Responses to Literature:

Students will respond to each text covered in class and create their own “study guides” for the literature covered in class.

Student’s writing should:

• show that they understand the main character(s) and the plot of the text
• show that they understand the overall meaning or message of the piece
• share their feelings, judgment, opinions, or evaluation based on careful reading of the text
• support their points about the characters and theme with evidence and examples from the story
• demonstrate an understanding of the historical and literary elements common to that particular time period as we’ve learned about them in class
• serve as a means of “open book” study during unit tests
• lend itself to a possible expansion into an essay due at a later date
• use proper grammar, word choice, transitions and clear writing.

There will be an assigned entry for just about each text or section of a larger text. Each entry should be at least 250 words in length.  (NOTE:  Responses for poems are NOT expected to be 250 words in length.) The entries should be graded out of 30 . You will find a Writing Rubric: Writing a Response to Literature here.

Essays:

The student is expected to complete a Literary Analysis essay in the 1st quarter and a
Personal Narrative essay in the 3rd quarter. Essays are to be 500-700 words long. The student may choose to write a literary analysis exploring an aspect of a chosen work(s) such as character, setting, mood, theme, etc. You can find a Writing Rubric: Writing a Literary Analysis here.

The personal narrative should tell a real-life story of something that happened.  It will be told from the first-person point of view. The narrative should close with a focus on personal thoughts about the experience, what was learned from it, and what it means to the student now. Here is the rubric you will be using to grade the essay.

Quizzes:

Students will have bi-weekly printable quizzes on vocabulary. Grammar activities and
online quizzes will be scattered throughout the lessons.

Tests:

Each quarter the student will be examining literature from across two major literary periods. These will be as follows: Old English, Middle Ages, Shakespeare, Renaissance, 17th Century, 18th Century, Victorian and Modern. At the end of each quarter unit, there will be a unit test. The student’s Response to Literature journal entries can be used while taking the test. The final test will NOT be cumulative.

Papers:

In the 2nd quarter, students will complete a Historical Research paper. Students will be writing a 3-5 page Research Paper using at least 3 different resources. Here is the writing rubric for Writing an Historical Research Paper. It is on page 18-19 of the PDF (page 16 & 17 of the document itself). The student’s final paper will be a Literary Analysis of 5-7 pages in length which will be due at the end of this course.