Pray tell... what should a 21st century honors 11/12th grade English course concern itself with? What do you want to learn? What do you need to know? Great books? Brit lit? Lit crit? Rhetoric? Public speaking? Blogs and tweets? Communications? Public relations? Journalism?
What do you need to know? What do you want to learn?
Girls: Tell me here by 7:30 am Monday morning, January 9th.
5 comments:
Although the entire world is moving towards embracing technology and utilizing its every function, I believe that the usage of laptops and Smartboards is not only unnecessary for an English course but also detrimental. The study of English is based on words on a paper - not words on a screen. Perhaps you can modify the class to learn using screens, but I think when doing this, you lose an important aspect of learning literature or poetry, for example. This is not just because I am not a fan of technology in general; it is because I truly think an English class is the perfect example of a course that can be more successful without technology. Technology provides distractions. Reading classics is difficult enough without having such distractions around. In certain ways, Smartboards can be beneficial because you can put a poem up on the board for everyone to see. But everyone does not need their own personal laptops to be writing comments or questions about the poem. People should talk to each other.
In my opinion, an ideal English course would include reading many, many books and some poetry (this is merely because I do not enjoy poetry). I also think that discussion is very important to an English course.
I would want to spend half the year on literature and the other half on rhetoric. I think that a language course can be taught in one semester, and many of the ideas in a language course and a literature course overlap, such as rhetorical analysis. The literature half of the year should begin with older works and classics and then gradually progress through time until today so that students can see how literature has changed throughout history.
I also dislike the idea of APs, but that's another rant.
I do not believe that the fact our school has gone "21st century" (which they really haven't) should make a difference for an English course. I am more interested in literature and poetry from the early 1900s and down, and that is what I would be most interested in. Reading stories and poems can help with analyzing skills and rhetorical devices. In my opinion, an ideal english class would be one that involved reading stories or poems and writing more than one essay per book. One essay could be a regular book report- theme and everything like that. Another essay could be a rhetorical analysis. Then one would get the best of both worlds.
I wish grammar did not matter. I would like to improve my grammar, and it is not dreadful, but when it gets down to the technical stuff I am at a loss.
I think that in an honors 11/12th grade English course we should learn typical classical English books that students should know when coming out of High School. We should also be familiar with some basic Shakespeare books and also the different styles of literature throughout the centuries. I think we should also be able to know how to properly write essays,but also rhetorically analyze things. We should also be familiar with the rhetoric used for public speaking, and performing it ourselves. We should know a certain amount of poetry, and be able to analyze and have an understanding of the different techniques that are used.
Mrs. Johnson, because you teach this class it is amazing! (laugh). However, as I compare it is last year, I do find a lot of differences. Although I found last year’s AP Literature class much more difficult, class was a lot more interesting. We read great books, poems, etc. and discussed them freely in class. We got in to great discussions on theme, character, etc. Everyone knows that I hate reading but this class made me realize how fascinating books can be. I know that last year we were studying for the test all year, but this year I feel that more. I feel that class is all based around the essay and the specific terminologies, and this can get a bit boring sometimes. Some of the articles we have been reading are interesting, but sometimes I feel that it is all dragging on.
I do think that the way you are using 21st century learning is successful and helpful. Some of your blogs are tough, but you always find great images/articles that really do make us think. I think blogging is important and will help us later in lives as well. I do not know what my ideal 11/12 honors English class should concern itself with exactly. However, I do know that I would want somewhat of a balance between last year and this year because I think both are crucial and are needed to learn before we leave high school. I know that this is not entirely possible because we are in AP composition right now, but these are my thoughts!
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