• Teacher: Coach Sean Baldwin 

    Room: A320 

    Email: sbaldwin@judsonisd.org 

    Conference Period: 4th 

    Tutorials/Makeup Times: TBD (Updated Days/Times will follow on Canvas) 

     
    Course Philosophy 

    An English 3 class engages you in becoming skilled READERS of prose (non-fiction and fiction) written in a variety of periods, disciplines, and rhetorical contexts and in becoming skilled WRITERS who compose for a variety of purposes. Both your writing and your reading should make you aware of the interaction among a writer’s purposes, audience expectations, and subjects as well as the way generic conventions and resources of language contribute to effectiveness in writing.  

    Book lists can change. Parents and/or students with a concern or question about any reading assignment should either call and/or email me. The most up to date list of district-approved books for English III include: 

    A Farewell to Arms, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Americanah, As I Lay Dying, The Awakending, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Catch-22, Ceremony, Eyes Were Watching God, Grapes of Wrath, Great Gatsby, Into the Wild, Invisible Man, Love Medicine, Mississippi Solo, The Road, The Scarlett Letter, Secret Life of Bees, The Sun Also Rises, The Things They Carried, Walden 

    Course Objectives 

    Upon completing this course, you should be able to:  

    • analyze and interpret samples of writing, identifying, and explaining an author’s use of rhetorical strategies and techniques;  

    • apply effective strategies and techniques in your own writing; 

    • create and sustain arguments based on readings, research, and/or personal experience; 

    • demonstrate understanding and proficiency in standard English as well as stylistic maturity in your own writing; 

    • write in a variety of genres and contexts, both formal and informal, employing appropriate conventions; 

    • produce expository analytical, and argumentative compositions that introduce a complex central idea and develop it with appropriate evidence drawn from primary and/or secondary source materials, cogent explanations, and clear transitions; 

    • demonstrate understanding of the conventions of citing primary and secondary source material; 

    • move effectively through the stages of the writing process, with careful attention to inquiry and research, drafting, revising, editing, and review; 

    • write thoughtfully about your process of composition; 

    • revise a work to make it suitable for a different audience; 

    • analyze image as text; 

    • evaluate and incorporate reference documents into researched papers; and,  

    • become aware and concerned “Citizen Scholars” of our world.  

    Class Guidelines and Expectations: 

    • Be Prepared 

    • Be Present 

    • Be Respectful 

    The class will complete a cooperative learning activity on the first day of school to norm these expectations. This list will be updated with specific examples of each of the expectations on Canvas. The student code of conduct remains the primary document to address school and district rules.  

    Study Aides 

    Though not required, you will find these works useful to have at home and in college: 

    • college-level dictionary 

    • The Synonym Finder, J.I. Rodale (or another thesaurus) 

    Materials (Required) 

    • Two composition books 

    • loose-leaf notebook paper 

    • blue or black pens 

    • Highlighters and #2 pencils 

    Grading Policy 

    60% = Daily Grades (classwork, homework, reading quizzes, etc.) 

    40% = Major Grades (exams, essays, projects) 

    Late Work 

    Assignments receive a 10% deduction for each day they are late. The maximum deduction is 50% (5 days or later). All assignments must be submitted by the end of the grading period to earn any credit.  

    Make-up Work 

    School policy applies. Remember that making up missed assignments is always your responsibility. 

    Outline of the Year 

    Note: Each nine weeks may include multiple-choice exams, warm-up work, grammar practice, quotation collecting/responding, reading quizzes, independent reading. And you will read a variety of related works: poems, short stories, speeches, essays, letters, editorials, cartoons, biographies, autobiographies, memoirs, etc. You will have approximately 21 grades every nine-week reporting period. What follows is tentative, and thus subject to change at the instructor’s discretion. 

    A unit guide, including standards and approximate pacing, will be provided via Canvas.