Syllabus

Senior English Syllabus

Jo (Kumu) Huffaker

nhuffaker@tasok.net

nancyhuffaker@gmail.com

Mobile: 082.290.6200

Course Overview

“A book is a mirror. If an ass peers into it, you can’t expect an apostle to look out.”

-- C. Lichtenberg

This course is about reading, re-reading, writing and discussing reading. Together, we will explore how reading and rhetoric shape our perceptions of the world around us.

At the heart of this course is the expectation that you read “carefully and thoughtfully”

from several western genres and periods – from Classical Greece to the 21^st – and above all that that you “get to know a few works well.” In an effort to do this we will spend a HUGE amount of class time engaged in discussions about the readings. You will also do a great deal of writing – writing to help you understand what you read, writing to analyze your understanding, and writing to evaluate your analysis.

Major Works Studied

Moliere, Richard Wilbur, trans. – Tartuffe

Sophocles, Robert Fagels, trans. – Oedipus

William Shakespeare – Hamlet

William Shakespeare – Tempest

Shelly – Frankenstein

Aldous Huxley - Brave New World

In addition, we will work with an assortment of shorter, non-fiction pieces – speeches, essays and excerpts.

Grading System

Quizzes: 10% Vocabulary and Terminology tests occur every Wednesday, beginning the third week of school. Vocabulary will be drawn from seminar and tutorial readings as well as related literary terms. Quizzes covering various readings can occur in any class period, will always be in the first 5 minutes of class, and will not be announced in advance. As long as you have done your prep work, you will do well. If you arrive late, you may not take the quiz.

Timed Writes 15% We will have Timed Write Essays and other written tests on texts. Because it gives you solid feedback on the overall quality of the work, all essays will be scored using an AP  9 point rubric. All students will conference one-on-one with the teacher, and those whose score is below 6 will have two days to rewrite. Every third-ish timed essay will alternate between peer and group editing prior to the teacher conference.

Tutorial Reading Annotations & Prep: 15% Language tutorials are discussion based. We will work together on careful analysis. Detailed studies in these include, but are not limited to specific diction choice, sentence structure, tone, mood, style, and organization. Whether through demonstrating a logical argument or developing sensitivity to the language in a poem, the aim is to understand what is at stake. We seek to engage in a close and careful reading that will foster deeper insights and deeper questions.  Without the prep work on these short pieces, you will bring the group down; therefore, annotation and prep work is crucial.

Formal Writing: 10% Another important goal of the tutorial is the improvement of student writing. While we will continue a focus on the liberal arts of the trivium: logic, grammar, and rhetoric; rhetoric, focused on analysis and interpretation, is given priority over the other two. You will write between 2 - 4 formal papers each semester. Each paper will go through multiple revisions: first, individual peer followed by group; finally, an individual conference with the teacher. Each step in this revision process will look at the paper using the general to specific triangle while discussing problems in syntax, thought, organization, and style, with an ongoing examination of English grammar and reflection on more general questions of how language works. As writers working to improve clarity and precision, students hone organization, sentence construction, and word choice.

Seminars: 15% Seminar is the heart of our program. It is a serious, sustained discussion of a reading held between teacher and students seated around a table. I will usually begin (sometimes it will be you) with a question on the reading meant to inspire a conversation that, from then on, is driven by the you. I join in as a part of the group inquiry, which centers on that reading assignment and any difficulties it presents. In seminar, everyone works together to find new insights. All opinions are welcome, but all must be supported by textual evidence and discussion. The intention here is to learn how to make points justified by specific textual evidence and to pose questions provoked by our texts, in the hope of gaining a deeper understanding of the work and of fruitful discussion.

Because careful reading is essential, we will have some dedicated individual reading time each week to complete the assignments for seminar.  This is the part of the course in which you take the most responsibility for your own learning.

Please Note:

Your success in this course depends upon your Continual Class Commitment.

