Miss Pardo's Website(:

Welcome Pacific Bell Dolphins! Room 9. 

Hello parents and students! My name is Shaina Pardo and I will be your educator. Welcome to 9th grade English class! I am very excited to be starting this journey through your high school career. This is the year that will be critical in knowing the knowledge that will progress you to the level of education and get you ready for more intense classes. There are a few standardized tests in the next two years that you have to pass in order to receive your diploma. I am here to help you develop the skills you need in order to pass the CAHSEE. I will help you succeed in developing your writing, reading skills and critical thinking skills.  

Course Materials

  1. Pen or pencil
  2. The book and/or essays we’re reading: The House On Mango Street, The Odyssey, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, 1984, Wuthering Heights, Brave New World, 

3. Class notebook: You’ll need a three-ring binder to organize all of your class materials. Divide your binder into the following sections:

          Class notes

          Writing (rubrics, writer’s log)

          Grammar and vocabulary

          Highlighted and annotated essays

          Graded papers, tests, and quizzes                 

  • If you chose to keep a digital notebook, rather than a paper notebook, you will still need a folder to keep the physical paper copies of items returned to you throughout the year. This is important because everything we do will build upon skills needed for the Eng. 10 ECA, and you will want past assignments to use as study tools.

Course Syllabus:

In addition to reading, you will be writing expository, narrative, persuasive, and argumentative essays as well as stories and poems. In journals, you will also have opportunity to express yourself informally; your journals will serve as a record of your growth and development as writers and thinkers during your freshman year. We will not, of course, neglect grammar study and vocabulary development.

Course Content

  • Reading

Reading Across the Curriculum

Reading Strategies

Knowledge of Literary and Nonliterary Forms

Influences on Texts

Author’s Voice and Method

Persuasive Language and Logic

Literary Criticism

Words and Their History

  • Writing

Writing Process

Modes of Writing for Different Purposes and Audiences

Organization, Unity, and Coherence

Sentence-Level Constructions

Conventions of Usage

Conventions of Punctuation

  • Research
  • Listening, Viewing, and Speaking

Comprehension and Analysis

Application

Study Skills and Test Taking

 

Course Procedures

Format of Papers: I expect all papers written outside of class to be typed using MLA format and style guide. Most formal writing will be turned in digitally using Turnitin. On occasion you will be asked to hand in to me the final draft along with all previous draft(s), and the rubric stapled to the back. Please adhere to the following guidelines:

  • Use white paper and black ink.
  • Use a sensible font (for example, 12-point Times New Roman).
  • Double-space all text.
  • Use one-inch page margins.
  • Include on the first page the title of your paper, your name, and your period number.
  • Include page numbers on the upper right-hand corner of the page.

Grammar: Good grammar is essential to your success in all classes throughout your high school career. It will also serve you beyond high school in the real world, where you will have to write letters, memos, and other documents. Teaching grammar, however, always presents a conundrum: out of context, it seems artificial and pointless; in context, it can seem punitive. In this class we will compromise by studying grammar in context but without penalty. You will be held especially responsible for correctly applying the grammatical conventions we review in class in all your written work.

Reading: Keeping up with reading assignments is crucial to your success in this class. If you have not read the assignment, you cannot thoughtfully participate in class discussion. If you fall behind in the reading, you will become overwhelmed and set yourself up for frustration when it comes time to write a paper. Keep in mind that some of the reading will be difficult and you may not understand it all the first time. That’s OK; I want the reading to stretch your thinking. Do the best you can to understand; meanwhile, write down questions in your notebook that we can address in class. Use your class notes and handouts to help yourself understand or answer your questions and then if you still need help, I am always happy to help anyone who asks for help.

Attendance/Absences/Makeup Work:

You will have at least a week’s lead-time for papers and other major assignments, the due date remains the same regardless of your absence. If you are ill the day a paper is due, use your iPad to submit it or deliver it to a friend who can turn it in for you. If an emergency arises (illness or otherwise) and you absolutely cannot complete an assignment, I will need a note from your parent/guardian explaining the situation. 

Late Assignments: Your responsibilities in this class include:

  • keeping your own up-to-date assignment notebook or tap in your digital notebook
  • maintaining pace with the reading
  • turning all assignments in on time.

If you do not understand an assignment, ask for help far enough in advance to have time to finish the assignment. If you are having personal difficulties apart from class, talk to me before an assigned due date so that we can make other arrangements. Otherwise, each day an assignment is late, I will subtract 10% from the grade. Once I have graded and returned an assignment to the rest of the class, you cannot turn that assignment in for credit.

