FRESHMAN ENGLISH 213 LITERATURE AND WORLD HISTORY
ASSIGNMENT: Every weekend throughout the year—except during designated Homework-Free
weekends and vacations—students will be expected to (a) read at least twenty-five minutes in an
independent reading book and (b) also provide page details of their reading. Three things to do after
reading: (1) integrate a quotation in a comment about the reading’s critical or personal significance;
(2) write a sentence related to a recent grammar lesson and to your reading (if possible); and (3)
write one or two sentences that use recently-studied vocabulary words and are related (creatively
perhaps) to your reading.
A full-credit homework grade is given if the assignment shows full effort—that is, all components,
regardless of their correctness, are earnestly completed.
Feel free to read your 25 minutes during the school week also. Feel free to read for more than 25
minutes, too; I hope you will.
a. Read 25 minutes (at least) of weekend independent reading
b. Heading that gives details of your reading.
o Your Name
o Date entry is turned in
o Book title
o Page numbers read since the last entry (during the week or weekend), with total number of
pages in parentheses
1. Integrated Quotation. Write two or three sentences in which you integrate a meaningful
quotation—or a small section from the quotation, or just a phrase—from your reading with a
comment about either its significance to your reading or your personal response to it.
2. Grammar/Style Practice. Write one sentence that uses an example of any of the grammar
emphasized during recent study period. This doesn’t have to be related to your reading—but try
to, if you can.
3. Vocabulary Application. Write two sentences with two vocabulary words that are related to
your reading. Any loose connection is fine; the goal is make meaningful use of the recentlylearned vocabulary words. (You can connect your sentences to recently-studied history content, if
helpful.)
SCHEDULE
Term 1
1. T 9/8—nothing due
2.
T 9/15 (Rosh Hashanah—M 9/14)—have an independent reading book chosen by the end of the week
3.
Due M 9/21 (W 9/23—Yom Kippur)—Gilgamesh

Grammar/Style: Punctuation—Write a sentence that uses commas to separate items in a series (Rule #1).
[Challenge (not required): Make it a compound sentence also (Rule #2).

Vocab: EXORCISE, ARDUOUS
4.
Due M 9/28—Gilgamesh

Grammar/Style: Punctuation—Write a sentence that correctly uses a semi-colon to separate two independent
clauses. [Challenge: Include dashes in the sentence also.]

Vocab: PRODIGIOUS, FORBODING
5.
Due M 10/5—The Odyssey

Grammar/Style: Punctuation—titles—Write a sentence that correctly presents the title of your reading book.
[Challenge: Include the title of a chapter of the book in the sentence.]

Vocab: DISCONSOLATE, REGALE
6.
T 10/13 (Mon—Columbus Day)—The Odyssey—NOTHING DUE—HW-Free Weekend
7.
Due M 10/19—The Odyssey

Grammar/Style: Write a sentence with an appositive phrase. [Challenge: Give the sentence two appositive phrases,
one that opens the sentence and one that closes it.]

Vocab: IMPUDENCE, INCREDULOUS
8.
Due M 10/26—The Odyssey

Grammar/Style: Write a sentence with an participial phrase. [Challenge: Give the sentence two participial phrases,
one that opens the sentence and one that closes it.]

Vocab: RESOLUTE, ALLAY
9.
Due M 11/2—The Odyssey

Grammar/Style: Write a sentence with both an appositive and a participial phrase. [Challenge: Open with an
appositive phrase and close with a participial phrase, or vice-versa.]

Vocab: MOROSE, MOLLIFY
10. Due M 11/9 (Veterans Day—Th 11/11)—Special Weekend Reading—“The Things They Carried”

Grammar/Style: Write a sentence with both an appositive and a participial phrase. [Challenge: How about a very
long sentence with two appositive phrases and two participial phrases.]

Vocab: PUGNACIOUS, PLAINTIVE
Term 2
11. Due M 11/16—Short Stories
a. Grammar/Style: Sentence Types—Write a compound sentence. [Challenge: Use three or more independent clauses
and be sure to punctuate properly.]
b. Vocab: COMPLACENT, DERIDE
12. Due M 11/23 (Thanksgiving)—Of Mice and Men

Grammar/Style: Sentence Types—Write a compound-complex loose sentence. [Challenge: Include an appositive
phrase.]

