English 9 Honors
Welcome to 9th grade Honors English!
Be sure to check our updated technology policies. Please be aware that students are responsible for bringing and maintaining their charged device and for printing their work at home prior to class. (Just simply showing me your homework on your device doesn't count as submission!) What is Honors English, anyway?
Honors English is a class that digs deeper into ideas and into complexity. We learn and practice the skills of analyzing, synthesizing, considering ambiguities. Students who are admitted into Honors level courses are naturally talented but also show a willingness to do great amounts of work (practice, time, effort) to achieve a high level. Honors English adapts the standard curriculum by compacting or accelerating (we move through more works than the College Prep level), as well as by offering enrichment and sophistication. We try to master increasingly complex sets of ideas and expand those ideas out to the real world. |
To adapt/re-invent/sample Shel Silverstein's "Invitation"
If you are a dreamer, come in If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a worker If you are a hope-er, a practice-er, a magic bean-buyer... If you like ideas come sit by my fire For we have some flax-golden tales to discuss! Come in! Come in! Click the buttons below to see some ideas posted elsewhere on my website.
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Summer Readings
1 choice read from school list & Potok's The Chosen
Welcome. We'll have an opportunity to discuss and digest the ideas you discovered over the summer while reading these two novels. You should already have a solid grasp of the plot, and we'll romp through the Elements of Literature and spend some time discussing conflict and symbol (and how they often lead to theme). Pre-2019: All 9th grade read: Touching Spirit Bear: We'll be creating an exhibit of the objects of Cole Matthew's story which will help focus our attention on how our identities and perspectives are shaped, about how our possessions represent who we are, and about the power we have to change ourselves. Exhibit: Assignment Exhibit: Rubric Exhibit: Artifact Label see below for Google doc Want to see a sample Curator Notes? Check this out! |
Touching Spirit Bear: Kermode Bear Habitat Gribbell and Princess Royal Islands
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Grammar
Grammar! Flipped and Fun
9th grade Honors students master several grammar concepts. We study these so we have command and clarity at the nitty-gritty sentence level. By practicing, we can fully understanding how language works and how we may communicate best. We explore approximately one concept per term, (some of this may be review). We will cover: Parts of Speech, Parts of the Sentence, Phrases, and Clauses . Please see separate page for Grammar Resources (use button at right or drop down from menu across top). |
Not convinced grammar is worth your time and money? Check out this article where grammar (commas and gerunds!) made the difference: from the Washington Post 3/16/2017 "The ruling in the Maine labor dispute hinged on the omission of an Oxford comma"
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Short Story Unit
This unit is designed in part as a review of the language of the field: all those literary terms that we'll be using throughout the rest of the year (and on into other years, as well).
We will coordinate on group project to summarize, analyze, and present a short story. Note-taking format: Freytag's Pyramid/Plot Diagram Link to Short Story Plot Diagram Want to see a sample of notes? Check these out! Note that these exceed the basic expectations of completeness and attention to detail of plot events (in blue ink), because they include some analysis/interpretation (additions about theme, gender roles were made in black ink). The number of events on your plot diagrams will vary with the length of the short story. It might help you to number them, and if you run out of room, use the back of the paper and continue the numbers. Short Story Links: Stories in bold to be discussed by whole class. Other stories will be read by all, but dissected and then presented by small groups. Plot pyramids are due for 6 of 8. "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell "The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind" by Ray Bradbury "The Interlopers" by Saki "Sonata for Harp & Bicycle" by Joan Aiken "Rules of the Game" by Amy Tan "One Ordinary Day, with Peanuts" by Shirley Jackson "Checkouts" by Cynthia Rylant "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier extra: "The Red-Headed League" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Activities and projects connected to this unit:
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Review of Figurative Language
Check out this Wile E. Coyote clip (below) for examples of Allusion, Foreshadowing, Irony (dramatic, visual + verbal), Symbol. Also notice Exposition, Rising Action, Denouement! Don't ignore onomatopaeia, too. It's chock-full o' lit stuff! |
Animal Farm
The Revolution will be televised....tweeted!
Animal Farm allows us to wrestle with a number of interesting questions: We consider how/why power corrupts, and look at the roles of education and language (and manipulation of it) in aiding rebellion but also in consolidating power of authority. How do threats and violence lead to fear, and what is the role of fear in oppression? If propaganda is the junction of threat, violence, education, language, and fear, we should be able to identify types of propaganda, their usage, and their effects. Finally, our project for this unit causes us to consider what allegory is and why it might be useful, and then reminds us how we research and the hows and whys of citing our sources. Note-taking format: Tweet Notes
Activities and projects connected to this unit:
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Watch the following brief videos exploring Orwell's language and requirements for dystopia. (Thanks for the links, Meghana V.! 2016-17)
Check out this article tracing the ideas, publishing, uses and misuses of Orwell's Animal Farm: The Paris Review "Animal Farm Timeline."