You will be given at least a week’s lead-time for out-of-class papers and other major assignments, so plan accordingly: if you spend most weeknights working on daily homework for other classes, you will probably need to block out a significant amount of time on the weekend for prewriting, writing, and revising your work.

If you are missing class do to a known fieldtrip you must make arrangement to do any of the assignments or tests due that day, prior to leaving on the fieldtrip.

 Grading: Engrade

Students and Parents: In order for students to know their grade in my class I use Engrade. Engrade is a site that provides me as the educator as an online grade management system. Here is a link to the login page for Engrade. Students you should be logging into Engrade frequently to be checking on how you did after each assignment. I want you to be checking frequently in case I made a minor mistake and make me aware right away. It is important you check how you are doing in class at all times because if you need one on one help I will do my best to make you all succeed. 

Parents: It is important that you are also kept in the loop of your child's well being in my class. I am very open to questions and concerns if parents are concerned on my grading. 

 

STUDENTS:  

Here are Links that I would like you to visit. We will be using all of these during the semester and be using apps through Google a lot as well. 

 Here is an activity that will require you to read the novel by J.D. Salinger Catcher in the Rye. You will be able to do for class: Web Hunt Activity. 

Please review this Poster I have created that I would like you to be aware of. Digital Citizenship Poster

Here is the link so you are able to view your grades: Engrade

I would really appreciate it if all students took my survey so I can get to know you all a little bit! Here is the link to it: Google Survey

I have created a screen cast for all of you so you can learn how to make your own Google Survey for future reference to utilize in my classroom:  How to: Google Survey Screen Cast

Here are links to websites I would like you to visit: 

Noredink.com is a site I would like you all to utilize in order to make you better writers. This website is designed to make learning grammar fun!  This website is designed to allow you to customize how you want to learn fundamentals of writing. As an educator I can personalize the quizzes depending on what I think you all need to work on more. As students you can personalize your practice assignments with your favorite sports teams, bands, tv shows, etc. Noredink adjusts the types of practice assignments based on what you usually get wrong. Here is a class code you will use when you sign up: hnkd34x2. When you enter this my class will pop up. Just click what period you are in and you are ready to become a better writer! 

BoomWriter is a site that lets you all become published writers! This site allows all students to exercise your creative writing. I will provide the prompt through this site when you all login and you have to respond to an article I supply you with and answer the questions I give for you to respond. Or I can also give you a creative prompt that we will go over in class briefly and you have to write creatively under the guidelines I give. In return as a class we will all vote for the best response anonymously and by the end of the semester we will reveal everyone who was chosen and we will all be published writers of our very own chapter book!

Subtext is a site we will be using this semester that will allow each class period to be in its own group. For the novel that we will be working on at the moment we will have a discussion forum and have the online version of the text available through Subtext. In this site we will be analyzing parts in the novel and close reading the book. This app will make understanding the novel more clearly and open up more discussions through the forum and we will speak about what we wrote in the forums in class as well.    

 

Parents 

The bell schedule: 

Regular day                                       Early Release Day                                           Minimum Day
Period 0 7:00-7:55                           Period 0 7:00-7:55                                            Period 0 7:00-7:55

Period 1 8:00-8:58                           Period 1 8:00-8:50                                             Period 1 8:00-8:41

Period 2 9:03-10:03                         Period 2 8:55-9:45                                             Period 2 8:46-9:31

Period 3 10:08-11:06                       Period 3 9:50-10:40                                          Period 3 9:36-10:17

Period 4 11:11-12:09                       Period 4 10:45-11:35                                        Period 4 10:22-11:03

Lunch 12:09-12:44                           Lunch 11:35-12:10                                            Period 5 11:08-11:49

Period 5 12:49-1:47                          Period 5 12:15-1:05                                         Period 6 11:54-12:35

Period 6 1:52-2:50                             Period 6 1:10-2:00                                         Lunch 12:35-1:05

Period 7 2:55-4:00                          Period 7 2:05-3:10                                            Period 7 1:10-2:15

 

Here is the link to Engrade to check your students progress in my class. 

 Parents take a look at this Digital Citizenship Poster I will be promoting in my classroom: Digital Citizenship Poster

Parents I will be promoting technology in the classroom this semester and I just want to give you a little background on why it is a good idea.       edutopia.org 

ReadWriteThink is a website that offers all of the tools I will be going over this semester such as grammar, essay writing, organizing thoughts, close reading a text, etc. This site gives you good incite as to what your child should be learning. The websites I listed above in the students section is what I will be utilizing the most this semester. You can also click on those above to see what your child will be doing this semester.