August 14, 2007
Dear Parent:
As your child’s tenth grade English teacher, I wanted to alert you to some requirements of Honors World Literature, as well as explain several of the main goals that we will be striving to meet over the course of the year.
One of the most difficult tasks many tenth graders face is time management. For many of our students, the sophomore year brings a challenging workload, and they often have trouble establishing a routine. To assist in this, I will often break down larger assignments into more manageable chunks, and students are required to write down homework and class agendas. To further promote timeliness, I only accept late work that is worth 100 points or more or work from a student with an excused absence. Students are allowed to drop their lowest homework grade at the end of the semester, however.
Please be aware that plagiarism of any kind will result in no less than an "F" for that assignment.
Since this is an honors class, my goal is to challenge the self-motivated student to become a literary detective. The Signature student should not be satisfied with the easy answers but should always be digging deeper, working to categorize, clarify, and verify.
Reaching this goal, of course, makes for a long and arduous climb. In the tenth grade, English students should be focusing on the tools that will help them in the coming years of advanced high school and college English classes. Here are a few areas on which we are focusing in order to develop these tools:
English Honors is geared toward the pre-I.B. and pre-A.P. student and the reading matter has been chosen to reflect the goals and requirements of these programs. Therefore, the works covered are often challenging and many times deal with mature subject matter; they may even challenge your child's (or your) beliefs. These works have been chosen for their literary merit, their cultural importance, and their place in the I.B./A.P. curriculum. Please understand that exposure to a variety of religious or cultural ideas is not meant to "brainwash" your child. Most students have found that learning about other ways of life strengthens their own beliefs as they see the common threads that draw all of us together.
Please feel free to contact me at 421-1820 if you want to discuss any of this further.
Albert Einstein once said, “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning. “ This is my wish for your child.