This is the handout the students receive when they first come to my class. These expectations and standards were created by the senior English IV collaborative team. Note that it should be signed and returned. This a homework grade.

I am asking my students to use Cornell Notes this year. It is a strategy that is being used with our AVID students and many teachers have decided to use them as well. They are a useful tool that works well with daily notetaking as well as active reading notes. The students will fill one sheet out each day and turn it in the following class day. This will give them a chance to reflect on their learning in class each day, and it also allows me the opportunity to touch base with each student regularly. The download is a blank handout that can be printed out and used if a student forgot to pick one up or needs additional ones for reading.

This poem is going to use the style Ted Kooser used when he wrote "Abandoned Farmhouse." The students will try to find inanimate objects in their world that will describe who they really are and what they like. The first stanza can be about when they were a little child, the second can be about who they are now, and the third can be about who they are becoming. The point is to have a different focus for each stanza. They should let the objects do the talking and the descriptions of the objects will help to add to the picture they will create. We will be creating a fold-over type layout in landscape design to create the front for mailboxes. The students will read their poems to the class as a way to introduce themselves to the class. Every year I am amazed at the wonderful results these poems produce and how well we get to know each other.

To find out the information on this project go to "The Personal Essay" page on this site.

Beowulf and Anglo-Saxon poetry are the first literature that seniors in my class will be experiencing. We will be reading Seamus Heaney's translation and working in groups to create a tapestry-like layout of Beowulf's adventures. We will then view The 13th Warrior and compare the two stories in an analysis essay. The downloaded handouts will help with the Heroic journey and the cast of characters from the stories

Use this web quest to discover and define the Hero's Journey and the characters and symbols in the journey. Unfortunately none of the cool pictures are there and the return to index links don't work, but the other links should work.

As you know, this is a very important part of the senior curriculum and it contains several parts that need to be completed. You can access and or download the Senior Project Hardcopy of the Handbook by going to the Online version through the school's web page. Just go to Academics, then English, then Senior Project. Handouts and more detailed instructions can be found by going to the Senior Project page on my site.

The following Powerpoint explains the sonnet.

This link will also explain the sonnet.
sites.micro-link.net/zekscrab/Sonnet.html