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Midterms?!?!
Nervous about the midterm?
Don't get stressed, get prepped! Here are Ms. F's notes on How To Study for a Major Exam. and......here is a Review Plan specifically for 9H. |
To Kill a Mockingbird
This text allows us to consider many themes: what does it mean to be an outsider? What does it mean to consider life from another's point of view? This coming-of-age story set in the Great Depression South lets us look at the transition between childhood and the adult world, makes us look at courage and cowardice, and prompts us to ask why some individuals are strong enough to stand against prejudice, while others participate in it? We consider what justice truly is, and if our justice system offers it, and if (and how) justice differs from the truth. By looking back through the lens of Scout's narrative, we can trace some of America's present problems to their roots in the past. Note-taking format: One Word Summary w/ Images: 2016-17 See Google Classroom for instructions. See Sample on A Note about Notes page. Chart Notes: 2015-16 Chart Notes form (Doc) (Also: PDF form for Chart Notes) (Wanna see a sample of C notes vs. A notes? Check these out!) Activities and projects connected to this unit:
Want some historical backgrounding? (I know! Me too!)
1930s / Depression Era: some info
In Chapter 27 Bob Ewell gets a job with the WPA (Works Progress Administration). This came a bit later than the PWA (Public Works Administration). Both were part of FDR's New Deal. (The PWA lasted only 2 years, and funded $3.3 billion in its first year to pay private companies to build (and hire for!) large-scale public works like dams, bridges, schools, hospitals. Among the projects built under this program were locally the Cape Cod Canal Railway, the Sagamore Bridge, and the Bourne Bridge, but also LaGuardia Airport, the Lincoln Tunnel and the Coulee Dam.) The WPA, which began in 1935 and ended in 1944, tried to offer one job for every family suffering long-term unemployment. It's projects were like the WPA's: roads, sidewalks, waterworks, post offices, but often a bit smaller and more local: museums, swimming pools, parks, such as McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, RI and Dinosaur Park in Rapid City, SD. The NRA mentioned in Chapter 27 is actually the National Industrial Recovery Act, legislation enacted (with the PWA) in 1933. It was an attempt to stabilize prices and stimulate the economy. Praised initially, it was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1935.
Watch: Check out this Crash Course video (below), narrated by John Green (Yes! THAT John Green!)
Wait! Spoiler Alert! This video contains spoilers, so don't watch this until you've read to the end of the novel. But it's a definite must when you've gotten to the end. |
"Dad" vs. "Atticus" Wall Street Journal article on the rising (again?) trend of calling parents by their first names. (Thanks, David T.! 2016-17)
Hey, Miss Caroline Fisher! (Chapter 2) Corporal punishment: Still legal.....
Source: NEA Today magazine. "First and Foremost: Which states still use corporal punishment." Winter 2017. Data from: Corporal Punishment in U.S. Public Schools: Prevalence, Disparities in Use, and Status in State and Federal Policy, Gershoff, Elizabeth.
Rabies: Ancient killer still gets us. (Chapter 10) Only 3 known survivors in the world (without having had a vaccine). Check out these resources.
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Romeo & Juliet
A Raisin in the Sun
This play asks us to contemplate what we dream of, value, aspire to. We also reflect how these dreams (and our experiences) shape us and perhaps save us. How do our backgrounds, skin color, or creeds define us? What role does money play in our dreams and aspirations? What do we gain when we make choices, and what do we lose?
Ms. Flinner's slide show on Levittown & the rise of suburbia is here. Some ideas Ms. F. is contemplating: conflicts between whites and blacks are obvious, but consider the tension between the working black and the wealthy/priviledged black.... Beneatha seems like a character in search of a purpose (to adapt the title of a Pirandello play). Consider her change over the course of the play, from the dilettante we meet in Act 1 to a wholely committed woman by the end.... How are many of the characters' aspirations in fact dreams of leisure? What is leisure? What is required to have it? What are the symbols of leisure within the play? And what are the symbols of leisure within our own lives, today?...... What are your thoughts? Having a tough time reading the tiny print? You can use this PDF version of the complete script. (Thanks, Elle W.! 2016-17) So, how much is a check for $10,000 worth back then, anyway? Use this inflation calculator to find out what it would be worth in today's money. They use Consumer Price Index data (from the Bureau of Labor Statistics), which indicates how much standard consumer goods cost at the time. By comparing the costs then and now, we can understand the buying power of an amount of money. For example, if you had $20 to spend on groceries in 2000, you could likely purchase more items then than you could at today's prices, and you'd have to spend more of today's money to get the same set of groceries. Ummmm....after that, there's math formulas involved, and you know Math and I are not friends, so I can't explain any more than that....Sorry! |
Listen: Great interview connecting modern events like riots in Baltimore, MD/Freddy Gray incident with historical, institutionalized race discrimination. (Fresh Air/Terry Gross interview of Richard Rothstein 5/14/2014)
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Night
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