Language Arts Class Descriptions

Children are full of stories and bubbling over with big ideas! In this class, students will learn how to capture their creative vision into a simple story that they will write and illustrate. This quarter, our storytellers will imagine time machine travel. Will they spring forward to a far-flung, fantasy future or backward to behold bewildering bygones?

Students will learn how to build a Story Arc through guided, weekly activities. They will discover the key elements to composing a story such as crafting characters, posing a problem, advancing the action, constructing the climax, and writing the resolution- through brainstorming questions like, "Who is in your story?", "Where does this take place?", "What does that look like?" and "What happened after ____?"

Students should be able to read, write, and spell at the second grade level or higher for this class. Psst- don't tell your child, but this class helps lay the foundation in language arts for more advanced creative writing and composition. Pair this class with Acting: Kids Theater or Writing Wonders to further encourage communication and storytelling skills. The supply fee is included in the class tuition.

Children are full of stories and bubbling over with big ideas! In this class, students will learn how to capture their creative vision into a simple story that they will write and illustrate. Fourth quarter, they will draft the drama of a walk in the woods. Who do they wake? Where do they wander?

Students will learn how to build a Story Arc through guided, weekly activities. They will discover the key elements to composing a story such as crafting characters, posing a problem, advancing the action, constructing the climax, and writing the resolution- through brainstorming questions like, "Who is in your story?", "Where does this take place?", "What does that look like?" and "What happened after ____?"

Emerging writers or readers are welcome and will receive support, if needed, to get their own words written down. Psst- don't tell your child, but this class helps lay the foundation in language arts for more advanced creative writing and composition. Pair this class with Acting: Kids Theater or Writing Well: Sentences that Speak to further encourage communication and storytelling skills. The supply fee is included in the class tuition. Topics in this Series: A Secret Room (Quarter 1); A Hero's Journey (Quarter 2); A Fantasy Adventure (Quarter 3); and A Walk in the Woods (Quarter 4).

Children are full of stories and bubbling over with big ideas! In this class, students will learn how to capture their creative vision into a simple story that they will write and illustrate. Two roads diverged in a wood, and our storytellers will create their own path. What happens when tricky travelers and cryptic characters meet secretive strangers on a winding woodland path?

Students will learn how to build a Story Arc through guided, weekly activities. They will discover the key elements to composing a story such as crafting characters, posing a problem, advancing the action, constructing the climax, and writing the resolution- through brainstorming questions like, "Who is in your story?", "Where does this take place?", "What does that look like?" and "What happened after ____?"

Emerging writers or readers are welcome and will receive support, if needed, to get their own words written down. Psst- don't tell your child, but this class helps lay the foundation in language arts for more advanced creative writing and composition. Pair this class with Acting: Kids Theater or Writing Well to further encourage communication and storytelling skills. The supply fee is included in the class tuition. Topics in this Series: A Secret Room (Quarter 1); A Shipwreck (Quarter 2); A Medieval Castle (Quarter 3); and A Winding Path (Quarter 4).

Children are full of stories and bubbling over with big ideas! In this class, students will learn how to capture their creative vision into a simple story that they will write and illustrate. Fourth quarter, they will tell the tale of their own, zany zoo. Will their story include a lazy llama, a sassy sea lion, a joking jaguar...or something else?

Students will learn how to build a Story Arc through guided, weekly activities. They will discover the key elements to composing a story such as crafting characters, posing a problem, advancing the action, constructing the climax, and writing the resolution- through brainstorming questions like, "Who is in your story?", "Where does this take place?", "What does that look like?" and "What happened after ____?"

Emerging writers or readers are welcome and will receive support, if needed, to get their own words written down. Psst- don't tell your child, but this class helps lay the foundation in language arts for more advanced creative writing and composition. Pair this class with Playful Puppet Workshop, Acting: Kids Theater, or Writing Well: Sentences that Speak to further encourage communication and storytelling skills. The supply fee is included in the class tuition. Topics in this Series: Awesome Adventure (Quarter 1), Magic Kingdom (Quarter 2), Medieval Castle (Quarter 3), and Zany Zoo (Quarter 4).

Don't raise your voice, improve your argument." (Desmond Tutu, 2004) Do you have what it takes to strategically win an argument? Effective debate is a life skill that incorporates logic, communication, and public speaking skills. Being able to debate helps teens improve reasoning, conflict resolution, and confidence. In this class, students will learn the fundamentals of debate including the three persuasive appeals, a brief history of debate, and different styles of debate.

Debaters will learn how to structure an argument, build their evidence, and best practices for researching a topic. Students will learn techniques for quoting sources, presenting statistics, acknowledging opposing views, and incorporating visual aids in debate. The class will also practice stylistic elements of public speaking such as using transitional words, timing, gestures, and eye contact. In this class, students will learn how to really listen to their opponent and how to craft a rebuttal. At the same time, debaters will be taught to read their audience, hold their attention, and establish credibility.

In each class, students will practice giving brief impromptu speeches, delivering prepared presentations, and debating classmates. Students will practice evaluating classmates and giving, receiving, and incorporating constructive feedback. First quarter will introduce Lincoln-Douglas, or prepared, one-on-one style debate. Future quarter debate focuses include: Extemporaneous Debate (2nd quarter), Open Forum Debate (3rd quarter), and Parliamentary Debate (4th quarter)

Don't raise your voice, improve your argument." (Desmond Tutu, 2004) Do you have what it takes to strategically win an argument? Effective debate is a life skill that incorporates logic, communication, and public speaking skills. Being able to debate helps teens improve reasoning, conflict resolution, and confidence. In this class, students will learn the fundamentals of debate including the three persuasive appeals, a brief history of debate, and different styles of debate.

