Course Parameters:
Course work emphasizes the development of analytical thinking, information gathering, and writing proficiency skills. See the Quarterly Portfolio Assessment write-up below for a better understanding of the course parameters.
Our Senior Project incorporates a variety of relevant research, interview, and writing skills as you explore in depth topics of your own individual interest and choosing. This project is designed to mark this point in time through looking back at your life and memories to see how these contributed in melding who you are today while giving you the opportunity to reflect on what is important to maintain as you venture forth into new arenas after graduation. Who are you? Who do you want to be? What personal traits and priorities are important to hang on to as you leave SRVHS?
Writing takes place Monday through Thursday. Ongoing draft and process writing through a variety of college writing types, culminates with submission of a student-selected “best work” portfolio each quarter. Peer, teacher, and self-response comments and teacher conferencing are an important part of this process.
Writing Skills/Activities
Response to News Articles, Essays, Video Clips, Documentaries, etc.
Analysis
Summarization
Paraphrasing
Etymology/Language/Writing Skills
Sentence Combining
Paragraph Structure
Word Choice/Succinct Writing
Editing
Vocabulary
Roots, Prefixes, Suffixes
"Confusables"
Word Families
Draft Process
Revisions
Edits
Peer Response
Teacher Response
Conferences
Notebook
Journal Writes
Observations
Writing Types
Exposition
Reflection
Résumé
Recommendation Request Letter
College Admissions Essay
Scholarship Essay
Narrative/Descriptive Essay
Cause/Effect Essay
Comparison Writing
Classification Writing
Writing about Process
Definition Writing
Persuade to Action Writing
Arguing Against Claim Essay
Position Paper
Solution Essay
Observation Report
Interview Report
Experiment, Lab, Field Report
Senior Project
Research Report
Cross-Curricular Support for Writing in Other Classes
Six Traits of Good Writing
Ideas/Content
Voice/Originality
Word Choice
Sentence Fluency
Organization
Conventions
Quarterly Portfolio Assessment
~ Courtesy of Sheridan Blau, The Literature Workshop
As a record and final product of your effort in this course, you are required to submit a portfolio representing the quantity and quality of your work in Composition. Your portfolio will represent a collection, a selection, and a reflection:
- It constitutes a collection of the body of your work, showing the quantity of your work for the quarter.
- It allows you to identify a selection of the best work you have produced – the work that can best show the quality of your reading, writing, and thinking for the quarter.
- It affords you the opportunity to reflect on what your work has meant to you, what kind of development in your thinking and writing it represents, and what you think about what you have accomplished.
Content and Format
The Collection (body of your work)
Your collection includes everything you write in connection with this course for the quarter. This includes:
- your journal
- all your papers in all their draft forms
- all in-class writing (responses to articles and essays, analyses of film and documentary clips, sentence-honing exercises, creative pieces, writing in response to your book club selection, and so on)
- anything else that can be said to represent the reading, writing, and thinking you engaged in for Composition.
- Make sure that your collection is easy to handle (bound between covers or placed securely in a well-marked folder) and organized so that a reader (me) will be able to locate sections and particular materials readily.
- Label sections clearly.
- Provide a table of contents for the whole collection and possibly for whatever subsections you choose to create.
- Also, provide a rough word count as a measure of your writing for the quarter.
The Selection (best work you have produced)
This represents your best writing and thinking for the quarter and the work you choose to submit for the most rigorous evaluation. For this section of your portfolio, select carefully from the work in your collection and feel free to revise any writing before you include it in your selection. You may select (and revise) whole essays or parts of essays, pieces of in-class writing, or sections of your journal just as they appeared in your journal or edited and revised. You may want to photocopy pages of your journal and show them as they were written (assuming they are legible) or type out selected passages from your journal.
Your whole selection may consist of copies of what you regard as your best two or three papers. The only constraint is one of length. Please limit your selection to 3,000 words (approximately six pages, single-spaced) for Quarters 1 and 3, and 5,000 words (approximately ten pages, single-spaced) for Quarters 2 and 4.
The Reflection
You are required to include in your portfolio:
- A general introduction to the whole collection
- An introduction to the selection of your best work.
You may also include introductions to other sections of your portfolio.
