In our first week together, we collaborated to create our shared expectations of what GRIT looks like in our classroom.  That list of expectations is posted at the front of our classroom, and each student initialed that contract.  Throughout our time together, it is important to revisit those expectations and recommit to them. 

Specifically, in the week ahead we will be revisiting what our classroom expectations are for the beginning of our class time.  These are the behaviors that we agreed help our classroom run smoothly and fairly. 

Classroom Expectations:  Beginning our Class

Growth:

• Be aware of what we’re doing by reading the daily agenda slide projected at the front of the room. 
• Use the restroom BEFORE the bell rings to limit time out of class.

Respect

• Be genuine, relevant, and school appropriate in all forums (small groups, whole class).

Integrity

• Be prepared by having phone and ear buds away when you enter the room. 
• Have your weekly wordplay sheet out on your desk when the bell rings. You are ready to learn when class starts.

Togetherness

• Letting someone know what we’re doing in class that day if they’re not sure.
•  Support one another during low/highs by not talking when others are sharing.

Simply stated: If what you are doing interferes with your learning or someone else's, hurts someone’s heart, or prevents you from being your best self - you shouldn’t be doing it.

Let's start our semester off strong by working toward getting the most out of our learning time together.  This week we will focus on the behavior expectations for the opening of our class time.
​

Hard to believe just how quickly our summer months flew by! Hopefully your summer was filled with adventures and relaxation. I know that I enjoyed some time away to spend with my own family. I had opportunities this summer to travel to Wisconsin and Oklahoma to visit with my extended family.  I also enjoyed a trip to the National Cherry Festival in Traverse City in early July, and also participated in a professional development opportunity with local teachers in August. And of course, I got a TON of reading done this summer which I am excited to share with our incoming sophomore students.

As we begin our new year together, I wanted to give both students and parents a peek at what to expect from our 10th grade American Literature course.  First, you will find a great deal of information about our class posted to this site.  Clicking on the "Class Links" menu option above will show you our daily agenda slides with links to all our daily class activities and homework for both our Honors American Literature (HAmLit)  course and our Composition through American Literature (CTAL 10) course. You will also find copies of the syllabi outlining units, expectations, and grading policies for both courses on the "Class Links" page.

The successful American literature student will demonstrate a willingness to persevere in the face of initial difficulties and will  develop the ability to work through the following steps more or less independently:

• acknowledge that the difficulty exists;
• formulate the question which will allow the difficulty to be approached;
• think through as many possible answers to the questions as they can;
• bring the question and the most likely answers to class to share them;
• listen and evaluate the comments of other students about the issue at hand; and
• reconsider and reformulate their own ideas based on what they have heard.

As the American writer David Carr once wrote, “In order to have a chance at making great work, you have to consume remarkable work.” In other words, students should plan on reading frequently in this class! However, the GHS English Department values the idea that students need to be able to choose some of what they read in a course. We also value volume, variety, diversity, and text complexity in this particular course as well. This can all be accomplished with independent choice reading. 

Students will have time in class each week to read a novel of their choice. But life-long reading habits are not just built in the classroom.  Students need to be reading outside of school as well.  The expectation is that students will read at least two hours outside of class each week. If we break that into manageable chunks, it comes out to about 20 minutes of reading, six days a week. We will track our reading progress, share our choice novels through book talks and class discussions, and at the close of each semester, students will complete a reading reflection which will address the accountability factor of your independent reading. A student’s independent reading will also be assessed each semester through their semester exam.

Speaking of assessments, it is important to know how students in our class will be graded. Our coursework is broken into formative and summative assignments.  Formative assignments are those activities designed to help students improve and practice essential skills.  Summative assessments are those end-of-unit writing assignments and tests designed to measure student achievement and skills level.  Per our GHS handbook, students must successfully pass all required summative  writing assessments in order to earn credit for this class.  Late work for a unit will NOT be accepted for a grade once the summative assessment for that unit is due.

• Formative Assessment (examples: reading logs, discussion, in-class activities, etc.) = 20% of semester grade
• Summative Assessments (quizzes/tests, required writing) = 80% of  semester grade 

It's going to be a great year studying American literature together!  I'm excited to jump into our studies together. See you soon!

​Ms. Ward

We're just about to kick off our new semester, and with the start of a new set of classes, we will also start a new unit.  At the start of January, our 10th grade English classes will be reading and reflecting on Lorraine Hansberry's play titled A Raisin in the Sun.  And, as luck would have it, the play is also on stage while we will be reading it!

A Raisin in the Sun will be on stage at the Kalamazoo Civic Auditorium from January 13th - 22nd.  Great seats are still available and can be purchased here (there is also a small fee for 100% refundable tickets). 

If you are interested in joining the Ward family, we have tickets for the show on Sunday, January 15th at 2pm.
​
SHOW DATES:

• Friday, January 13, 2023 at 7:30pm
• Saturday January 14, 2023 at 7:30pm
• Sunday, January 15, 2023 at 2:00pm
• Friday, January 20, 2023 at 7:30pm
• Saturday, January 21, 2023 at 7:30pm - ASL Interpretation & Audio Description available for this performance
• Sunday, January 22, 2023 at 2:00pm

VENUE:
Civic Auditorium, 329 S Park Street, Kalamazoo, MI 49007

SEATING AND TICKETS
All performances in the Civic Auditorium feature reserved seating. Doors open 30 minutes prior to each performance. Purchase your tickets by clicking HERE.

It's week 4 - our first full week!