Debaters will learn how to structure an argument, build their evidence, and best practices for researching a topic. Students will learn techniques for quoting sources, presenting statistics, acknowledging opposing views, and incorporating visual aids in debate. The class will also practice stylistic elements of public speaking such as using transitional words, timing, gestures, and eye contact. In this class, students will learn how to really listen to their opponent and how to craft a rebuttal. At the same time, debaters will be taught to read their audience, hold their attention, and establish credibility. Second quarter debate will focus on the on-your-feet style of extrenporaneous debate. In "extemp" debate, students are paired to argue a specified topic with limited preparation time. Within class time, students will be assigned a topic, notified if they are for or against the issue, and given a brief time to prepare their argument before facing their debate opponent.

In each class, students will practice giving brief impromptu speeches, delivering prepared presentations, and debating classmates. Students will practice evaluating classmates and giving, receiving, and incorporating constructive feedback. First quarter will introduce Lincoln-Douglas, or prepared, one-on-one style debate. Future quarter debate focuses include Open Forum Debate (3rd quarter) and Parliamentary Debate (4th quarter). This is a 6-week class that will begin on November 3 (no class meeting on October 27).

Desmond Tutu once said, Don't raise your voice, improve your argument." Do you have what it takes to strategically win an argument? We live in a world where you will be challenged to think for yourself, defend opinions, and question conventions in society. Learn how to respond with evidence and enthusiasm when your opinion is challenged in this fun and interactive class!

Effective debate is a life skill that incorporates logic, communication, and public speaking skills. Being able to debate helps teens improve reasoning, conflict resolution, and confidence. In this class, students will learn the fundamentals of debate including persuasive appeals, a brief history of debate, and different styles of debate.

Over the semester, students will learn how to prepare and deliver three types of argument: The traditional, prepared, on-on-one, Lincoln-Douglas style debate; a researched and practiced Public Policy debate on a current topic affecting the country or community; and the off-the-cuff, think-on-your-feet Extemporaneous style debate in which students are paired to argue a specified topic with limited preparation time. Each week, students will practice giving brief impromptu speeches, delivering prepared presentations, and debating classmates.

Debaters will learn how to structure an argument, build their evidence, and best practices for researching a topic. Students will learn techniques for quoting sources, presenting statistics, acknowledging opposing views, and incorporating visual aids in debate. The class will also practice stylistic elements of public speaking such as using transitional words, timing, gestures, and eye contact. In this class, students will learn how to really listen to their opponent and how to craft a rebuttal. At the same time, debaters will be taught to read their audience, hold their attention, and establish credibility. Students will practice evaluating classmates and giving, receiving, and incorporating constructive feedback. For purposes of a high school transcript, homeschool families might chose to count this class as a component, or partial credit, in communication.

Desmond Tutu once said, Don't raise your voice, improve your argument." Do you have what it takes to strategically win an argument? We live in a world where you will be challenged to think for yourself, defend opinions, and question conventions in society. Learn how to respond with evidence and enthusiasm when your opinion is challenged in this fun and interactive class!

Effective debate is a life skill that incorporates logic, communication, and public speaking skills. Being able to debate helps teens improve reasoning, conflict resolution, and confidence. In this class, students will learn the fundamentals of debate including persuasive appeals, a brief history of debate, and different styles of debate.

Over the semester, students will learn how to prepare and deliver three types of argument: The traditional, prepared, on-on-one, Lincoln-Douglas style debate; a researched and practiced Public Policy debate on a current topic affecting the country or community; and the off-the-cuff, think-on-your-feet Extemporaneous style debate in which students are paired to argue a specified topic with limited preparation time. Each week, students will practice giving brief impromptu speeches, delivering prepared presentations, and debating classmates.

Debaters will learn how to structure an argument, build their evidence, and best practices for researching a topic. Students will learn techniques for quoting sources, presenting statistics, acknowledging opposing views, and incorporating visual aids in debate. The class will also practice stylistic elements of public speaking such as using transitional words, timing, gestures, and eye contact. In this class, students will learn how to really listen to their opponent and how to craft a rebuttal. At the same time, debaters will be taught to read their audience, hold their attention, and establish credibility. Students will practice evaluating classmates and giving, receiving, and incorporating constructive feedback. For purposes of a high school transcript, homeschool families might chose to count this class as a component, or partial credit, in communication. 12.08.0107

Desmond Tutu once stated, Don t raise your voice, improve your argument.

Do you have what it takes to strategically win an argument? Effective debate is a life skill that incorporates logic, communication, and public speaking skills. Being able to debate helps teens improve reasoning, conflict resolution, and confidence. In this class, students will learn the fundamentals of debate including the three persuasive appeals, a brief history of debate, and different styles of debate.

During the third quarter, we will be hosting our first team debates, known as Public Forum. Public Forum (PF) is a duo team style of debate that is the most popular format among high school students who compete in debate competitions across the country. Very similar to the television show Crossfire, debaters will strategically discuss their positions on current topics or events. During this course, teams consisting of two members will advocate or reject a position based upon the proposition. Students will develop arguments based upon the Art of Persuasion, rather than just using rhetoric.

Debaters will learn how to structure an argument, build their evidence, and best practices for researching a topic. Students will learn techniques for quoting sources, presenting statistics, acknowledging opposing views, and incorporating visual aids in debate. The class will also practice stylistic elements of public speaking such as using transitional words, timing, gestures, and eye contact. In this class, students will learn how to really listen to their opponent and how to craft a rebuttal. At the same time, debaters will be taught to read their audience, hold their attention, and establish credibility. In each class, students will practice giving brief impromptu speeches, delivering prepared presentations, and debating classmates. Students will practice evaluating classmates and giving, receiving, and incorporating constructive feedback.

Desmond Tutu once stated, Don t raise your voice, improve your argument. , while Margaret Heffernan, international businesswoman and author stated, For good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument, debate!

Do you have what it takes to strategically win an argument? Effective debate is a life skill that incorporates logic, communication, and public speaking skills. Being able to debate helps teens improve reasoning, conflict resolution, and confidence. In this class, students will learn the fundamentals of debate including the persuasive appeals, a brief history of debate, and the public policy style of debate.

We live in a world where our students will be challenged to think for themselves, defend opinions, and question conventions in society. Public Policy Debate will offer students the opportunity to become challenged, invigorated, and debate on current topics affecting the United States and their communities. This is a fun and interactive class! Great for all levels of interested debaters and will aide students at every level of their educational journey! Learn how to have an opinion that is challenged and respond with evidence and enthusiasm!