Your introductions (informal essays or notes) should:
- describe the materials you are including
- provide any background information about the submitted work that might aid the reader in appreciating it
Reflections:
Overall: Your own reflections on the range or work included and its characteristics, qualities, development from piece to piece, and so on will be especially valuable.
Journal: It would also be useful for a reader to find some reflective remarks on your journal:
- How your journal writing may have changed in the course of the quarter.
- How your journal may reveal changes in your thinking and/or writing.
- What you think of various kinds of journal entries.
- Which entries you now find most or least interesting, and so on.
Assessment:
Your final portfolio will receive a single grade. A strong portfolio will be well-organized and include helpful introductions to and reflections on the work submitted.
A strong portfolio will include:
- a large collection of material, showing evidence of a serious and thoughtful engagement with all or most of the assigned writing types and reading selections
- a willingness to take risks with difficult texts
- a willingness to try a variety of writing approaches
- thoughtful engagement with the assigned writing tasks
- participation in a variety of in-class writing exercises
- intellectual honesty throughout
- approximately 3,000 words (approximately six pages, single-spaced) for Quarters 1 and 3, and 5,000 words (approximately ten pages, single-spaced) for Quarters 2 and 4 of especially thoughtful writing (The Selection) that addresses particular writing types or texts and issues with reading or criticism
Senior Project (Second Semester) ~ Details are in the handout on my school page on the San Ramon web site. Basically, this project is to mark the passage in your life as you prepare to end high school and move on to the next phase of your life. You have options for format and content; the idea is to encapsulate your life to this point in time so that you may reflect on who you are and who you wish to continue to be as you move into college and beyond.
- Memoirs/Reflection
- Interviews
- Story Telling
- Letters
- Story Captions
- Time Capsules
- Memory/Scrapbooking
- Videography
- Community Service
and much more
Reading
Book Clubs:
In-class book club groups select a non-fiction book each semester to read, discuss, and work with. There are writing assignments emanating from the selected book, as well as journal prompts tied to the book. I suggest possible book titles. Students may also suggest titles. Fast Food Nation, 102 Minutes, Into the Wild, In Cold Blood. In Pursuit of Happyness, Devil in the White City, Marley and Me, Walden, Freakanomics, and Running with Scissors are a few examples of books students have selected in the past.
Through the course of the year, we use Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder as the basis to study and discuss philosophical ideologies (Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Descartes, and the existentialists, etc.) We will explore the philosophers and examine views on these philosophies.
Our class structure centers around student-directed and student-led in-class discussion. Participation, therefore, is an important, vital part of this process, tantamount to success. Attendance must be a priority.
Oral analysis occurs during in-class instruction and small group discussions; written analysis takes the form of essay responses.
Reading Types :
- Non-Fiction
- Silent Sustained Reading of Independent Selections
- Essays
- Textbooks
- Articles
Reading Skills
- Identification and interpretation of bias
- Use of logic; identification of fallacious reasoning
- Highlighting and Note-taking on reading materials
- Analysis of literal and implicit meanings
- Extrapolation to the real world
- Oral Articulation Skills
- Logic/Debate
- Bias/Fact/Opinion
Readers' Workshop takes place on Fridays. The period is set aside for reading books of your choosing, conferencing about independent reading, and/or meeting in book clubs. You must bring a book to class. (You may check out books from my in-class library, also.) It is important for you to pick books to read that you like (with your parental approval) so you enjoy reading. Book clubs meet on designated Fridays.
Note: Reading is very similar to playing sports; doing it is the only way to enjoy or to improve. You should read at home for at least a half-hour on a daily basis.
State Standards require high school juniors and seniors to read two million words a year outside of school. This is equivalent to 6,000 - 7,000 pages.
FYI: The effect of reading practice on student performance in school has been examined in research studies. Some of the key findings are as follows:
- High school students on average spend about as much time in reading practice as kindergarten students.
- Students in the top 5% read 144 times more than students in the bottom 5%.
- Students in the highest-performing states in reading engage in 59% more reading than those students in states in the bottom quartile.
