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E NGLISH III H ONORS
M RS . L AURA A BERCROMBIE
Fall 2013
E MAIL : labercrombie@polk.edu
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Email. The best way to contact me outside of class. Please do not ever hesitate to
contact me in this way.
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Quizzes. All quizzes are cumulative. You will be assigned and quizzed on new vocabulary words every other week. Vocabulary quizzes will cap at thirty words per quiz,
meaning, I will omit older words at random to replace them with newer words. I will give
a cumulative vocabulary final exam at the end of the semester, quizzing you on every
single vocabulary word we’ve ever had. This will not, however, occur at the midterm
exam, which will maintain the 30-word cap.
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Reaction/Response Essay (RREs). You will be assigned at least one per unit. These
sound exactly like what they are: your reactions and responses to the text(s) we have
read. The guidelines for these can be found on the handout entitled: “Reaction/
Response Paper Guidelines”. Rubrics will be provided.
Unit Presentations. I will assign a group of 3-4 students to introduce and teach each
unit to the class. Additional research is required. More information can be found on the
handout entitled: “Unit Presentation Guidelines”.
Grades. Please see the grading scale on the right. You will complete a warm up exercise at the beginning of each class. Warm ups will be collected at random throughout
the semester. I do not provide extra credit because I expect your very best every day.
You may ask me anytime for an update on your class grade. We can discuss with them
one-on-one if necessary. If a student makes a bad grade on a major assignment or a
series of bad grades throughout the semester, I will notify the parent/guardian via email
or with a phone call. If concerns remain after the initial parent/guardian notification, I
will ask for a parent-teacher conference for a face-to-face discussion on the student’s
behavior/decline.
Makeup Work. Normal class work assignments and quizzes may be made up for excused absences only, otherwise a grade of zero will be issued. If a paper is due on a
day you miss, turn it into me anyway, excepting exigent circumstances. I require that all
papers, unless otherwise specified, be emailed to me using the address on this syllabus. Even if your absence is excused, unless circumstances are dire, your paper will
not be accepted late. If you feel that your situation is dire enough to warrant an extension, see me. An example is if you’re laid up in the hospital. If, however, you’re home
with the flu, you can still email me your paper (because you’ll be on Facebook anyway).
Tardies. Excessive tardies will warrant a parent phone call and/or a conference .
Please know that being tardy a minimum of thirty minutes will count as an absence.
(We’re not going to speculate down to the minute, either, so don’t tell me that you were
only 29 minutes late. If I mark you absent, then you were beyond tardy to my class.)
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Cell Phones. Absolutely no cell phones allowed out in class. If I see it, I will confiscate
it. Confiscated cell phones are turned in to the main office for your retrieval at the end
of the day.
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Food. See the COL guidebook.
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Preparedness. Seriously? You’re almost completely in college now. This really is a nobrainer. Come prepared to class. Paper, books, something appropriate to write with
(not purple crayon), et cetera.
Any questions regarding this syllabus or any of the assignments may be directed to me in
class or via email.
G RADING S CALE
C LASS W ORK
15%
Includes Warm up
Q UIZZES
25%
PROJECTS
30%
Research Paper and
Presentation
Exams
30%
Midterm and Final
Plagiarism
ZERO TOLERANCE
Plagiarism is the use of
any materials without a
citation of the source of
information.
I do not tolerate academic
dishonesty. Any student
who cheats or plagiarizes
will receive a grade of
ZERO and I will forward
your work to the director,
Ms. Bridget Fetter, for
further review.
If you’re unsure of how to
cite a source or are having
trouble: ASK! I am more
than willing to help.
When in doubt, cite it.
You will not get in trouble for over citation.
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Week 1: Aug 19-23
Intro to Course: Clarification of syllabus, assignments, and course goals
RRE
Group Research Project
Individual Research Project
MLA Refresher
Using credible web sources
Grammar Boot Camp
Parts of Speech
Punctuation (commas and apostrophes)
Dangling participles, Subject/Verb agreement, Misplaced modifiers etc.
Usage errors
Note taking basics
Vocabulary List #1 assigned
Quiz on Friday – includes Vocab List 1
Week 2: Aug 26-30
Continue grammar/MLA review if necessary
FOUNDATIONS
Indigenous American literature (pgs 2-20)
Bruchac’s “The Sun Still Rises in the Same Sky” – pg 21
Creation Myth “The Sky Tree” – pg 24
Messianic Myth “Coyote Finishes His Work” – pg 25
Equiano’s “The Interesting Narrative Life” Excerpt
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz’s “World, in hounding me…” – pg 32 (TP-CASTT)
Model compare/contrast essay with Equiano and De La Cruz
PURITANISM
Edward’s “Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God”
Bradstreet’s “Here Follow Some…”
Miller’s The Crucible (in the back of our textbooks).