Debaters will learn how to structure an argument, build their evidence, and best practices for researching a topic. Students will learn techniques for quoting sources, presenting statistics, acknowledging opposing views, and incorporating visual aids in debate. The class will also practice stylistic elements of public speaking such as using transitional words, timing, gestures, and eye contact. In this class, students will learn how to really listen to their opponent and how to craft a rebuttal. At the same time, debaters will be taught to read their audience, hold their attention, and establish credibility. In each class, students will practice giving brief impromptu speeches, delivering prepared presentations, and debating classmates. Students will practice evaluating classmates and giving, receiving, and incorporating constructive feedback.

Candy-cane columns, licorice lattice, gumdrop gutters, iced icicles, or a peppermint path. Journey to your own Candyland with darling gingerbread houses adorned with unique confection constructions. Enjoy your gingerbread house as a holiday centerpiece or a delicious pull-apart treat! Students will learn how to plan their design considering layout and symmetry. Then they will learn how to embellish with Royal icing and candy-encrusted details. They will also learn how to simulate frosted shingles and how to do chocolate writing. The instructor will provide a mouth-watering array of candy decor choices.

For grades 1-3, an adult must attend with the child, and houses will be pre-assembled. (A single registration covers one child, one adult, and one house).

For grades 4-6, students may be dropped off. They will learn to erect the roof and walls of the house with a proprietary, chocolate-gummy bear caulking!Note: Some garnishes (gummies or marshmallows) may contain gelatin and food coloring. See the Compass Cooking Class webpage for more FAQs about our cooking classes. Each student should bring a cookie sheet to transport his/her gingerbread house home. There is a supply fee of $25.00 due to the instructor at the start of the workshop.

It began with the forging of great rings... and it will end with the creation of great dioramas. In this class, students will study the connection of Tolkien's Middle Earth to our own history: how history inspired the author and how the series, in turn, influenced the real world. As we study the book and discuss its influences, students will use this knowledge to recreate a scene from the penultimate battle of the War of the 3rd Age at Minas Tirith.

Using artistic model-making techniques, hand tools, and descriptions from the source material students in this class will recreate a section of the Gondorian Fortress Capital, Minas Tirith and the battlefield around it. Once everyone finishes their diorama, the class will combine them to simulate the battle from the book and attempt to save mankind from Sauron! (or bring about the age of the Orc.) Each student will receive 1:72 scale figures to populate their scene, from Soldiers of Gondor and Riders of Rhohan, to Orcs, trolls, and evil men of Rhun and Harrad.

This is a 4-day workshop.

It began with the forging of great rings... and it will end with the creation of great dioramas. In this class, students will study the connection of Tolkien's Middle Earth to our own history, how it influenced the source material, and how the series in turn influenced the real world. As we study the book and discuss its influences, students will use this knowledge to recreate a scene from the Fellowship of the Ring's journey, using artistic model-making techniques, hand tools, and descriptions from the source material.

Once each 10"x16" diorama is complete with landscape elements (hills, buildings, rivers, bridges, vegetation, fences, etc), students will begin their own journey using 1:72 miniature heroes, orcs, and trolls. They will reenact the story as a Role Playing Game in the style of Dungeons and Dragons! This new story will write itself, with students competing from both sides, as the forces of the evil Sauron, or members of the fellowship and its allies.

The instructor will use maps and visual presentations to explain the historical influences on and of the literary work. The material fee is included for this summer workshop.

This is a three-day program.

Celebrate spring with succulent sweets! Student confectioners will mold, dip, and decorate delicate filled Buttercream Easter Eggs with an array of spring fillings: peanut butter, cherry, vanilla, chocolate, and coconut. Students will take home all recipes so they can continue their egg-making. See the Compass Cooking Class webpage for more FAQs about our cooking classes. There is a supply fee of $20.00 due to the instructor at the start of the workshop.

Celebrate spring with succulent sweets! Student confectioners will mold, dip, and decorate delicate filled Buttercream Easter Eggs with an array of spring fillings: peanut butter, cherry, vanilla, chocolate, and coconut. Students will take home all recipes so they can continue their egg-making. See the Compass Cooking Class webpage for more FAQs about our cooking classes. There is a supply fee of $20.00 due to the instructor at the start of the workshop.

This comprehensive, full-credit English course is a survey of British literature that builds on the foundations of Introduction to Genre (or similar 9th/10th grade English course) and covers a range of genres and historical eras from the Anglo-Saxon period to today. Students will deepen their literary analysis skills, continue to develop the components of academic writing, and hone their critical thinking skills. Through a mix of analytical essays and creative assignments, students will explore questions such as, can literature enact social change, what separates cultural diffusion from cultural appropriation, and most of all, what it means to be British in various time periods and geographical contexts. Featured authors will include Austen, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Shelley, Orwell, Blake, and Wordsworth.

Composition: Students will continue to hone the components of academic writing, including how to construct a thesis statement that makes an argument, how to support their ideas effectively with textual evidence, how to organize an argument logically, and how to cite sources in MLA format. Writing assignments will include one critical response, one creative assignment, and one full-scale essay (outline, draft, and revision) per semester.

Literature: Second semester works include: Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen), A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Mary Wollstonecraft); Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe); Paradise Lost (John Milton); Frankenstein (Mary Shelley); and 1984 (George Orwell); and a selection of short stories by Jhumpa Lahiri, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Zadie Smith, James Joyce, and others.