Vocab: HOOSEGOW, ALOOF
13. M 11/30—Of Mice and Men—NOTHING DUE—HW-Free Weekend
14. Due M 12/7—Of Mice and Men

Grammar/Style: Sentence Types—Write a compound-complex periodic sentence with an appositive phrase.
[Challenge: Put a participial phrase in there, too.]

Vocab: CONTEMPTOUS, BELLIGERENT
15. Due M 12/14—Of Mice and Men

Grammar/Style: Usage/Confusing Word Pairs— Use affect and effect and number of in the same sentence (on any
topic). [Challenge: Include bad and badly in the same sentence—and write about your independent reading book, if
you can.]

Vocab: OSTRACIZE, QUALMS

Vocab:
16. M 12/21—W 12/23—The Catcher in the Rye

Grammar/Style: Usage/Confusing Word Pairs— Use eager and anxious and further in the same sentence (on any
topic). [Challenge: Include among in the same sentence—and write about your independent reading book, if you
can.]

Vocab: COMPULSORY, UNSCRUPULOUS
[12/24-31—DECEMBER RECESS]
17. M 1/4—The Catcher in the Rye—NOTHING DUE
18. Due M 1/11—The Catcher in the Rye

Grammar/Style: Usage/Confusing Word Pairs— Use fewer and less and as though in the same sentence (on any
topic). [Challenge: Close with an appositive phrase and include farther in the sentence—and write about your
independent reading book, if you can.]

Vocab: INCOGNITO, NONCHALANT/BLASÉ
19. Due T 1/19 (MLK Day)—Special Weekend Reading—MLK’s Letter from Birmingham Jail

Grammar/Style: Usage/Confusing Word Pairs—Use real and really and than in the same sentence (on any topic).
[Challenge: Open with a participial phrase and use hopefully—and write about your independent reading book, if
you can.]

Vocab: SPENDTHRIFT, BOURGEOIS
Term 3
20. Due M 1/25—The Catcher in the Rye

Grammar/Style: Lie/Lay—Write a sentence in the past tense using both verbs lie and lay (on any topic)—with an
appositive phrase. [Challenge:

Vocab: SACRILIGIOUS, INANE
21. Due M 2/1—The Catcher in the Rye

Grammar/Style: Subject-Verb Agreement—Indefinite pronouns—Use neither and some correctly in a compoundcomplex sentence (on any topic). [Challenge: Make a periodic sentence, with two dependent clauses; and write
specifically about Holden Caulfield.]

Vocab: PERNICIOUS, AUGMENT
22. Due M 2/8—The Joy Luck Club

Grammar/Style: Subject-Verb Agreement—Use the either/or OR neither/nor construction correctly in a complex
sentence (on any topic). [Challenge: Make it a loose sentence that closes with a participial phrase.]

Vocab: LANGUISH, DISSEMBLE
[2/15-19—WINTER VACATION (HW-Free)]
23. M 2/22—The Joy Luck Club—NOTHING DUE—HW-Free Vacation
24. Due M 2/29—Short Stories (including Taoist and Zen Buddhism stories)

Grammar/Style: Agreement—subject and object pronouns—Use we and us in a compound sentence that also
includes a participial phrase. [Challenge: Use have lain somewhere in the sentence.]

Vocab: USRURER/USURY, JOCUND
25. Due M 3/7—Poetry (including Taoist poems)

Grammar/Style: Who/Whom—Use both who and whom correctly in a compound-complex sentence that also includes
an appositive phrase that closes the sentence. [Challenge: Include both an adjective and adverb clause in the
sentence.]

Vocab: PENURY, HAUGHTY
26. Due M 3/14—Poetry

Grammar/Style: Incomplete Construction—Write a compound sentence with both an appositive and participial
phrase that also uses a correct “incomplete construction” model (Sara is older than…[me or I?]). [Challenge: Write
about your independent reading book; use further correctly in the sentence.]

Vocab: AUSPICIOUS, INEXORABLE
27. Due M 3/21 (MCAS ELA testing; Good Friday)—Poetry

Grammar/Style: Agreement with the Antecedent—Write a complex periodic sentence that includes a pronoun in
agreement with the noun in the opening clause. [Challenge: Open with an appositive phrase and use whom
correctly in the sentence.]

Vocab: CIRCUMVENT, EQUIVOCATE
28. Due M 3/28—Romeo and Juliet

Grammar/Style: More punctuation—Write a complex periodic sentence that includes a series. [Challenge: Make it a
compound-complex sentence that uses a semi-colon.]