Structure of Weekly Readers' Workshop
- Silent Sustained Reading of Independent Selections
- Book Club meetings/Reading Selected Group Book
- Book Club notes for each discussion
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Grading Policy - Based on the standard percentage breakdown outlined on the course policy sheet, each of the following constitutes a portion of the quarterly/semester grade. Refer to the grade contract below for more details.
Writing/Reading - Writing (Quarterly portfolios, daily writing assignments, highlighting/note-taking, grammar, vocabulary, journals, speeches, debates, and Senior Project installments), and Reading (daily assignments, book club selections, and essays) and Readers' Workshop (reader response cards).
In-Class Participation/Readers' Workshop – Much of the structure of this class involves lab time where in-class daily participation and student-centered discussion are the focal point. In-class participation, Readers' Workshop/Book Club participation are the focus of this portion of the grade. Attendance is important; you must be in class to participate. Tardies and absences negatively affect your participation grade since you cannot participate when you are not in class. Three cuts may result in being dropped from the class with an F; English is required for graduation.
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Grading Guidelines
Portfolio – Your final portfolio will receive a single grade for the writing, either indicating compliance with the grading contract for a “B” or success in meeting higher grade requirements. A strong portfolio will be well-organized and include helpful introductions to and reflections on the work submitted (see additional information below). The portfolio represents a majority of the quarterly grade.
Portfolios Submitted for a Grade Higher than a “B”:
- A strong portfolio will include:
- A large collection of material, showing evidence of a serious and thoughtful engagement with all or most of the assigned writing types and reading selections
- A willingness to take risks with difficult texts
- A willingness to try a variety of writing approaches
- Thoughtful engagement with the assigned writing tasks
- Participation in a variety of in-class writing exercises
- Intellectual honesty throughout
- Integration of teacher edit comments as well as peer edit comments
- Especially thoughtful, quality writing (The Selection) that addresses particular writing types or texts and issues with reading or criticism (refer to the General Writing Rubric and the separate checklists for each writing type)
Journal and Book Club Write-ups – Your journal and book club write-ups are submitted within your Quarterly Portfolio, but receive a separate grade from the portfolio.
Daily Work – Weekly work in the form of drafts and other writing exercises must be finished on time, and these assignments receive daily work grades separate from the portfolio.
Teacher Edits on Each Writing Type – For each writing type, you must submit a second or subsequent draft (during the essay writing window of time) to gain my feedback. Then you must integrate my comments into your revisions toward your final draft for the writing type. Failure to acquire teacher feedback will result in a grade no higher than a C.
Participation - You must make some genuine efforts to help others learn and to help the class go better. You must include a letter in your portfolio, explaining or exploring ways you have tried to fulfill this condition. (See the Grading Contract for suggestions on what to include in your letter.) Participation receives a separate grade from the Portfolio.
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Grading Contract
Dear Composition Students:
We use a grading contract in this class to create a course structure where you can have considerable freedom to think and to experiment; where I can be a supportive ally to you, but also push you to do your best work; and where we can ultimately arrive at a course grade that is fair. My goal is to create a culture of support: a culture where you and I function as allies rather than adversaries and where you cooperate with classmates rather than compete with them. Conventional grading can lead you to think more about grades than about writing; to worry more about pleasing me as your teacher than about figuring out what you really want to say or how you want to say it; to be reluctant to take risks with your writing.
Therefore, I am using a type of contract grading system in this course. I will give you feedback on much of your writing. Sometimes my comments with be non-evaluative; sometimes they will be frankly evaluative – telling you what I think works well and not so well. But I do not put individual grades on your papers, and these evaluative comments of mine will have no effect on your grade for the quarter or the semester – up to the grade of B. For the policy on higher grades, see below.
You are guaranteed a course grade of “B” if you meet ALL of the following conditions. Failure to meet all of these requirements means that you are in breach of the contract, and cannot receive a grade of B (or higher).
1. Quarterly Portfolios: Submit a complete portfolio at the quarter and the semester in accordance with the portfolio guidelines and requirements (see separate handout) to meet the "B" requirements.
2. Journals: Keep up with assignments, and submit substantive, complete journals on due dates.
3. Participation:
Work cooperatively in groups. Be willing to share some of your writing, listen supportively to the writing of others and, when they want it, give full and thoughtful responses.
