What we do
Fall 2017
Students who choose to take honors credit for this class should do so because they are both interested in advancing their own critical thinking, reading and writing skills and because they are committed to putting in the extra energy to doing so.
The following are the components for honors in this course:
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2x a month ( every other week) Honors Meetings
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Seminar Conversations, text readings, reading responses AND participation
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Group Work and Study Prep for the SAT II American Literature
Honors students will meet during lunch TWO times a month. One of those meetings will be dedicated to a seminar discussion on a text provided a week prior. All of the texts need to be annotated PRIOR to the lunch time meeting and a one page reflection will be turned in at the meeting. The seminar conversation will be guided by the students in the group, not by the instructor. Students should be prepared to START their lunch in my classroom – so you will need to plan on bringing a lunch this day. No late entries will be allowed – and there are serious consequences for this (see below - Grade).
The other meeting each month, students will work with their peers in preparation for the SAT II Literature exam. Before the meeting, the students will have taken a mock SAT II Lit section. These study sessions will be guided by the teacher but student participation should dominate the session. These sessions will be reviewing the answers and identifying our errors in order to correct them in the future. Again, students should be prepared to START their lunch in my classroom – so you will need to plan on bringing a lunch this day. No late entries will be allowed – and there are serious consequences for this (see below - Grade).
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Readings will be based off of an assortment of readings that connect to the class. They provide a deeper contextual understanding of the topics discussed in class. All readings will be handed out at least 1 week prior to our honors meeting. Be sure to print it out, annotate it, and have your reading response done before the honors session. The readings will vary but be near college reading levels.
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Reader response briefs. Students will submit 1 page reader response briefs and should include in-text citation. We will be using APA in-text citation style. Please refer to Purdue link for reference. The RR will be TNR 12, single spaced, 1 inch margins, no titles necessary, and grammar and spelling error proofed.
There will be a Critical Inquiry Question that will be prompted with the readings. Be sure to address the prompt in full with proper commentary and content analysis.
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SAT II Literature: One week prior to our SAT honors session, you will receive from Joanne a practice section to work through. You are answering the questions AND also providing explanations as to why you selected that answer. You will also SHOW YOUR WORK: process of elimination reasoning in order to confirm your answer choice. All of this has to be due before our SAT HONORS session.
Grade: This honors option is an “all or nothing” approach. If you are dedicated to the work, make it to each meeting, and fully put forward HIGH QUALITY work in all aspects of this agreement, you will get your course grade with honors credit. If you do not, since you cannot drop out of honors, your final course grade will be lowered TWO FULL LETTER GRADES. So, let me be crystal clear here: if you do not attend each meeting, do all the readings, prepare for seminars, turn in all the required SAT practice exams, writing reflections, or if you do an inadequate job at any one of these, then you will get your grade lowered. You will get ONLY 2 warnings/REDOS for an assignment that was done but didn’t meet the quality standards, the third time will cause you to “not pass” honors. NOT doing the work is not excusable. If you have an A in the class, but do not successfully complete all of this, it will be lowered to a C. This is NON-NEGOTIABLE.