Topics in this Series: British Literature, Part I (Semester 1) and British Literature, Part II (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester receive priority pre-registration for second semester.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level, and it is recommended that students have had a prior high school-level writing class.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 2-3 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $54.10 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for the class pack of books and handouts.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current literature, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages. Some weeks students will be asked to bring laptops to do some in-class writing.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a half-credit (one semester) or full credit (both semesters) in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

This comprehensive, full-credit English course is a survey of British literature that builds on the foundations of Introduction to Genre (or similar 9th/10th grade English course) and covers a range of genres and historical eras from the Anglo-Saxon period to today. Students will deepen their literary analysis skills, continue to develop the components of academic writing, and hone their critical thinking skills. Through a mix of analytical essays and creative assignments, students will explore questions such as, can literature enact social change, what separates cultural diffusion from cultural appropriation, and most of all, what it means to be British in various time periods and geographical contexts. Featured authors will include Austen, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Shelley, Orwell, Blake, and Wordsworth.

Composition: Students will continue to hone the components of academic writing, including how to construct a thesis statement that makes an argument, how to support their ideas effectively with textual evidence, how to organize an argument logically, and how to cite sources in MLA format. Writing assignments will include one critical response, one creative assignment, and one full-scale essay (outline, draft, and revision) per semester.

Literature: First semester works include: Beowulf (translated by Seamus Heaney); Selections from the Canterbury Tales (Chaucer); Macbeth (Shakespeare); A selection of Augustan and Romantic Poetry.

Topics in this Series: British Literature, Part I (Semester 1) and British Literature, Part II (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester receive priority pre-registration for second semester.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level, and it is recommended that students have had a prior high school-level writing class.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 2-3 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $55.00 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for the class pack of books and handouts.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current literature, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a half-credit (one semester) or full credit (both semesters) in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

This comprehensive, full-credit English course will ask students to think critically about the "American Dream" and what it means to be an American by reading literature that engages with these topics from the 19th century to today. Students taking this class should have mastered the foundations of Introduction to Genre and British Literature (or similar English courses) aand are expected to take an active role in discussion using an analytical method that focuses on rhetorical context (subject, purpose and audience). In this course, students will read both fiction and non-fiction texts, with featured authors including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Harriet Jacobs, Edith Wharton, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and others.

Composition: The course is designed to prepare students for college-level academic writing. Students will continue to hone the components of academic writing, including how to construct a thesis statement that makes an argument, how to support their ideas effectively with textual evidence, how to organize an argument logically, and how to cite sources in MLA format. Writing assignments for this course will emphasize rhetorical analysis skills. Writing assignments will include a personal essay and one full-scale critical essay per semester.

Literature: Second semester works include: Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain); For Whom the Bell Tolls (Earnest Hemingway); Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston); Absalom, Absalom! (William Faulkner); The Things They Carried (Tim O'Brien); White Noise (Don Delillo); and a selection of contemporary short fiction by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Susan Sontag, John Updkike, and others.

Topics in this Series: American Literature, Part I (Semester 1) and American Literature, Part II (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester receive priority pre-registration for second semester.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level, and it is recommended that students have had a prior high school-level writing class.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 2-3 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $79.00 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for the class pack of books and handouts.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current literature, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages. Some weeks students will be asked to bring laptops to do some in-class writing.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a half-credit (one semester) or full credit (both semesters) in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

This comprehensive, full-credit English course will ask students to think critically about the "American Dream" and what it means to be an American by reading literature that engages with these topics from the 19th century to today. Students taking this class should have mastered the foundations of Introduction to Genre and British Literature (or similar English courses) and are expected to take an active role in discussion using an analytical method that focuses on rhetorical context (subject, purpose and audience). In this course, students will read both fiction and non-fiction texts, with featured authors including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Harriet Jacobs, Edith Wharton, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and others.

Composition: The course is designed to prepare students for college-level academic writing. Students will continue to hone the components of academic writing, including how to construct a thesis statement that makes an argument, how to support their ideas effectively with textual evidence, how to organize an argument logically, and how to cite sources in MLA format. Writing assignments for this course will emphasize rhetorical analysis skills. Writing assignments will include a personal essay and one full-scale critical essay per semester.

Literature: First semester works include: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Harriet Jacobs); A Raisin in the Sun (Lorraine Hansberry), and others.

Topics in this Series: American Literature, Part I (Semester 1) and American Literature, Part II (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester receive priority pre-registration for second semester.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level, and it is recommended that students have had a prior high school-level writing class.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 2-3 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $26.00 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for the class pack of books and handouts.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current literature, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a half-credit (one semester) or full credit (both semesters) in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

In this comprehensive, full-credit English course, students will explore the major literary genres and become proficient in academic writing practices. While gaining familiarity with lyric poetry, drama, epic, and the novel, students will acquire the fundamental principles of critical reading and literary analysis, learning to recognize figurative language, tone, subtext and diction, understand symbolism and imagery, and develop an awareness of narrative perspective and of the social-historical contexts in which these works were created. Featured authors will include: George Orwell, William Shakespeare, and Ray Bradbury.

Composition: Students will also learn the fundamental components of academic writing, including how to construct a thesis statement that makes an argument, how to support their ideas effectively with textual evidence, how to organize an argument logically, and how to cite sources in MLA format. Writing assignments will include one analytical paragraph, one creative writing assignment, and one critical essay (outline, draft, and revision) per semester.

Literature: Second semester works include: Much Ado About Nothing (William Shakespeare); Black Like Me (John Howard Griffin); Animal Farm (George Orwell); and Farenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury), and additional short stories, poems, speeches, and essays.

Topics in this Series: Introduction to Genre, Part I (Semester 1) and Introduction to Genre, Part II (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester receive priority pre-registration for second semester.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level, and it is recommended that students have had a middle school writing class.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 2-3 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $39.20 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for the class pack of books and photocopied articles.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current literature, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages. Some weeks students will be asked to bring laptops to do some in-class writing.

Dates: This class will begin on Friday, January 14, 2022 and continue through the 16-week semester. The class will meet on Tuesday, March 8, to make up for January 11.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a half-credit (one semester) or full credit (both semesters) in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

In this comprehensive, full-credit English course, students will explore the major literary genres and become proficient in academic writing practices. While gaining familiarity with lyric poetry, drama, epic, and the novel, students will acquire the fundamental principles of critical reading and literary analysis, learning to recognize figurative language, tone, subtext and diction, understand symbolism and imagery, and develop an awareness of narrative perspective and of the social-historical contexts in which these works were created. Featured authors will include: J.D. Salinger, William Shakespeare, and Homer.