Vocab: NEOPHYTE, MISANTHROPE
29. Due M 4/4—Romeo and Juliet

Grammar/Style: More punctuation—Write a sentence with an italicized (or underlined) title and a title needing
quotation marks. [Challenge: Use both who and whom correctly in this sentence.]

Vocab: INTERCEDE, INCISIVE
Term 4
30. Due M 4/11—Romeo and Juliet

Grammar/Style: More phrases—Write a sentence with a participial opener, an appositive interrupter, and a participial
closer. [Challenge: Use effect and eager correctly in the sentence.]

Vocab: PANOPLY, PANTHEON
[4/18-22—SPRING VACATION]
31. M 4/25—Romeo and Juliet—NOTHING DUE
32. Due M 5/2 (AP testing—no bells)—Romeo and Juliet

Grammar/Style: More sentence types—Write a simple sentence with a series of three or more items. [Challenge:
Make it a series of three or more participial phrases.]

Vocab: SPECIOUS, BENIGN
33. Due M 5/9 (AP testing—no bells)—Romeo and Juliet

Grammar/Style: More sentence types—Write a complex loose sentence, whose one dependent clause is an adjective
clause using who. [Challenge: Make that whom.]

Vocab: CACAPHONY, VIVACIOUS
34. Due M 5/16—Romeo and Juliet—creative performances preparation

Grammar/Style: More usage—Write a complex period sentence that includes further and less. [Challenge: Include
farther and fewer in the sentence.]

Vocab: RECONCILE, CORPULENT, VOCIFEROUS
35. Due M 5/23—Romeo and Juliet—creative performances preparation [HW-Free Weekend]

Grammar/Style: More subject-verb agreement—Write a compound sentence that begins with the correctly-used
indefinite pronoun each. [Challenge: Make it compound-complex periodic sentence.]

Vocab: AMOROUS, DECREPIT, EXPUNGE
36. Due T 5/31 (Memorial Day)—odds and ends wrap-up—NOTHING DUE

Friday, 6/3—Eat-a-Book Feast
37. M 6/6—Final week of regular classes for underclassmen—NOTHING DUE
38. M 6/13— Review Week for underclassmen; Finals—NOTHING DUE
39. M 6/20—Finals for underclassmen
40. M 6/27—Snow-Days extension week
WEEKLY INDEPENDENT READING WEEKEND ASSIGNMENT (EXAMPLE)
Alan Reinstein
9/10/12
The Other Wes Moore, by Wes Moore
Pages Read—85-107 (22 pages)
1. Integrated Quotation. The day after Wes returns to the military school after trying to run away, he
notices and appreciates the respect the younger cadets give to their nineteen-year-old Cadet Captain, Ty
Hill. Wes writes that he “had never seen a man, a peer, demand that much respect from his people” (96)
and continues that this “was real respect, the kind you can’t beat or scare out of people” (96). Here is
the moment that Wes seems to decide that he wants to be this kind of person, which reveals the
importance of a role model not only in Wes’s life, but in anyone’s.
2. Grammar/Style: Punctuation—Write a sentence that uses commas to separate items in a series (Rule #1).
Prisoner Wes fell into the dangerous drug business at a very early age, then became a parent when he
was still a teen, and later earned too little money with various jobs after his Job Corps training, which
seemed to lead to the circumstances that eventually brought him to jail.
3. Vocabulary: EXORCISE, ARDUOUS
a. Author Wes may have exorcised his fear of heights by jumping out of an airplane at twothousand feet.
b. Prisoner Wes’s arduous journey growing up ended unfortunately with a life-sentence in prison
for his involvement in a robbery and the killing of a Baltimore police officer.
WEEKLY INDEPENDENT READING WEEKEND ASSIGNMENT (TEMPLATE)
Name:
Due Date:
Book Title:
Pages Read:
1. Quotation Sandwich. (CONTEXT—BACKGROUND INFO)
(QUOTATION—INTEGRATED INTO THE DISCUSSION; CITE THE PAGE NUMBER)
(ANALYSIS / SIGNIFICANCE—WHY THE QUOTATION’S IMPORTANT)
2. Grammar/Style: ASSIGNMENT—
SENTENCE(S):
3. Vocabulary: WORDS—
a.
b.