Required Materials:

• Binder with paper or notebook
• Folder for handouts
• Blue/black ink pen or pencil
• Chromebook and charger
• Text we are currently studying

Helpful Materials:

• Post-it Notes for annotations
• Highlighters 
• Bookmark

Grading Per English Dept. Policy

Tests (50%)

Quizzes (30%)

Homework (20%)

Course Description:

Credits: 5 

Grade: 9 This course is designed for the student who has developed an exceptional proficiency in critical reading and thinking as well as advanced writing skills. Students are challenged with numerous fictional literary readings from various genres, including short stories, dystopian novels, drama, flash fiction, and related non-fiction. Students will analyze literature by diverse authors. In addition, students complete extensive narrative, literary analysis, expository, and argumentative writing assignments. Students explore the modes of writing on a more sophisticated level; reading and writing notebooks are used extensively to develop students’ writing skills.

Unit 5: Narrative Writing 

In Honors English 9, students will write a flash fiction narrative. The purpose of this unit is to apply the NJSLS Writing Narrative skills while also considering the purpose of a storyteller to, as Chinua Achebe the author of Things Fall Apart writes, "makes us what we are, who creates history." Students will engage in the writing process by gathering ideas from personal sources, reading mentor narratives, collecting and implementing craft moves from professional authors, writing independently, and revising both independently and with peers. Students will self-select topics. Throughout the unit, students will demonstrate application of standards through individual conferences and drafting. By the end of the unit, students will demonstrate application of the standards through a final personal narrative and performative storytelling project.