Composition: Students will also learn the fundamental components of academic writing, including how to construct a thesis statement that makes an argument, how to support their ideas effectively with textual evidence, how to organize an argument logically, and how to cite sources in MLA format. Writing assignments will include one analytical paragraph, one creative writing assignment, and one critical essay (outline, draft, and revision) per semester.

Literature: First semester works include: Poetry: The Seagull Book of Poems (W.W. Norton); Epic: The Odyssey selections (Homer); Novel: The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)

Topics in this Series: Introduction to Genre, Part I (Semester 1) and Introduction to Genre, Part II (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester receive priority pre-registration for second semester.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level, and it is recommended that students have had a middle school writing class.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 2-3 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $54.00 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for the class pack of books and photocopied articles.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current literature, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a half-credit (one semester) or full credit (both semesters) in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

Overview

Advanced Literary Criticism & Composition introduces the high school student to a deeper investigation into literary movements and literary themes throughout the ages. Like art, literature is a writer's response to his world and a reflection of his society and contemporary culture. Literary genres evolved in response to significant events, prevailing philosophies, and impactful innovations and discoveries in the writer's lifetime. Literary movements create a timeline that reflects those influences. In this course, students will read and evaluate selections from various literary movements: Romanticism, Dark Romanticism, Gothic, Transcendentalism, Realism, Naturalism, Magical Realism, Stream of Consciousness, Expressionism, Harlem Renaissance, Modernism, Beat, etc., and make connections to significant effects of the period.

Advanced composition in this course will move beyond personal interpretation of the work ("What do I think?") and transition into two Schools of Literary Criticism: Biographical Criticism, which views literature through the personal world of the writer ("What did the writer think?"), and Historical/Societal Criticism which views literature through the society/times of the writer ("What was going on around the writer?")

Literature

First semester of Advanced Literary Criticism will include a chronological grouping of literature in "movements" and a study of how movements combine to create genre. Students will discover how literature reflects the people, events, discoveries, and ideology of the time and how literary movements provide clues to the philosophical, scientific, and societal climate. The class will look at wars and conflict as a creative element that drives evolution in literary movements. The types of literature used to examine movements will span novels, short stories, poetry, letters, political writings, slave narratives and analytical essays. Examples of some literature that students may read in this course are Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, and Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. The full reading list will be presented in the course syllabus at the beginning of the term. In addition, students will be asked to read several selections over the summer. Students may also need to do some supplemental, parallel personal reading on his/her own to support the semester project.

Composition

First semester Composition will apply the Schools of Literary Criticism to craft essays that demonstrate and understanding of movements in the broader context of literature- across eras, across genre/form, across writers and across the world. Teens will write a series of short essays that use different "filters" or "lenses" to view literary genres. Students will develop skills in notetaking, adding research to their literary essays, and managing their writing portfolios. They will also perform parallel, independent research in literature to develop a presentation on a movement or era culminating a semester project.

Class Structure

This course is part of a custom curriculum developed and team-taught by Anne Sharp and Melanie Kosar. The courses are designed in a sequential program that complements the developmental skills of the adolescent learner. It is a seminar-style approach that mirrors university literature and writing classes. Mrs. Kosar will teach the literature components of the course on Wednesdays, and Mrs. Sharp will teach the writing portion of the class on Fridays.

Topics in this Series: Overview of Literary Movements (Semester 1) and Survey of Themes in Literature (Semester 2). Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level. Students should have had a prior course in literature to have established a firm foundation in basic literary elements and form. Workload: Students should expect to spend 3-4 hours per week outside of class. In addition, students should complete the summer assignments consisting of the literature identified above and a hand-out of literary terminology to learn. Assignments: will be posted on a Google Classroom. Assessments: are portfolio-based. Students will create a digital portfolio that incorporates annotated reading lists, reflects individual interests and accomplishments and showcases a variety of writing. Textbook: Students should purchase or borrow the assigned literature. In some cases, specific editions will be identified with ISBN numbers so students can be on the "same page" (literally!) What to Bring: Students should bring paper or notebook, pen or pencil, current literature selection, and personal writing journal to class each week. Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a credit in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

Overview

Advanced Literary Criticism & Composition is a seminar-style course that introduces the high school student to a deeper investigation into literary movements and literary themes throughout the ages. Like art, literature is a writer's response to his world and a reflection of his society and contemporary culture. Literary genres evolved in response to significant events, prevailing philosophies, and impactful innovations and discoveries in the writer's lifetime. Literary movements create a timeline that reflects those influences. In this course, students will read and evaluate selections from a number of literary movements such as: Romanticism, Dark Romanticism, Gothic, Transcendentalism, Realism, Naturalism, Magical Realism, Stream of Consciousness, Expressionism, Harlem Renaissance, Modernism, Beat, etc., and make connections to significant effects of the period.

Advanced composition in this course will move beyond personal interpretation of the work ("What do I think?") and transition into two Schools of Literary Criticism: Biographical Criticism, which views literature through the personal world of the writer ("What did the writer think?"), and Historical/Societal Criticism which views literature through the society/times of the writer ("What was going on around the writer?")

Literature

First semester of Advanced Literary Criticism will include a chronological grouping of literature in "movements" and a study of how movements combine to create genre. Students will be assigned brief, weekly mini-research assignments on history, geography (if applicable), music and art of the period, politics, religion, philosophy, author biography, etc, to establish a foundation and background information on the literary movement. Students will discover how literature reflects the people, events, discoveries, and ideology of the time and how literary movements provide clues to the philosophical, scientific, and societal climate. The class will look at wars and conflict as a creative element that drives evolution in literary movements. The types of literature used to examine movements will span novels, short stories, poetry, letters, political writings, slave narratives and analytical essays. Examples of literature that will be read first semester include selections from the Odyssey (Homer), Arabian Nights, Don Quixote, Jonathan Swift and poetry by Shakespeare. The full reading list will be presented in the course syllabus at the beginning of the term. In addition, students will be asked to read several selections over the summer.

