Vocabulary Galore!

monarchy, unwittingly, harassing, trepidation, lorries, foyer, integrity, squabbling, gnarled, imminent, demise lumbering, insomniac, embodiment, bazaar, drone, shrouded, withered, stench cretin, permeate, cardamom, tarpaulin, suitor, carcinoma, palliative, metastasized, chastise

Tonight's homework

Read pp. 80-109. No questions! But come to class ready to discuss our reading so far. Bring your best insights!

　

　

More vocabulary words

Add these words to your vocabulary list by Friday:

affluent, tapestries, chandelier, vaulted, congenital,
perpetually, skeptic, scoffed, virtuous, intricacies'
exhilarating, liability, melee, jostled, vehemently
revving, nemesis, obstinacy, irony

Homework for Thursday

Read to the end of Chapter 7 and answer the following questions:


1. Why is kite flying so important to Amir?

2. Explain the significance of Hassan frequently saying to Amir, "For you a thousand times over."

3. Why doesn’t Amir help Hassan when he is attacked? What does this show about him?

Homework for Wednesday

Read to page 47 (end of Chapter 5) and answer the following questions:

Homework #2

1.What kind of relationship do Hassan and Amir have? Give at least 3 details to prove your point.
2. Who is Rahim Khan? What kind of man is he?
3. How does Assef treat Amir and Hassan and why?

Vocabulary words for Wednesday

unscrupulous, notorious, hemorrhaged, garrulous, carcass, corpse, liability

Signing up for Engrade ...

Grades for this class will be recorded on Engrade, the online grading system. How to sign up:
1) Go to Engrade at www.engrade.com.
2) Click on Sign Up, and then click on Student.
3) In the box provided put your information: teacher name-student id-special access code. Example: mrvilbig-284950604-5403.
4) Note: mrvilbig is spelled with no capitals or periods; I'll give you your special access code in class.
5) Click next and set your own username and password. Once you are registered, you and your parents or guardians can check grades at any time.

Contact

I can be reached at (718) 724-8500. Leave a message, and I will return the call as soon as possible. A more effective way to reach me is to write an email using your Engrade account. Or you can email at my Dept. of Education email: pvilbig@schools.nyc.gov.

Grades!

Grades will be based on the following:
Tests and at home literary essays and projects: 40 percent
Classwork, quizzes, and homework: 60 percent
Total: 100 percent

How we'll work: For each book or literary work we read, you’ll be expected to read about 25 pages a night. In addition you will sometimes have homework in which you'll be asked to write brief responses or answer questions about your reading or topics for class discussion. You can expect that for each book or literary work, you'll write one at-home essay and have one to two tests. Pop quizzes occur whenever the teacher (me) gets the sense that students are not reading the material!

IMPORTANT: Grades are cumulative. That means the grades you make now count as much as the grades later in the semester. So it's important to work hard from the very beginning and not dig yourself into a hole in the first weeks of our class.

We will use Engrade, an online grading system in this class. I’ll give you information shortly about how to register. You’ll have your own account, where I’ll post grades. Your parents or guardians should be given access to your account.

Welcome!

Welcome to English 1 and the beginning of your high school experience. We will be focusing in this class on helping you to become more adept and skillful readers and writers. In reading you will be introduced to a variety of classic and modern works of high literary merit. You will focus on developing your vocabulary and your ability to interpret and analyze literature. In writing, you will develop the ability to write a literary essay, sharpen your grammar skills and your understanding of how language and sentences work. You will become a skilled writer capable of expressing your thoughts concisely and creatively.

But beyond this, the goal of this class is help you begin to understand the role that literature plays in helping us to understand our lives, the truths we live by, and the nature of right and wrong in human society. In some ways, literature remains one of the best way people have invented to think about what it means to be a human being living in society. It addresses big ideas and deep questions, and this class has as one of its goals to help you begin to see how literature works to provide us with glimpses of truth that are often hidden from view or suppressed because they are difficult to face or make us uncomfortable.