Fall 2015
Mrs. Dvorak
ldvorak@barrington220.org
Course Syllabus: Junior English Honors
Course Description: Junior English Honors is a two-semester English course that focuses on reading and
writing about American literature and the study of Shakespeare. The course will focus particular
attention on the tension between idealism and realism in the American experience. In addition to the
exploration of the texts, the course includes a research unit where students will refine research skills,
evaluate online and print resources, and synthesize information to form a cohesive paper. The four types
of writing that students write most frequently in college (extended definition, evaluation, causal, and
proposal) will be core to the course.
Essential Questions:
 How do various texts in American literature reflect points of view of American culture?
 What is American identity, and what makes us and the texts we read American?
*Required Core Texts:
 The Great Gatsby
 Into the Wild
 The Things They Carried
 Hamlet
 Selected Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson & Henry David Thoreau
 “Good Readers and Good Writers” by Vladimir Nabokov
Additional Units:
 Book Love—First ten minutes of every period
 SAT/ACT vocabulary and grammar instruction
 Research Unit: Modified I-Search paper
Class Requirements and Expectations:
 Keep a folder, reading journal (or binder)
 Students must come to class on time, prepared, and begin reading 
 Students must treat each other respectfully.
 Students are not allowed to use any electronic device without permission
Late Policy: For full credit, papers, projects, and assignments must be turned in on the assigned due date,
no exceptions. Late papers can be turned in up to one week after the original due date for one full-grade
deduction. After the week ends, papers will not be accepted. Under special circumstances, please see me
(I’m fairly reasonable). Smaller assignments may be turned in the next day for partial credit.
Teacher Availability: If you have questions, comments, concerns, I am always available before and after
school for help in the English office. During the day, I’m available periods 2 and 5 in the English office and
period 7 at my hall post.
Junior Honors Texts, Short Stories, and Poetry
Observation in Literature—Short Stories
“The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe (1846)
“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892)
“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin (1894)
“Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway (1927)
“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner (1931)
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson (1948)
“A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor (1955)
“The Swimmer” by John Cheever (1964)
18th Century Puritanism: The Great Awakening
“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards (1741)
19th Century Romanticism
“Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1835)
Modern American Poetry , including The Harlem Renaissance
Maya Angelou
Gwendolyn Brooks
e.e. cummings
Robert Frost
Langston Hughes
Walt Whitman
19th Century Transcendentalism
“Self-Reliance” (1841) and “Nature” (1836) by Ralph Waldo Emerson From Walden (1854) and
“Civil Disobedience” (1849) by Henry David Thoreau
Films: Alone in the Wilderness & Into the Wild
20th Century Realism
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925); Film: Born Rich
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien (1990); Film: Platoon
*Course texts, short stories, and poetry subject to change based on time limitations.
Term Weights
Semester Work: 80%
Final: 20%
Grade Categories
Formative assessments (informal) 10%
Summative assessments (major papers, projects) 90%