Composition

First semester Composition will apply the Schools of Literary Criticism to craft essays that demonstrate and understanding of movements in the broader context of literature- across eras, across genre/form, across writers and across the world. Teens will write a series of short essays that use different "filters" or "lenses" to view literary genres. Students will develop skills in notetaking, adding research to their literary essays, and managing their writing portfolios. They will also perform parallel, independent research in literature to develop a presentation on a movement or era culminating a semester project.

Class Structure This course is part of a custom curriculum developed and team-taught by Anne Sharp and Melanie Kosar. The courses are designed in a sequential program that complements the developmental skills of the adolescent learner. It is a seminar-style approach that mirrors university literature and writing classes. Note:All class meetings will be in a virtual classroom, providing synchronous online instruction via videoconferencing for fall semester. At the instructors' option, the class may transition to in-person instruction for second semester as COVID-19 scenarios improve.

Topics in this Series: Overview of Literary Movements (Semester 1) and Survey of Themes in Literature (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester receive priority pre-registration for second semester.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level. Students should have had a prior course in literature to have established a firm foundation in basic literary elements and form.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 3-4 hours per week outside of class. In addition, students should complete the summer assignments consisting of the literature identified above and a hand-out of literary terminology to learn.

Assignments: will be posted on a Google Classroom.

Assessments: are portfolio-based. Students will create a digital portfolio that incorporates annotated reading lists, reflects individual interests and accomplishments and showcases a variety of writing. See the Compass memorandum for more information on assessments in Language Arts.

Textbook: Students should purchase or borrow the assigned literature. In some cases, specific editions will be identified with ISBN numbers so students can be on the "same page" (literally!)

What to Bring: Students should bring paper or notebook, pen or pencil, current literature selection, and personal writing journal to both class meetings each week.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a credit in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

Overview

Advanced Literary Criticism & Composition introduces the high school student to a deeper investigation into literary movements and literary themes throughout the ages. Like art, literature is a writer's response to his world and a reflection of his society and contemporary culture. Literary genres evolved in response to significant events, prevailing philosophies, and impactful innovations and discoveries in the writer's lifetime. Literary movements create a timeline that reflects those influences. In this course, students will read and evaluate selections from various literary movements: Romanticism, Dark Romanticism, Gothic, Transcendentalism, Realism, Naturalism, Magical Realism, Stream of Consciousness, Expressionism, Harlem Renaissance, Modernism, Beat, etc., and make connections to significant effects of the period.

Advanced composition in this course will move beyond personal interpretation of the work ("What do I think?") and transition into two Schools of Literary Criticism: Biographical Criticism, which views literature through the personal world of the writer ("What did the writer think?"), and Historical/Societal Criticism which views literature through the society/times of the writer ("What was going on around the writer?")

Literature

Second semester of Advanced Literary Criticism will include a grouping of literature in "themes" and a study of how themes combine to create genre. Students will discover how literature reflects the people, events, discoveries, and ideology of the time and how literary movements provide clues to the philosophical, scientific, and societal climate. The class will look at wars and conflict as a creative element that drives evolution in literary movements. The types of literature used to examine movements will span novels, short stories, poetry, letters, political writings, slave narratives and analytical essays. Examples of some literature that students may read in this course are Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, and Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. The full reading list will be presented in the course syllabus at the beginning of the term.

Composition

Second semester Composition will apply the Schools of Literary Criticism to craft essays that demonstrate and understanding of themes in the broader context of literature- across eras, across genre/form, across writers and across the world. Teens will write a series of short essays that use different "filters" or "lenses" to view literary genres. Students will develop skills in notetaking, adding research to their literary essays, and managing their writing portfolios. They will also perform parallel, independent research in literature to develop a presentation on a literary theme culminating a semester project.

Class Structure

This course is part of a custom curriculum developed and team-taught by Anne Sharp and Melanie Kosar. The courses are designed in a sequential program that complements the developmental skills of the adolescent learner. It is a seminar-style approach that mirrors university literature and writing classes. Mrs. Kosar will teach the literature components of the course on Wednesdays, and Mrs. Sharp will teach the writing portion of the class on Fridays.

Topics in this Series: Overview of Literary Movements (Semester 1) and Survey of Themes in Literature (Semester 2). Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level. Students should have had a prior course in literature to have established a firm foundation in basic literary elements and form. Workload: Students should expect to spend 3-4 hours per week outside of class. In addition, students should complete the summer assignments consisting of the literature identified above and a hand-out of literary terminology to learn. Assignments: will be posted on a Google Classroom. Assessments: are portfolio-based. Students will create a digital portfolio that incorporates annotated reading lists, reflects individual interests and accomplishments and showcases a variety of writing. Textbook: Students should purchase or borrow the assigned literature. In some cases, specific editions will be identified with ISBN numbers so students can be on the "same page" (literally!) What to Bring: Students should bring paper or notebook, pen or pencil, current literature selection, and personal writing journal to class each week. Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a credit in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

Overview

Advanced Literary Criticism & Composition is a seminar-style course that introduces the high school student to a deeper investigation into literary movements and literary themes throughout the ages. Like art, literature is a writer's response to his world and a reflection of his society and contemporary culture. Literary genres evolved in response to significant events, prevailing philosophies, and impactful innovations and discoveries in the writer's lifetime. Literary movements create a timeline that reflects those influences. In this course, students will read and evaluate selections from a number of literary movements such as: Romanticism, Dark Romanticism, Gothic, Transcendentalism, Realism, Naturalism, Magical Realism, Stream of Consciousness, Expressionism, Harlem Renaissance, Modernism, Beat, etc., and make connections to significant effects of the period.

Advanced composition in this course will move beyond personal interpretation of the work ("What do I think?") and transition into two Schools of Literary Criticism: Biographical Criticism, which views literature through the personal world of the writer ("What did the writer think?"), and Historical/Societal Criticism which views literature through the society/times of the writer ("What was going on around the writer?")