Participate actively in class activities, including your group book club.
Do not be habitually absent. (Excused school activities and extended illnesses are exceptions.)
Do not cut class.
Do not be habitually late. Three tardies is considered a cut. (If you are late or miss a class, you are responsible for getting the information you have missed in class.)
Be on task during class, and show good self-initiative to make positive use of class lab time.
4. Daily Work: Submit whole drafts for the various writing types on time. Partially completed drafts are considered incomplete. Credit is given for each phase of the draft process.
5. Revisions: When the assignment is to revise, make it more than just a correcting or fixing. Your revision needs to reshape or extend or substantially clarify your ideas or relate your ideas to new things. Revisions must be different, not just touched up but changed in some genuine way. Major paper revisions must be more than proofreading; they have to indicate that you put some thought into changing the preceding draft. Your revision must be substantially changed from the preceding draft.
6. Mechanics, Copy Editing: When the assignment is for a final draft, it must be well copy-edited, that is free from virtually all spelling, grammar and syntax errors. It is fine to get help with this. I don’t ask for careful copy-editing on early and mid-process drafts, but it is crucial that your final drafts be error free.
7. Effort: Your writing needs to show solid effort. This doesn’t mean that you have to suffer; it is fine to have fun and try a variety of approaches with the assignments. It just means that I have to see solid work.
8. Perplexity: For each assignment, you need to find some genuine question or perplexity. That is, don’t just latch onto obvious, shallow observations on the subject at hand just to fulfill the assignment; show some interest and feeling about the subject by rooting your paper in an authentic, relevant subject. Show that your writing is driven by some genuine question or perplexity or wondering. (By the way, this is a crucial skill to sharpen throughout college: how to find a question that interests you, even in a boring assignment.)
9. Thinking: Your writing needs to move or to go somewhere; it needs to have a line of thought.
10. Originality: Avoid mundane treatments of topics about which we all agree; papers about subjects without weighty significance; papers about overworked subjects. Your work must be your own. All outside sources must be cited and/or acknowledged. A plagiarized assignment will result in a swift and automatic zero.
11. Letter: You must make some genuine efforts to help others learn and to help the class go better. You must include a letter in your portfolio, explaining or exploring ways you have tried to fulfill this condition.
Possibilities for what to include in the letter:
Help bring out the thinking of others, especially people who are not being heard.
Give extra feedback on peers’ pieces.
Listen well to others.
Set an example of being open and honest in class – without hogging the floor.
Help your peer group work better.
Side Note: Please do not panic over the conditions on effort, perplexity and thinking. It is okay if your writing has some loose ends, some signs of struggle – especially in the early drafts – as long as the struggles indicate effort rather than lack of effort.
Unfulfilled Contracts: Your grade will fall rapidly below a B if you do not meet the above conditions.
Plagiarism: Work that is not your own original writing or that does not contain proper citation for research is considered plagiarism, and the assignment forfeits credit. Also, submitting the same assignment in two different classes without prior approval from the instructor is a form of plagiarism. Portfolios containing plagiarism cannot receive a grade higher than a C, and if the portfolio contains multiple plagiarized assignments, the grade quickly declines from a C. See the class policy sheet for more information.
Conditions for grades of B+ or Higher:
Whereas the criteria for a grade of B reflect behaviors; higher grades reflect quality of writing. For a higher grade:
1. You must meet all the conditions for a B.
2. Quality: Your portfolio must contain mostly excellent writing, and the portfolio pieces in your Selection section must be excellent. To earn above a B means that your writing goes beyond behavior and rests on quality. See the General Writing Rubric and the checklists for each writing type.
3. Teacher Feedback and Comments – You must submit your rough drafts to me during the window of time for each writing type in order to obtain my feedback on your drafts. Then your final draft must incorporate the teacher edit comments, or address the reasons for not incorporating the comments.
* Adapted from Peter Elbow’s Everyone Can Write
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English Department Policies:
Late work receives an F.
There is no extra credit
Final Hints for Success -
Do the work!
Do the work!
Do the work!
If you have questions, come see me. Avoid unnecessary stress by communicating with me before problems arise.
Best of luck for a good year! I hope you have the time of your life!
~ Mrs. Tong