Our first unit in both the honors American Literature (HAmLit) course as well as the Composition through American Literature course (CTAL 10) focuses on what it means to be American.  Students are reading a novel of their choice from an American author which will serve as a mentor text during this unit.  We will examine what we learn from this writer about the values, beliefs, and perspectives on the American identity.  Additionally, we have been exploring excerpts from a wide variety of American voices - foundational texts as well as contemporary voices, poets and journalists, women and men, colonial writers and immigrant voices.  This week we will add our reflections on these readings to our Unit 1 Note Catcher in order to prepare us for the essay we will write at the close of this first unit. Over the course of this unit, students are asked to develop their own definition of what it means to be American based on their readings from a wide variety of American voices.

We will also be revisiting our learning and behavior contract for our class - our GRIT matrix.  Last week we spent some time reflecting on our progress as readers.  We used our writer's notebook to establish some goals and strategies to help us recognize our Growth as readers.  This week we will revisit our goals for Respect.  What does respect look like in our classroom? We spent time as a class during our first week together coming up with the habits and routines that demonstrate respect.  In order to ensure that we are using our time to the fullest, this means being in your seat when the bell rings with our weekly wordplay handout on your desk, making sure phones and earbuds are away before class begins, and making sure that we are listening to one another, responding at appropriate times using appropriate language. We'll spend time reviewing our daily and weekly routines this week and talk more about what respect looks like in our daily classroom space.

At the close of our week, weather permitting, we'll head outside for our reading day and to do some tie-dying in preparation for Homecoming Spirit Days the week of September 20th-24th. I'm looking forward to our first full week together!

It is hard to believe that we are already five weeks into our school year.  This is definitely a year that we won't soon forget!  We had a few little hiccups as we kicked off our year with both in-person and virtual learners joining in our classes at the same time, but in the last few weeks, we have made some adjustments, tried new tools, and even managed to have a bit of fun along the way!  Let me share just a few of the highlights from this past month of learning.


​In our second week of class, my ninth grade Composition Through Literature students had the opportunity to chat virtually with author Tiffany Schmidt. We had just read the opening to her crime novel titled Hold Me Like a Breath, so students got to ask Mrs. Schmidt about her inspiration, her writing process, and all about the publication process. Mrs. Schmidt shared some great advice with us about how to develop the specific details of scenes, something that we will be able to incorporate into our own writing in the coming week as we start to work on our personal narrative essays.

Well, we are into our third week of learning from home. I hope that you have found a good book to get lost in and have taken this opportunity to learn something new! Since last week, there have been some changes in how our learning at home will work in the coming weeks, so be sure to keep reading. Just like last week, I will post a link for our virtual meet up on Wednesday, April 1st (no joke!) to our Google Classroom page if you are interested in chatting with your classmates.

INDEPENDENT READING: If you are looking for something new to read, check out this list of recommended books from Katie and Christine at Grandville's Kent District Library branch - http://bit.ly/KDLbooks. All of these books and more can be accessed through https://www.kdl.org/downloads.

APRIL IS POETRY MONTH: For those of you that are interested, I'll be posting some optional poetry readings, performances, and writing prompts to our daily agenda slides to inspire you throughout the month of April.

LEARNING: As you read in the email that you received from Mr. Lancto on Monday, there have been some recent changes with our online learning (https://bit.ly/GHSupdates). Teachers are now able to provide feedback on work that was done prior to the break, and students are able to make up any outstanding work! This week you will notice that I am adding feedback to your writing pieces turned in prior to our break and adding in grades to our Infinite Campus gradebook. For those students that are missing or need to make-up work that was to be completed prior to our break, I will also be emailing individual students about options for turning in those assignments.

As things are changing quickly, it is important that you login to your email and Google Classroom spaces regularly. The link to the optional learning opportunities can be found at https://bit.ly/GHSoptional. I have also posted some optional reading and writing prompts to our daily agenda found on our Google Classroom space.

I miss you! I hope that you are able to join us on Wednesday for our virtual check-in. I miss seeing your faces each day. Know that I am thinking of you.

Stay safe and stay in touch,
Ms. Ward

I hope that you are doing well and feeling healthy in the wake of all that has been happening.  I would love to hear more about what you've been up to this past week! You'll find a link to connect virtually posted to our Google Classroom page if you are interested.

VIRTUAL SPIRIT DAY: This Friday, March 27th, we're putting on a virtual spirit day!  Snap a pic or short video (10 seconds or less) of you in your favorite Grandville gear and either post it to our Google Classroom site or email it to me.  I'm going to compile all the photos into a video which I'll send out at 3pm this Friday! Feel free to share your pride on social media on Friday using #GrandvillePride.

LEARNING: As you may have read in the recent email that you received from Mr. Bearup and Mr. Lancto, there's a great deal of optional learning that you can do during our time away from the classroom, but your teachers are not able at this time to assign any additional work, post grades, or provide feedback on any work that was done prior to the break. This is an effort to make sure that all students have equal opportunity to learn the required material for our class. When we return to the classroom following this break, we can discuss ways to make-up missed work and continue with work we have done in our current unit. However, for right now, take care of yourself, check in with family and friends, and take this opportunity to learn something new that you've always wanted to learn.  The link to the optional learning opportunities can be found at https://bit.ly/GHSoptional​. 

I miss our class and our cheesy videos. I miss our low-highs.  I miss our jokes and our general goofiness. I miss seeing your faces each day. I miss you.  Know that I am thinking of you and am looking forward to seeing you all soon. 

Take care,
Ms. Ward