Literature

Second semester of Advanced Literary Criticism will include a grouping of literature in "themes" and a study of how themes combine to create genre. Students will be assigned brief, weekly mini-research assignments on history, geography (if applicable), music and art of the period, politics, religion, philosophy, author biography, etc, to establish a foundation and background information on the literary movement. Students will discover how literature reflects the people, events, discoveries, and ideology of the time and how literary movements provide clues to the philosophical, scientific, and societal climate. The class will look at wars and conflict as a creative element that drives evolution in literary movements. The types of literature used to examine movements will span novels, short stories, poetry, letters, political writings, slave narratives and analytical essays. Examples of works that will be read second semester include complete texts or selections from Wordsworth, Byron, Keats, Shelley, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, and more recent writers. Other selections include The Importance of Being Ernest (Oscar Wilde), The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald), and The Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka). The full reading list will be presented in the course syllabus at the beginning of the term.

Composition

First semester Composition will apply the Schools of Literary Criticism to craft essays that demonstrate and understanding of themes in the broader context of literature- across eras, across genre/form, across writers and across the world. Teens will write a series of short essays that use different "filters" or "lenses" to view literary genres. Students will develop skills in notetaking, adding research to their literary essays, and managing their writing portfolios. They will also perform parallel, independent research in literature to develop a presentation on a literary theme culminating a semester project.

Class Structure

This course is part of a custom curriculum developed and team-taught by Anne Sharp and Melanie Kosar. The courses are designed in a sequential program that complements the developmental skills of the adolescent learner. It is a seminar-style approach that mirrors university literature and writing classes. Mrs. Kosar will teach the literature components of the course on Wednesdays, and Mrs. Sharp will teach the writing portion of the class on Fridays.

Topics in this Series: Overview of Literary Movements (Semester 1) and Survey of Themes in Literature (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester receive priority pre-registration for second semester.

Note:All class meetings will be in a virtual classroom, providing synchronous online instruction via videoconferencing for the remainder of the year.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level. Students should have had a prior course in literature to have established a firm foundation in basic literary elements and form.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 3-4 hours per week outside of class. In addition, students should complete the summer assignments consisting of the literature identified above and a hand-out of literary terminology to learn.

Assignments: will be posted on a Google Classroom.

Assessments: are portfolio-based. Students will create a digital portfolio that incorporates annotated reading lists, reflects individual interests and accomplishments and showcases a variety of writing. See the Compass memorandum for more information on assessments in Language Arts.

Textbook: Students should purchase or borrow the assigned literature. In some cases, specific editions will be identified with ISBN numbers so students can be on the "same page" (literally!)

What to Bring: Students should bring paper or notebook, pen or pencil, current literature selection, and personal writing journal to both class meetings each week.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a credit in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

This full-credit English course is designed to prepare students for college level academic writing. It will deepen student’s critical reading and textual analysis skills by asking students to think critically about the “American Dream” and what it means to be an American by reading texts that engage with these topics from the 18th century to today. In this course, students will read and respond in writing to both fiction and non-fiction texts, and our analytical method will focus on rhetorical context (subject, purpose and audience).

Fall Semester will feature Huckleberry Finn (Twain), Daisy Miller (James), Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Jacobs), and The Crucible (Miller).

Writing Lab: An essential component of this course will be an in-class Writing Lab. Students in this class should have mastered the basics of academic writing, such as constructing a thesis statement that makes an argument and organizing their thoughts through effective topic sentences and transition statements. This class will deepen students' textual analysis skills with a focus on developing rhetorical analysis, the study of how a text makes meaning. Over the course of the year, students will develop familiarity with a variety of writing styles and forms including rhetorical analysis, literary analysis, critical response, close reading, opinion essay, and personal essay. Students should bring a laptop to class one day per week for in-class writing.

Prerequisites: Students taking this class should have mastered the foundations of Introduction to Genre and British Literature (or similar English courses), are expected to take an active role in discussion and complete all writing assignments.

Topics in this Series: American Literature, Part I (Semester 1) and American Literature, Part II (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester receive priority pre-registration for second semester.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 2-3 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $38.00 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for the class pack of books and handouts.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current literature, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a half-credit (one semester) or full credit (both semesters) in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

This full-credit English course is designed to prepare students for college level academic writing. It will deepen student’s critical reading and textual analysis skills by asking students to think critically about the “American Dream” and what it means to be an American by reading texts that engage with these topics from the 18th century to today. In this course, students will read and respond in writing to both fiction and non-fiction texts, and our analytical method will focus on rhetorical context (subject, purpose and audience).

Spring Semester will feature The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald), Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston),  The Things They Carried (Tim O'Brien), and a selection of other short fiction and poetry.

Writing Lab: An essential component of this course will be an in-class Writing Lab. Students in this class should have mastered the basics of academic writing, such as constructing a thesis statement that makes an argument and organizing their thoughts through effective topic sentences and transition statements. This class will deepen students' textual analysis skills with a focus on developing rhetorical analysis, the study of how a text makes meaning. Over the course of the year, students will develop familiarity with a variety of writing styles and forms including rhetorical analysis, literary analysis, critical response, close reading, opinion essay, and personal essay. Students should bring a laptop to class one day per week for in-class writing.

This is a 14.5-week semester class that ends on 5/12/23 and does not meet on 4/21/23.

Prerequisites: Students taking this class should have mastered the foundations of Introduction to Genre and British Literature (or similar English courses), are expected to take an active role in discussion and complete all writing assignments.

Topics in this Series: American Literature, Part I (Semester 1) and American Literature, Part II (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester receive priority pre-registration for second semester.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 2-3 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $43.00 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for the class pack of books and handouts.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current literature, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a half-credit (one semester) or full credit (both semesters) in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

This full-credit English course is designed to prepare students for college level academic writing. It will deepen student's critical reading and textual analysis skills by asking students to think critically about the "American Dream" and what it means to be an American by reading texts that engage with these topics from the 18th century to today. In this course, students will read and respond in writing to both fiction and non-fiction texts, and our analytical method will focus on rhetorical context (subject, purpose and audience).