Vocabulary List #1 reviewed
Quiz on Friday – includes Vocab List 1
Week 3: Sept 3-6 (No school Monday, Sept. 2nd)
Wrap up PURITANISM if necessary
RATIONALISM
Henry’s Speech to the Virginia Convention – pg 82
Paine’s The Crisis No. 1 – pg 88
Franklin’s Autobiography (excerpt) and Poor Richard’s Almanack (excerpt) – pg 68 and 76 (SOAPSTone)
Fulghum’s All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (excerpt) – pg 74 (SOAPSTone)
RRE: Compare/Contrast Franklin and Fulghum, using specific examples from each text to show
how they are both the same and different.
Vocabulary List #2 assigned
Quiz on Friday – includes Vocab List 2
Week 4: Sept 9-13
ROMANTICISM
Group one present! J
Intro, pgs 158-74
Irving’s “The Devil and Tom Walker” – pg 175
Hawthorne’s “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment” and “The Minister’s Black Veil” – pgs 252 and 263
RRE: Compare and contrast Hawthorne’s use of the elements of Romanticism in both “Heidegger” and
“Black Veil.” To be done in class on Thursday.
Begin reading Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter
Vocabulary List #2 reviewed
Quiz on Friday – includes Vocab Lists 1 and 2
3
Week 5: Sept 17-20 (no school Monday, Sept. 16th)
Begin/Continue The Scarlet Letter
Vocabulary List #3 assigned
Quiz on Friday – includes Vocab List 3
Week 6: Sept 23-27
Continue/Conclude The Scarlet Letter
RRE: Write your final thoughts on The Scarlet Letter, showing how your opinion(s) changed and/or stayed
the same. As you write, show the dynamic or static behavior of a favorite character. To be done in
class once we’ve finished the novel.
Vocabulary List #3 reviewed
Quiz on Friday – includes Vocab Lists 1, 2, and 3
Week 7: Sept 30 – Oct 4
Collection 3: Postcolonial/Premodernist Poets (Emerson, Poe, Whitman and Dickinson)
Group two present! J
Poe
“Fall of the House of Usher,”
“The Raven”
Walt Whitman
“I Hear America Singing”
From “33” in Song of Myself
“6” in Song of Myself
“A Noiseless Patient Spider”
Emily Dickinson
“Because I could not stop for Death” – pg 401
“I heard a Fly buzz—when I died” – pg 403
Vocabulary List #4 assigned
Quiz on Friday – includes Vocab List 4
Week 8: Oct 7 - 11
REALISM
Group three present! J
Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” – pg 489
Crane’s “A Mystery of Heroism” and “War is Kind” – pgs 500 and 508
London’s “To Build a Fire” – pg 547
Robinson’s “Richard Cory” – 589
Vocabulary List #4 reviewed
Quiz on Friday – includes Vocab Lists 1-4 (with a cap of thirty words)
Week 9: Oct 14 - 18
Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire
View Streetcar film
Vocabulary List #5 assigned
Quiz on Friday – includes Vocab Lists 1-5 (30 word cap)
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Week 10: Oct 21 – 24 (no school Friday, Oct. 25)
MIDTERM WEEK: October 24th – includes Vocab Lists 1-5 as a separate test, not a midterm.
Throughout the week, we will review everything we’ve studied so far:
Vocabulary
Grammar
MLA
Literature
Come prepared to review your notes, add new notes, and/or take new notes altogether.
Remember: I will not accept papers received after 12:00AM (not even 12:01). It is your responsibility to
have your paper in to me on time, so excuses about various email functions will not be acceptable.
Commit to having your paper emailed to me in plenty of time, just in case there is a time delay.
Week 11: Oct 28 – Nov 1
MODERNISM
Group four present! J
Intro, pgs 632-48
Pound’s “The Garden” – pg 652
Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” – pg 658
Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” (handout)
Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” – pg 720
Vocabulary List #6 assigned
Quiz on Thursday – includes Vocab List 6
Week 12: Nov 4 - 8
Porter’s “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” – pg 771
Wilkins’s “Old Woman Magoun” (handout)
Frost:
“Nothing Gold Can Stay” – pg 795
“Birches” – 798
“Mending Wall” – pg 801
“The Road Not Taken” (handout)
Begin The Great Gatsby
Vocabulary List #6 reviewed
Quiz on Friday – includes Vocab Lists 1-6 (30 word cap)
Week 13: Nov 11 - 15
Continue/Conclude The Great Gatsby; view film
Vocab list #7 assigned
Quiz on Friday – includes Vocab Lists 1-6 (30 word cap)
Week 14: Nov 18 – 22
THE HARLEM RENAISSANCE
Group five present! J
Cullin’s “The Incident” – pg 821
Langston Hughes
“The Weary Blues” – pg 825
“Harlem” – pg 828
“Heyday in Harlem” – pg 831
“The Negro Speaks of Rivers” – 833
Clifton’s “the mississippi river empties into the gulf” – pg 835
Vocab list #7 Reviewed
Quiz on Friday – includes vocab list 7