Course Description
Honors English II is a year-long reading and writing course for advanced level sophomores. It is understood that you are bright, but you must also be motivated to succeed in an honors level course.
Required texts include:
World of Myth, Leeming
Mythology, Hamilton
The Odyssey, Homer, trans. Fitzgerald
Antigone, Sophocles, in The Oedipus Cycle
Beowulf, trans. Raffel
Macbeth, Shakespeare
A Man for All Seasons, Bolt
Huckleberry Finn, Twain
The Once and Future King, White
Honors students will write a variety of expository essays and creative pieces during the course of the semester. Each paper will be assigned a grading rubric and the grading code in the Handbook of Composition will be used to mark the paper’s specific problems.
Students will also research and write a major term paper during the year.
Grading is done on a point system. Daily work is usually 10 points, exams usually 100, and papers usually 100. Late work will be downgraded at the rate of 20% per day late.
If you are absent, call a classmate for the homework assignment and complete it if you are physically able. Quizzes are not eligible for make-up for excused absences. If you have a planned absence, ask about your assignments before you leave.
You will need a notebook for your English class, with sections divided as follows: Homework, Notes, Handouts. Please have it with you at all times; you also need to have the appropriate text with you for each class.
Homework should be either typed or neatly handwritten on loose leaf in blue or black ink. If your pen bleeds through to the back side of the paper, do not write on the back. If your printing is more legible than your cursive handwriting, please print. If your homework—or any assignment, for that matter—is not presented in a neat, formal manner, you will be asked to recopy it and downgraded by 20%. Each assignment should be labeled with your name and the assignment’s title (ex. John Prepster, Hercules questions).
It is absolutely essential that you respect each other. Each of you has a right to his own opinion; I will not tolerate ridicule. You are also expected to express yourself properly with appropriate vocabulary. When one person is talking in class—me or you—the rest will listen.