1St Nine Weeks Syllabus/Unit Plan
English 1301
Mrs. Beard/Ms. Sample
1st Nine Weeks Syllabus/Unit Plan
Primary objective: To provide students with the tools necessary to think, read and write critically. This course is also designed to help students understand the writing process and to become fluent in a variety of writing styles. Students will be asked to both evaluate and create different writing techniques. Students will also be exposed to a variety of different rhetorical strategies and will connect those strategies to meaning within certain literary works.
Course Description:
Intensive study of and practice in writing processes, from invention and researching to drafting, revising, and editing, both individually and collaboratively. Emphasis on effective rhetorical choices, including audience, purpose, arrangement, and style. Focus on writing the academic essay as a vehicle for learning, communicating, and critical analysis. Credits: 3 college credit hours. .5 high school credit
Learning Outcomes: Upon successful completion of this course, students will…
- Demonstrate knowledge of individual and collaborative writing processes.
- Develop ideas with appropriate support and attribution, following standard style guidelines in documenting sources. Analyze a text (both written and visual) based on its rhetorical strategies, strengths, and weaknesses.
- Write in a style appropriate to audience and purpose.
- Read, reflect, and respond critically to a variety of text. Construct arguments that offers logical support from other resources/examples
- Use edited American English in academic essays.
Core Objectives:
- Critical Thinking Skills: To include creative thinking, innovation, inquiry, and analysis, evaluation and synthesis of information.
- Communication Skills: To include effective written, oral, and visual communication. Discuss the meaning of rhetoric: purpose, audience, organization, voice, tone, structure.
- Teamwork: To include the ability to consider different points of view and to work effectively with others to support a shared purpose or goal.
- Personal Responsibility: To include the ability to connect choices, actions, and consequences to ethical decision-making.
Essential Questions: What is the nature and purpose of human happiness? What impact has the “happiness industry” had on the world around us? How is happiness linked to the notion of success and the American Dream? How do stereotypes and social construct affect the individual’s perception of success (happiness)? How can one combat the concept of success as measured by accomplishment and/or the acquisition of wealth? In the end, what makes us (human beings) happy? Can the concepts of happiness and success be quantified into a science?
What role does personal responsibility play in an individual’s attainment of his/her happiness/success?
Texts: The Happiness Project, Outliers, and Everything’s an Argument, and teacher-selected pieces
Each student will need a composition book to be used solely for this class. It will be kept primarily in the classroom and submitted for review every three weeks. The work will be graded on both completeness and effort. Journals will be assigned every Friday, with some topics addressed during the week as well.
August 25-29 (you are expected to have the required text(s) in class every day)
Mon: Welcome, “meet and greet” and discuss the summer reading assessment
HW: Locate a quote that reflects your philosophy of happiness. Bring to class and be prepared to share on Tuesday
Tues: Discuss personal philosophy of happiness (journal); set up writing folders and discuss the focus of the course.
HW: Read Chapter 1 of Everything’s An Argument
Wed/Thurs: Discussion of Chapter 1. 4
Fri: Free-write Friday. Connections to Rubin. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
HW: review tone words
September 1-5
Mon: Labor Day: Student holiday
Tues Reader Response essay (timed essay)—summative ***This summative will be used to provide a base line for the course as well as a statement of progress on the first progress report. 2,3,4, A, B
Wed/Thurs: Senior Picture Day ; Watch Malcolm Gladwell’s lecture “Happiness and Spaghetti Sauce.” Discuss and connect back to Rubin. 4
Fri: Tone words quiz (formative); free-write Friday (topic related to one of Rubin’s key points) 1, 2, 3, 4,
HW: read chapters 2-4 of Everything’s an Argument
September 8-12
Mon: Discuss elements of rhetoric: logos, ethos, pathos (Chapters 2, 3, 4 should be read in advance of class): students will read and analyze President Bush’s 9-11 speech. 4, A
HW:Read: “Stop Instagramming Your Perfect Life” and “The New Science of Happiness” (syllabus)
Tues: Group discussion of short pieces and elements of rhetoric HW: Read “Little Girls or Little Women? The Disney Princess Effect,” “Toddlers in Tiaras,” and “The Culture of Thin Bites Fiji.” (pp. 482-504) 4, A
Wed/Thurs: Introduce the college essay assignment. Group discussion over assigned readings. What is the connection between happiness and identity? HW: Note card activity 4, A, C, B
Fri: Writing Workshop: Drafting ideas for the college essay (narrative). Each student will submit their intro at the end of the class). Intros will be submitted in the student’s journal in place of free-write Friday. 1-5
HW: Chapter 5 of Everything’s An Argument
September 15-19
Mon: Unit 1 Vocab. Quiz (formative); review results from reader response essay and discuss writing strategies/skills.1
HW: Read “Are We Worried About Storm’s Identity or Our Own?,” “The Freedom to Choose Your Pronoun,” and “At the Root of Identity” (pp. 545-567) and Chapter 6: Rhetorical Analysis
Tues: Happiness and Identity: How is gender affected by stereotype? Discuss assigned readings and evaluate the use of appeals, the presence of fallacies, etc. Why is it important to note the fallacies of an argument? (group and whole-class discussion) (CHECK JOURNALS—formative) HW: Complete your intro and first body paragraph for the narrative essay. 4, A
Wed/Thurs: Writing Workshop for College Essay--formative (bring intro and one body paragraph—2 typed, properly formatted copies) You will receive a zero without the required TWO copies. NO EXCEPTIONS. Work is due at the beginning of class. 1-5, A, B
Fri: Free-write Friday. Continue discussion of short pieces. 1-5, A
September 22-26
Mon: Writing Workshop: College Essay (full essay due for workshop. TWO typed, properly formatted copies are required in order to receive credit.) Students will complete one self-edit and one peer edit (formative) 1-5, A, B
Tues: College Essay due by 7 am to turnitin.com (Summative) . Hard copies are due in class. Receipt should be stapled to the back of the essay. Essays not submitted on time will be subject to the late work policy.
