Welcome to the wonderland of English!

English 9

1st Semester: Light on Snow, (summer reading book) Short Stories, House on Mango Street, Our Town

2nd Semester: Greek myths, the Odyssey, Romeo and Juliet, Poetry, Choice Novel

  • This class really sets the groundwork for future english classes. The stories we read in this class were really interesting! My favorite was House on Mango Street, which contains a lot of figurative language and imagery.
  • ANYWAYS, you get introduced to annotating (you learn how to annotate good notes in class) and seminars!
  • A seminar is a whole class day where everyone sits in a big circle and discusses (usually) 2 main questions. You’re assigned these 2 main questions so you can answer them and find evidence before the seminar.
  • Don’t be afraid to speak up and talk about your answers because a lot of people might have the same thoughts as you! And I think you have to participate for participation points.
  • We had little to no pop quizzes in this class so you’ll be fine!

Resources

  • Open Library. When looking for quotes, you can search them up here and it’s FREE.
  • Percy Jackson’s greek gods and greek heroes books: I read these before and it helped me understand mythology and the odyssey a lot. It’s really funny and easy to understand!
  • SparkNotes (best resource ever for really understanding your book’s chapters)
  • Practice tests online for books (usually Quizlet!)
  • I don’t recommend Chat GPT for making practice questions because it could give incorrect information for the books. I think this is because of its copyright law or something? And don’t use it for writing. 1. That’s cheating, and 2. Because once you hit Great Books in sophomore year, you’ll have to do timed essays! And if you don’t know how to write an essay without Chat GPT, you’re cooked.

Honors Great Books

1st Semester Books: Macbeth and Pride and Prejudice

2nd Semester Books: Bless me Ultima, All the Light We Cannot See, and a choice novel

  • This class was good! I liked the 2nd semester books more than the 1st semester, honestly. Just keep up with your reading because we had pop quizzes every other class. There’s a pattern. I think it goes pop quiz, vocabulary assignment, then pop quiz? Something like that. Just be sure that you understand the chapters before every class because you never know if there’s a pop quiz.
  • The questions on these quizzes are easy (if you read!) and they aren’t tooo specific.
  • Read AND use SparkNotes!! When I couldn’t understand a chapter (especially in Pride and Prejudice–it was a really hard read), I used SparkNotes to understand the different themes and references in the book.
  • FOR WRITING: I like to think of it as eating prime ribs. I set the bare bones of my essay first, which are the 2 main points. Then, the small fats of the essay, the quotes. THEN the really meaty parts, the investigations of the quotes!
  • This works best with timed essays. Yes, timed essays. Don’t worry about it—you get your book the whole time and a structure paper sheet to help you with your thesis statement and building your bare bones.

Resources

  • Open Library. When looking for quotes, you can search them up here and it’s FREE.
  • SparkNotes (best resource ever for really understanding your book’s chapters)
  • Practice tests online for books (usually Quizlet!)