Language Arts 9 Syllabus
Mrs. Marston
2007-2008

Materials needed:

• pencils, highlighter, 12” ruler, colored pencils

In line with the state essential academic learning objectives, students in all high school English classes will work toward the following goals:

• READ with comprehension.
• WRITE with skill.
• COMMUNICATE effectively and responsibly.

Reading List will include:

• narrative and lyric poetry (by poets Langston Hughes, Alfred Noyes, Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, Henry WadsworthLongfellow, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Maya Angelou, Edgar Allen Poe, Julia Alvarez, Naomi Shihab Nye, Christina Rossetti, Robert Service, William Shakespeare);
• epic poetry (The Odyssey by Homer);
• great short stories of world literature (by writers Welty, O'Connor, Bunin, Poe, de Balzac, du Maupassant, Saki, Twain, James Hurst, Leslie Marmon Silko, Brent Staples, Tomas Rivera);
• personal and cultural essays (by essayists Henry David Thoreau, Wendell Berry, Maya Angelou, Lorraine Hansberry, James Michener, Bebe Campbell)
• drama The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare; and
• novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
  
  Students will be encouraged to choose a book per quarter for independent reading from a list of approved books which includes, This Boy's Life, Around the World in Eighty Days, Kidnapped, Swiss Family Robinson, The Miracle Worker, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, Johnny Tremain, The Prince and the Pauper, The Hound of the Baskervilles,
  David Copperfield. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Yearling, Sounder, Julie of the Wolves , The Call of the Wild, Hatchet, Red Scarf Girl.

Student Writing will include;

• daily journaling,
• daily vocabulary / spelling / grammar lesson,
• prewriting / drafts in prose and poetic forms,
• one weekly formal piece of writing to be graded, and
• occasional in-class essays to be graded.

Assignments: students should be able to complete most during scheduled class time. Final draft of weekly formal paper will be homework and due on Tuesdays at the start of class.