LEAVENWORTH HIGH SCHOOL
Language Arts Department
JUNIOR HONORS ENGLISH COURSE EXPECTATIONS
The purpose for the Junior Honors English course is to prepare students for college work, and to
give students the opportunity to understand performance at Level 2 and 3 thinking.
Typically, successful Junior Honors students are task-oriented, are proficient readers, are able to
prioritize their time, and have parental support.
Junior Honors is a course based on rigor, relevance and complexity. The course work will be
interesting, fast paced, and intense. Students will write daily, read voraciously, and be expected to be
prepared to perform at the analysis, synthesis, and evaluation levels.
STUDENT, PARENT, TEACHER RESPONSIBILITIES:
STUDENT – I agree to organize my time and effort to complete successfully the course listed
above. I will notify the teacher immediately if I fall behind in class assignments and/or readings.
PARENT – I agree to be familiar with the requirements of the course listed above and to help my
son/daughter organize study time in support of classroom assignments. I will notify the teacher
immediately of any concerns that I have relating to my student’s progress.
TEACHER – I agree to teach the Junior Honors course at a level and pace commensurate of what
is expected for college-bound students. Parents and students will be notified immediately if
assigned work and/or assessments are unsatisfactory.
STUDENT EVALUATION
Daily Assignments: 10 pts each assignment, with
deductions for failures to complete/participate.
Daily Quizzes: 10 pts.
Unit Assessments: 100 pts.
First-quarter Essays: 25 pts., with the opportunity
to revise for a new grade;
Second-quarter Essays: 50 pts., with the
opportunity to revise for an averaged
grade;
Third-quarter Essays: 75 pts., with the
opportunity to revise for an averaged
grade.
Fourth-quarter Essays: 100 pts., no revisions.
(Students are expected by this time to
have developed their own editing
process, modeled after the teacher’s
method of evaluating their writing.)
Interpretation of Grades:
A (90-100): The student’s work is excellent to
exemplary, capable of being used as a
demonstration of “what to do” for future AP
students.
B (80-89): The student’s work is adequate,
demonstrating the effective mastery of many
essential skills, yet with demonstrable room for
improvement; such work would likely earn a B- or
C in a college course.
C (70-79): The student’s work, though significantly
stronger than that of the “average” high school
student, is still inadequate—somewhat below what
would be acceptable in the college environment.
Students still earning Cs on essays, examinations,
ASSIGNMENT TYPES
Annotation, (Cornell) Notes, and Purpose-driven
Readings: In lieu of reading quizzes, students in
this course will regularly create and submit
annotations or notes. Annotations will be the
mainstay during the fall when the majority of our
readings will be of documents that have passed into
the public domain.
Visual Literacy Exercises: We will regularly take
time to view and discuss works of visual art such as
advertisements, comic strips, editorial cartoons,
paintings and sculptures. Students will find that
these works also demonstrate the principles of
situation, purpose, audience, and method.
Daily Participation & Quizzes: Participation is the
cornerstone of any honors course. Students who
arrive to class expecting to be fed information
should consider enrolling elsewhere.
Unit Exams and Semester Exams: Students
should expect exams to place a premium on
evaluating the ideas we have studied, as well as the
progress they themselves have made as thinkers and
writers.
Analytical/Expository Writing – Columnist
Project: Before arriving, they should annotate the
column for the following traits: tone, methods
(schemes and/or tropes), and logical appeals.
and quizzes by the end of the first semester should
consider carefully whether to continue in AP
English through the spring semester.
D (60-69): The student’s work demonstrates little
success, far below that of college-level work, and
even below that which should be expected from the
average high school student.
Argumentative/Persuasive Academic Writing:
Students will write two formal, research-enhanced
arguments, one according to MLA style, and the
other in AP format. For the first essay, students
must write about a literary topic; for the second,
they will enjoy nearly limitless freedom in topic
selection. Both essays will require students to
consider primary and secondary sources.
Documentary Film Analysis. Students will view
several documentaries (the award-winning
Spellbound, Louder Than a Bomb, and When the
Levees Broke, for example) students will be
introduced to ethos, logos, and pathos. They will
analyze the rhetorical strategies and devices in a
comprehensive review of the film
Timed Writings: Timed writings will occur every
other week. Students will reflect on their own
strengths and weaknesses, as judged against
exemplars provided by The College Board, previous
years’ students, or the course instructor.
RESOURCES
Anthologies
MUST HAVES FOR AP STUDENTS
Farrell, Edmund. Literature and the Language Arts:
The American Tradition. St. Paul: EMC
Paradigm, 2003. Print.
Long-form Works
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York:
Scribner, 1992.
Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. New York:
Penguin, 2004. Print.
Lawrence, Jerome and Robert E. Lee. Inherit the
Wind. New York: Random House, 2003.
Print.
McCarthy, Cormac. All the Pretty Horses. New
York: Knopf/Doubleday, 1992. Print.
Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. New York:
Penguin, 1998. Print.
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York:
Knopf/Doubleday, 2004. Print.
.
STUDENT ___________________________________
PARENT ____________________________________
TEACHER ___________________________________
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4 highlighters (yellow, pink, blue, green
or orange)
3 x 5 index cards