Our unifying "subject" for the year is ROOTS...those of our family, our faith, our heritage, and our culture. How do these roots shape who we are?
We will be sharing much but not all of our writing. You will have a summer reading exam on Tuesday, August 13th. For the first quarter, English will be testing on the odd days. We have major exams, vocabulary and word of the day quizzes, multiple choice quizzes, and various writing assignments that involve digital media, creative writing, and analysis. The first book we cover will be Brave New World; next, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest; and last in the third quarter, Wuthering Heights. Your success depends upon close reading of all the texts. On average we will read three novels per quarter. We have some lofty works to comprehend, but you will all rise to the challenge.
Your first three blog assignments:
1. Create a blog and send me a link so that I can connect you to our main blog by Tuesday, August 13th.
2. Post your college essay by Friday, August 16th at midnight. Before posting your essay consider looking into the essay requirements for your top school. Length of essays vary, so research the word count before you write. We will be working on one essay, but I will happily look at any other essay you need to write for your college application. Make sure your essay has VOICE and personality, but don't overdo it. Consider your use of DICTION in terms of strong verbs, specific nouns, and strong vocabulary. Remove forms of be, excess prepositions, and words like who, which, and that if you do not need them. Vary your syntax and employ parallelism for effect. Make sure your purpose is clear, deep, and meaningful. You can make good use of humor; some of the best essays do. Not all personal essays need to revolve around tragedy or death. I will be giving you some basic building blocks to work with on Monday and Wednesday of next week during class.
3. Create a voki avatar that welcomes people to your blog by Thursday, August 15th at midnight. You've used voki before, www.voki.com, so you hopefully remember how it works. You will need to copy the embed code and embed it on your blog. This is worth a homework grade and will enable you to start becoming more comfortable with technology. We will use several technological tools this year in class. iPads and laptops are always welcome, and we do have six computers to work on in class. You may also use your phones.
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