Tahoma High School

English 10 examines the importance of understanding one’s cultural identity. Using the Springboard textbook for 10th grade, you will consider how your perspectives and beliefs compare with those of other cultures. To accomplish this, you will read a variety of fiction and nonfiction texts, research and compose several papers, and make speeches and presentations. In addition, this course will address the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for 10th grade, as well as prepare you for the end of course exam. Additionally, we will work on the sophomore Future Ready curriculum, Readers’ Workshops, and short stories, poetry, and film related to Outdoor Academy’s major themes.
More information can be found in the course syllabus: <Link to Class Syllabus>. 

The formulation, construction, and production of film has been “happening” for roughly one hundred years, and yet, there are so many of us who live unaware as to the designs, techniques, and intentions of the great actors and directors who have so influenced their craft and our culture.  The 20th Century gave birth to awful, cold technologies of destruction and annihilation, but simultaneously, as if not to be remembered only for the carnage, the 20th Century also gave birth to the captivating art form of film.  Too many take film, or “movies,” for granted, not thinking of them as art in the traditional sense.  But, when you begin to pull apart the puzzle of a single film, you begin to distinguish the traditional arts themselves: the art of the writer in the screenplay, the dramatic art of the theatre in setting design and acting, the art of the musician in the score or soundtrack, the art of the painter in the cinematography, and the art of the storyteller in the director.  Film takes theatre, painting, song, and written word, and concocts its miracle for us.

Our goal, our task, with this class, is to take a medium that is so incredibly well-known and, at the same time, so incredibly enigmatic and learn to see it with new eyes.  To do this, we will be reading source material, including original literature and informational texts and writing analysis essays outside of class.  In class, we will view clips and full length films as contexts for discussions and written analyses. We will develop a literary, dramatic, and cinematic vocabulary as building blocks for a common language of film. Finally, students will gain a greater appreciation for the relationship between literature, film, and culture.
More information can be found in the course syllabus: <Link to Class Syllabus>. 

The goal of this course is to prepare you for success in writing across various disciplines.  In English 131, you will develop and refine your abilities as a reader, writer, and a thinker through non-fiction readings and intensive practice in writing analytical arguments.  Unlike most English classes you have taken that focus on literary analysis, this class focuses primarily on non-fiction readings, which most students find challenging.  

Your writing—inquiry, research, drafting, revision, and editing—will take many forms over the course of the semester, including reading responses, journal writing, formal and informal responses to your classmates’ papers, and formal and informal essays.

As a part of a community of writers, you will need to push your own boundaries in reading, discussion, and writing.  You will learn to ask yourself and others the probing questions that will lead you to deeper, more interesting, more challenging ideas to write about.  As a writer, you will be asked to integrate complex, academic texts with personal reaction and opinion.  Reading carefully and critically will give a focus to the course; we will expect you to apply close reading skills to published essays, your classmates’ writing, and your own essays as well.

As you read critically, participate in discussions, write, and revise, you will develop the ability to read and listen carefully and analytically, speak with confidence and authority, and write more clearly and persuasively.  These skills comprise critical thinking, which you will practice in this course, use throughout your career in college, and rely on as you take on new challenges.

Research in rhetoric and composition has shown that learning is fostered by writing.  By formulating statements about what you understand, or do not quite yet understand, writing involves you in the construction of meaning, not just an acquisition of static statements about our subject, writing.
More information can be found in the course syllabus: <Link to Class Syllabus>.