"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life thinking its stupid." ~Einstein
English IV Course Expectations
In less than one calendar year, you will be graduating high school and on your way to college, the military, or to embark on a career or entrepreneurship. So, for these last few months, I will do my best to ignite learning that translates into sustainable success for you in an ever-changing society.
This means that by the end of the semester (or the first week), you will hate my class because it is boring, hard, and a lot of work. However, I always say, if you're bored, you're not curious enough!
I will rigorously prepare you for college and the real world by holding you accountable and responsible for required reading, homework, class work, discipline, online assignments and high scores on high stakes exams. And because you'll have a disdain for my class, my guess is that you won't experience life-changing epiphanies about oppressive political, cultural or social structures and you may decide to get out all together.
However, what I can guarantee, is that if you show up, do the work, turn off your phones and take out your ear buds, you will leave my class able to write a sentence! And, when you're in your first college-level English class, you will be eternally grateful that the Universe tilted you my way. I hope you are up for the challenge!
This means that by the end of the semester (or the first week), you will hate my class because it is boring, hard, and a lot of work. However, I always say, if you're bored, you're not curious enough!
I will rigorously prepare you for college and the real world by holding you accountable and responsible for required reading, homework, class work, discipline, online assignments and high scores on high stakes exams. And because you'll have a disdain for my class, my guess is that you won't experience life-changing epiphanies about oppressive political, cultural or social structures and you may decide to get out all together.
However, what I can guarantee, is that if you show up, do the work, turn off your phones and take out your ear buds, you will leave my class able to write a sentence! And, when you're in your first college-level English class, you will be eternally grateful that the Universe tilted you my way. I hope you are up for the challenge!
Get Connected
KIK: @EnglishFury
Student E-mail: [email protected]
Remind: Text YOUR Class Code below to 972-441-4003:
Membean: Log in with an email and password that you create: www.membean.com
Student E-mail: [email protected]
Remind: Text YOUR Class Code below to 972-441-4003:
Membean: Log in with an email and password that you create: www.membean.com
Remind Codes: |
Membean Codes: |
3rd Period: @engfury3rd
6th Period: @engfury6th 7th Period: @engfury7th Make sure that you are signed up to receive Remind messages from me with updates, alerts, news, reminders and other important class information from me. |
3rd Period: L3SQCUB
6th Period: L3SQC7B 7th Period: L3SQB8H Make sure that you are signed up to train on Membean to improve your vocabulary. Do not wait until the last minute. You have FOUR days to train for 45 minutes. |
English IV Required Readings
Novels
- Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald*
- Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
- Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston
- Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
*Summer Reading Assignment
Short Stories
- Everyday Use by Alice Walker
- The Destructors by Graham Green
- Just Walk on By: Black Men in Public Space by Brent Staples
- A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen
- The Things They Carried by Tim O'brien
- A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner
- The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin
- Where is the Voice Coming From by Eudora Welty
Most excerpts will be provided
Drama
- Othello by William Shakespeare
- Fences by August Wilson
- Trifles by Susan Glaspell
Most scripts will be provided
Poetry
- India.Arie (various)
- Maya Angelou (Son to Mother)
- William Blake (A Poison Tree)
- Mos Def (Respiration)
- Robert Frost (The Road Not Taken)
- Nikki Giovanni (Ego Trippin', Love Is, Choices, Life Cycles, When I Die)
- Suheir Hammad (Mike Check, daughter)
- Langston Hughes (The Negro Speaks of Rivers, Harlem Sweeties, Mother to Son, etc.)
- Black Ice (student choice)
- Kendrick Lamar (student choice)
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (The Day is Done)
- Claude McKay (The Harlem Dancer)
- Naomi Shihab Nye (Making a Fist)
- Sharon Olds (On the Subway)
- Edgar Allan Poe (various)
- Sonia Sanchez (various)
- William Shakespeare (various)
- Tupac Shakurf (various)
- Percy Bysshe Shelley (Ozymandias)
Most poems are provided
Videos/TED Talks/Movie Clips
- Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
- We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- Why Some of us Don't Have One True Calling by Emilie Wapnick
- The Danger of the Single Story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Required Supplemental Texts
- How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Dr. Thomas C. Foster
- Perrine's Sound & Sense: An Introduction to Poetry*
- Goldilocks and the Three Bears by the British Council*
- The Holy Bible, King James Version**
**Note: I have included the Bible to our required texts because Western literature commonly draws upon knowledge from the Bible that is not familiar to everyone. The King James version is considered highly poetic which will sync with our focus on the stories that are frequently alluded to in such diverse literature as Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience, Hurston’s Dust Tracks on a Road, and Matt Groening’s The Simpsons.**
**We will NOT be reading various selections in terms of faith but rather in terms of analyzing literature.**
*Excerpts will be provided