Welcome to English 8

So begins your final English class in high school. Given that you have few high school milestones to accomplish in this your last semester, we will regard this as a college preparatory class.

The goal of the class will be to help you become more able as a reader and writer of complex texts. In reading, we'll work on identifying important ideas in a text and recognizing the evidence that backs those ideas up. We'll work on improving your skills in making inferences. In writing, we'll make progress in helping you to write responses that get right to the point, are well organized, and use evidence effectively to back up your views. We'll also work on writing that comes to grips with ideas, concepts, or textual details that are less than certain, or present contradictory elements.

We'll accomplish this goal by reading a number of major works of literature. Our first book will be Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, a play that has been called the greatest ever written. From there we will read a second work as a class, followed by a third work, in which class members will select a work among several possibilities, and break into groups to read the work of their choice.

Each book will require regular daily reading, which most days will be your homework. You are expected to do the reading and come to class ready to discuss the work, and write responses about it. For each work there will be one to two tests and/or a paper. Pop quizzes occur whenever the teacher (me) gets the sense that students are not reading the material!