentation that will count for 20% of the overall course grade. This project will be in lieu of a traditional final exam.

Late policy: students may turn in one HW assignment  for the course one class late without penalty for any reason.
After that, an assignment is -5 pts off a class for one week of classes (3 class periods). Late work turned more than one week late will not receive credit, unless there is a significant reason that has been approved by the teacher.

Plagiarism/AI Policy: Submitting someone else’s work as your own, including work found on the web or created with AI tools, without giving proper citation /credit and without getting prior permission from Miss McCormick will NEVER be acceptable and will result in strong consequences. More details on this policy will be shared in class on and on our class website.

In this class we will explore:

1.What are some of the elements/tools of storytelling? What forms do these tools take in different texts and how to they affect us ? We will identify and examine several elements/tools such as :

Subtext
Characterization
Direct vs indirect locution
POV
Irony- 2 forms
Symbolism
Mood
Tone
Personification
Onomatopoeia
Unreliable  Narrators
Conflict- three forms
Foil
Imagery 
Setting
Simile 
Metaphor
Allusion
Foreshadow
Plot
Exposition
Hamartia /Tragic Flaw   (Hubris)
Basic Plot Structure ( Inciting Incident, Rising Action, Climax, Resolution)

And More

2. How does our experience of a story change when the form/mode of storytelling alters and where is the power in each form ( play, short story, novel, poetry, documentary, dramatic film, screenplay, audiobook,  fiction, non fiction etc.)?

3. As a thematic concept to connect the wide variety of works we will examine and create, we will also explore the idea of individual vs group/cultural identity and what factors shape both within the world of each text.

4. We will work on enhancing our skills in reading, writing, speaking, interviewing, presenting, critical thinking, creative thinking and develop our vocabulary. As part of this, we will  create our own stories and films through multiple exercises with a goal towards our final exam project: a documentary film that will incorporate multiple concepts from class. In this final project, you will either solve a mystery or tell a story about identity that matters to you. More data on this project will be later in the year.

Works studied in this course may include full works or excerpts from:
Plays: Mother Hicks, Oedipus Rex, Raisin in the Sun ,The Odd Couple, Rashomon, and the play&film versions of Twelve Angry Men and the Crucible
Films:
I, Robot, The Monsters are Due on Maple Street ( Twilight Zone episode), A Class Divided ( the Brown Eyes/ Blue Eyes Experiment),and several short documentaries.
Poetry, short stories and songs:
Multiple selections including  Most Dangerous Game, The Interlopers,The Ledge ,Suddenly, the Cider Didn’t Taste So Good and many more
Books:
The Wave, Down River, Lord of the Flies, And Then There Were None, The Long Way Down
And more….