The most important requirement for this course is that you Read Every Assignment Carefully & on Time (REACT).  If you don’t do the required reading, re-reading, annotation (yes, you still need to write down the actual definition of each word you are unsure about – “context clues” are not good enough in tutorial close reading), and explication outside of class, you will not be ready to take part in the activities and discussions inside of class. Plan your personal reading time carefully.

You’re Not in this Alone

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. My email address and cell phone number are on the top

of this syllabus. Call me with questions or requests to clarify an assignment. Email me

your rough draft for revision. Most emailed assignments are returned to you within 48

hours. If you need immediate help, call me on my cell phone. 

Guerilla Seminar: 5% You will take turns organizing “Guerilla Seminars.” A student-run seminar on a topic of your own choosing, perhaps on a piece of modern poetry or even a movie. Guerilla Seminars allow you to discuss works you are passionate about or that you have newly discovered. Many if these topics may not be familiar to me. You will need to think about the work itself, discuss it in class, and let it provoke questions that spill over into conversations outside of class. You not only want to test the ideas in a book; you will be tested by them in return. In short, you challenge every book (or other artistic choice brought to the seminar) to transform your minds. Instead of: How am I different from people of other times and places? Ask: What does it mean to be human?

Formative Assessments: 15% Informal written responses, creative projects, web posts, Major Works Data Sheets (MWDS), and other miscellaneous responses fall under this category.

Presentations: 15% As part of the common core of essential English skills, you are expected to be comfortable in speaking and listening. To assist in building these skills, our presentations will range from speeches to debates to informal group work.

Attendance:

In the classroom, successful students need to bring an open mindedness,

an ability to entertain opinions counter to their own.

The ability to listen is paramount, because only through active

listening is true dialogue possible—and dialogue is how we learn.

Given the importance of classroom conversation to learning, successful

you must be serious about regular, on-time attendance; you can’t make up a missed conversation. Moreover, a student who misses class, doesn’t do the readings, or doesn’t participate is letting classmates down. We depend on one another for the

work of cooperative insight. No one can do it alone.

To evaluate academic standing, then, I will attempt to assess students based on their actual progress—not in terms, for instance, of their test-taking proficiency. Tests, therefore, are kept to a minimum and consist mostly of occasional quizzes

where it is especially important to build a foundation for later work

 Instead of facing the pressure of tests and grades, students work daily to craft their own education through the details of demonstrating as well as the give and  take of discussion. Each student is responsible for the teaching and learning of each class—and because classes are small, I can observe each student’s participation and progress on a continual basis. You will write many essays on the works you are studying and three to five of them each semester will go through the multiple-draft process. You will also complete oral exams on some of them.

Also at the end of each semester each student will take part in a one-on-one meeting with me in order to assess previous work, discuss ways to improve, and reflect on what has been said.

The culmination of the year is your senior project, where you pick, out of everything you have read over the last four years, one work that you feel “speaks to you” more than any other.  You will use this work as the center piece of a presentation – using any media or creative format you choose – in which you address how and why this piece affected you the way it did.  To do this effectively, you must draw on careful reading and writing, detailed analysis and persuasive argument.

“The readiness is all.” Think about it.

Additional Strategies

Weekly Web Write: Each week you will respond to a blog post that asks you to ponder or play. These are informal, “formative” assessments – your chance to experiment and “regain the child” in your writing.  You may be asked to write a word at a time dialog, a reaction in rhymed couplets, a narration using exclusively one syllable words, to change the voice, tone or diction of a piece, to alter syntax or to use specific figurative language. 

Formal Paper Topics

While other topics will be added to the mix, here are some specific topics you will investigate through your writing.

What makes a “work of artistic merit”?

Choose one work you know – literary, drama, film, dance or studio art – and argue for it to be regarded as a “work of artistic merit.”

Is the fight for right worthwhile?

Using Brave New World, Oedipus, Hamlet, and/or another work you have read, discuss how the text promotes or protests the idea of fighting for what you believe is right.

Rhetoric in the 21^st century

Write an essay in which you examine and explain how a specific use of rhetoric affects us in our everyday lives.