The Grade Ten School for Advanced Studies (SAS) curriculum, denotes, by its very designation, that students will encounter rigorous demands of the rhetorical approach to reading and writing, with instruction paced more rapidly than normal tenth-grade coursework requires. Grade Ten Honors (SAS) readies students for an eleventh-grade advanced placement high school class as they learn to think, read, write, listen, and speak academically, successfully arguing a well-constructed thesis, skills necessary for entering post-secondary educational institutions. Students enrolled in SAS Grade Ten Honors experience a curriculum that spans genres such as short stories, poetry, novels and plays, as well as contemporary literature selections and nonfiction that necessitate the student's ability to elict the author's purose, the author's persona, the author's claim and evidence, and offer a precise response to the author's argument. Successful student compositions are measured by rubrics, and it is strongly suggested, at the outset of this course, that learners familiarize themselves with this tool so they can produce thoughtful, precise, and insightful works of prose in response to the series of writing prompts that will be assigned.
As stated in the course text, Elements of Literature, Fourth Course (Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, Publishers), student goals include, but are not limited to,
*learning about themselves, their assumptions and beliefs, through reading, discussing and writing about literature and their own experience
*learning about others, including those in their classrooms and communities, but also people of other cultures, other places, and other times
*learning about how texts operate, and how they shape our thinking and manipulate our emotions
*learning about how context shapes meaning
*learning that there are many ways of dealing with experience, both literary and otherwise
*learning the pleasures, aesthetic, intellectual, emotional, and social--of reading and writing, in the hope that these pleasures will capture them as readers and writers for the rest of their lives
Parents are encouraged to take an active role in students' educations and assist them by ascertaining that all outside reading and homework assignments, note-taking actitivies, test preparation requirements, and individual or group project work is completed on time and submitted in advance of the due date set by the instructor. Periodic grade reports will be issued to students who should apprise parents of how they are progressing in this course. It is this periodic assessment that can identify the emotional and intellectual maturity of the student and signal in advance any instructional intervention strategies necessary to avert poor academic performance and prevent subpar grades that will eventually affect the students' overall grade point average.
I wish you a successful year of rigorous student as you undertake the challenges of the tenth grade Honors curriculum. If you or your parents wish to contact me, I can be reached on school voice mail, which I check frequently during the semester, at 323-461-3891, Extension 419. Homework and other necessary communication between the instructor and students is recorded, usually daily, and available at this same extension.
