Shelly Anderson -
sanderson@sunmandearborn.k12.in.us
The English Department is pleased to offer three elective courses for the 2020/2021 school year. These semester course offerings are a great way for students who love the English Language Arts to explore topics of interest or to improve their performance on high stakes tests.
Two courses open to next year’s juniors and seniors are Film Literature and Short Stories.
Film Literature is a study of how literature is adapted for film or media and includes role playing as film directors for selected screen scenes. Students read about the history of film, the reflection or influence of film on the culture, and issues of interpretation, production and adaptation.
Short Stories is a study of the distinct features of the short story, such as being tightly focused narrative fiction. Students examine short stories with modernist and contemporary themes by a variety of authors from the perspective of audience, purpose, and historical development.
An elective offering for grades 10-12 is Grammar.
Grammar is a study of the English language system. Students examine and apply the conventions of oral and written expression that include syntax, usage, punctuation, and spelling. Students learn grammatical terminology, study grammar in the context of reading and writing, and apply grammatical concepts in writing and speaking.
Regarding our ELA department in general, December means final exams, and, in the English Department, finals exams mean projects and presentations.
The freshmen end their semester with a Shakespearean & Elizabethan era team speech final. Students are partnered up and assigned a topic to research from Shakespearean times and the Elizabethan era. They have to find the six most interesting facts on their assigned topic. Then they have to create a dynamic and visually interesting slide presentation citing their six most interesting facts as well as delivering a 3-5 minute speech to their classmates about what they discovered.
The sophomores have been working all quarter to research a topic, develop a strong position, and write a convincing argumentative essay that is supported by a variety of credible sources. They will now use what they have learned to formally debate their chosen topic with a classmate in front of their class for their final. Topics chosen range anywhere from beauty contests should be illegal for children to zoos are not good for the conservation of a species and assault weapons should be banned for the average US citizen. The debates encourage students to support positions with valid reasoning and present opinions in a reasoned, confident tone. Public speaking skills are important in a debate and, while students are often hesitant when the idea is first presented, many end the year citing the debates as their favorite part of the class.
The juniors will be completing an I-search project for their final. The I-search requires students to think beyond the idea of REsearching what has been searched already in books or on the internet and, instead, discover the excitement of initiating their own original search of a topic; one which truly interests them. It challenges them to rely on people (primary sources) rather than books or the internet (secondary sources). Any topic is suitable as long as the student is sincerely curious about it. After conducting interviews with experts on their chosen topic, students are responsible for writing a personal narrative where they recount their I-search experience from start to finish sharing each interview as it happened and revealing their thoughts and feelings. This project is a great chance for students to interact with adults in a professional manner while exploring things they are passionate about, but it is also fun for the teachers who get to learn more about each student by discovering their unknown interests.
Mrs. Ketcham’s Honors English 12 students are doing some real world writing. She decided to tie the book All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven into the Lilly Foundation Teacher Creativity Fellowship Grant she was awarded this past year. For the project, the seniors are expected to write a grant proposal for $12,000 to travel anywhere based on a particular interest or hobby. They must include a summary, a rationale, goals, and a detailed timeline. The students must then research each place to find expenses that will occur, create a budget using Google Sheets, create a Google Map of each stop, and finally present findings using Google Slides. This is a great new project and a chance for students to use their researching and writing skills in a real-world scenario.
All in all, final exam time is a very exciting time in the English department where students get to show off the skills they have learned throughout the semester in fun, creative ways.