Discussion of short pieces.HW: Read: “Barbie Doll,” “The Story of an Hour,” “Little Woman,” and “A Story as Wet as Tears.” 1-5, A, B
Wed/Thurs: Unit 2 Vocabulary quiz (formative) and BOOK CHECK (formative); continue to discuss the barriers social gender identity creates for individuals. 4, A
Fri: Free-write Friday. Evaluate the use of stereotype in Disney films; what message is this media mogul sending to young girls? What other fallacies do we witness in everyday life? 1-5, A, B
September 29- October 3rd
Mon: Discuss short pieces and evaluate the writers’ use of rhetorical strategies. 4, A
Tues: continue discussion of short pieces with a focus on comparison. 4, A
Wed/Thurs: Analyzing literature from a rhetorical perspective (Kincaid and Soto). Students will analyze an argument and prepare a response. 4, A, B
Fri: Free-write Friday. Continue to work through the pieces by Kincaid and Soto (packets are due on Monday)
HW: Read Chapters 1-3 of Outliers 1-5, A, B
October 6-10
Mon: Unit 3 Vocab Quiz w/grammar questions (formative);Submit Kincaid/Soto packets(formative); Writing Reflection: the college essay
Tues: Discuss Chapters 1-3 of Outliers; (CHECK JOURNALS-FORMATIVE) 4, A Think Dot Strategy
Wed/Thurs: Unit Test (written summative) 1-5, A
Fri: Free-write Friday; students will have independent reading time after the free-write. 4
HW: Read Chapters 4-6 of Outliers.
October 13-17
Mon: student holiday
Tues: Unit 4 Vocab quiz w/ Outliers questions (formative); Discuss Outliers 4, A
Wed/Thurs: Review research/formatting skills.
Fri: Free-write Friday; reading time. It is highly recommended that you use this time to finish the final chapters of Outliers.
October 20-24
Mon: Assign Outliers Essay and Annotated Bibliography; Discuss research skills handout4, A
Tues: Discuss Outliers 4, A
HW: Read Ch. 14: Visual and Multimedia Arguments
Wed/Thurs: Test over research/information literacy (summative); Visual Literacy: How is the concept of America presented in advertising? Evaluate ads/print sources p. 531 EEAWhat ideas/concepts are presented in the media? Are these concepts false or duplicitous in some way? 1-5, A, B, C
HW: Bring in an advertisement/cartoon tomorrow that applies to our discussion.
Fri: Free=-write Friday: Students will use the advertisements they have selected for the free-write. The ad/cartoon should be stapled in the student’s writing journal. 1-5, A, B, C
HW: Finish Outliers
Tutoring: room 2602: Monday-Thursday 2:45-3:10. Mornings by appointment only.
Make-ups: If you need to make up a quiz or test (essays), please see me and we will work out a time. Students have one week to make up a test, quiz, or in-class essay. However, if a student misses a reading check, the makeup must be taken the day the student returns to class.
Absences: If a student is absent, it is his/her responsibility to make up the work within the allotted time. Failure to make up a quiz or a test within the allotted time will result in a zero. Your absence does not increase the amount of time allotted to complete the work. (ie. You must keep up with the reading schedule even while absent.)
Grades: 75% summative (tests, reading checks and essays)
25% formative (quizzes, reading checks and other grades)
***AP/Dual Credit courses do not allow for retesting on either formatives or summatives.
Summatives: (4) Formatives: (11)
Research/Information Literacy TestVocabulary Quiz (4) ***multiple choice
Process Essay (College Admissions Essay) Workshops (2)
Unit Test (written) Journal Checks (2)
Timed Writing Chopin, Piercy, Benson questions (1)
Kincaid/Soto packet (1)
Tone words quiz (1)
********Reading Checks (will not necessarily be announced. Keep up with the reading )