Fall Semester will feature Daisy Miller (James), Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Jacobs), The Crucible (Miller), and The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Writing Lab: An essential component of this course will be an in-class Writing Lab. Students in this class should have mastered the basics of academic writing, such as constructing a thesis statement that makes an argument and organizing their thoughts through effective topic sentences and transition statements. This class will deepen students' textual analysis skills with a focus on developing rhetorical analysis, the study of how a text makes meaning. Over the course of the year, students will develop familiarity with a variety of writing styles and forms including rhetorical analysis, literary analysis, critical response, close reading, opinion essay, and personal essay. Students should bring a laptop to class one day per week for in-class writing.

Prerequisites: Students taking this class should have mastered the foundations of Introduction to Genre and British Literature (or similar English courses), are expected to take an active role in discussion and complete all writing assignments.

Topics in this Series: American Literature, Part I (Semester 1) and American Literature, Part II (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester receive priority pre-registration for second semester. This is a 13.5 week course that will not meet on 11/7/23.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 2-3 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $33.00 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for the class pack of books and handouts.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current literature, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a half-credit (one semester) or full credit (both semesters) in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

This full-credit English course is designed to prepare students for college level academic writing. It will deepen student's critical reading and textual analysis skills by asking students to think critically about the "American Dream" and what it means to be an American by reading texts that engage with these topics from the 18th century to today. In this course, students will read and respond in writing to both fiction and non-fiction texts, and our analytical method will focus on rhetorical context (subject, purpose and audience).

Spring Semester will feature Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston), The Things They Carried (Tim O'Brien), and a selection of other short fiction and poetry.

Writing Lab: An essential component of this course will be an in-class Writing Lab. Students in this class should have mastered the basics of academic writing, such as constructing a thesis statement that makes an argument and organizing their thoughts through effective topic sentences and transition statements. This class will deepen students' textual analysis skills with a focus on developing rhetorical analysis, the study of how a text makes meaning. Over the course of the year, students will develop familiarity with a variety of writing styles and forms including rhetorical analysis, literary analysis, critical response, close reading, opinion essay, and personal essay. Students should bring a laptop to class one day per week for in-class writing.

Prerequisites: Students taking this class should have mastered the foundations of Introduction to Genre and British Literature (or similar English courses), are expected to take an active role in discussion and complete all writing assignments.

Topics in this Series: American Literature, Part I (Semester 1) and American Literature, Part II (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester receive priority pre-registration for second semester.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 2-3 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $44.00 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for the class pack of books and handouts.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current literature, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a half-credit (one semester) or full credit (both semesters) in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

This full-credit English course is designed to prepare students for college level academic writing. It will deepen student's critical reading and textual analysis skills by asking students to think critically about the "American Dream" and what it means to be an American by reading texts that engage with these topics from the 18th century to today. In this course, students will read and respond in writing to both fiction and non-fiction texts, and our analytical method will focus on rhetorical context (subject, purpose and audience).

Fall Semester will feature Daisy Miller (James), Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Jacobs), The Crucible (Miller), and The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Writing Lab: An essential component of this course will be an in-class Writing Lab. Students in this class should have mastered the basics of academic writing, such as constructing a thesis statement that makes an argument and organizing their thoughts through effective topic sentences and transition statements. This class will deepen students' textual analysis skills with a focus on developing rhetorical analysis, the study of how a text makes meaning. Over the course of the year, students will develop familiarity with a variety of writing styles and forms including rhetorical analysis, literary analysis, critical response, close reading, opinion essay, and personal essay. Students should bring a laptop to class one day per week for in-class writing.

Prerequisites: Students taking this class should have mastered the foundations of Introduction to Genre and British Literature (or similar English courses), are expected to take an active role in discussion and complete all writing assignments.

Topics in this Series: American Literature, Part I (Semester 1) and American Literature, Part II (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester receive priority pre-registration for second semester. This is a 13.5 week course that will not meet on 11/7/23.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 2-3 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $33.00 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for the class pack of books and handouts.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current literature, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a half-credit (one semester) or full credit (both semesters) in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

This full-credit English course is designed to prepare students for college level academic writing. It will deepen student's critical reading and textual analysis skills by asking students to think critically about the "American Dream" and what it means to be an American by reading texts that engage with these topics from the 18th century to today. In this course, students will read and respond in writing to both fiction and non-fiction texts, and our analytical method will focus on rhetorical context (subject, purpose and audience).

Spring Semester will feature Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston), The Things They Carried (Tim O'Brien), and a selection of other short fiction and poetry.
Writing Lab: An essential component of this course will be an in-class Writing Lab. Students in this class should have mastered the basics of academic writing, such as constructing a thesis statement that makes an argument and organizing their thoughts through effective topic sentences and transition statements. This class will deepen students' textual analysis skills with a focus on developing rhetorical analysis, the study of how a text makes meaning. Over the course of the year, students will develop familiarity with a variety of writing styles and forms including rhetorical analysis, literary analysis, critical response, close reading, opinion essay, and personal essay. Students should bring a laptop to class one day per week for in-class writing.

Meeting Days:   This is a 14- week class that will not meet on March 26, March 29, May 14, or May 17.

Prerequisites: Students taking this class should have mastered the foundations of Introduction to Genre and British Literature (or similar English courses), are expected to take an active role in discussion and complete all writing assignments.

Topics in this Series: American Literature, Part I (Semester 1) and American Literature, Part II (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester receive priority pre-registration for second semester.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 2-3 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $44.00 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for the class pack of books and handouts.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current literature, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a half-credit (one semester) or full credit (both semesters) in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

This full-credit high school English class will focus on developing critical reading and writing skills through the study of a range of canonical and post-colonial genres and texts written in English. Through exposure to a variety of voices across time periods and geographical regions, students will investigate major themes, such as the importance of language as a locus of power, the continuity of human nature, and the role of the imagination.

Fall semester will focus on canonical British texts such as the epic poem Beowulf, selections from Canterbury Tales (Chaucer), Shakespeare's Macbeth, and a selection of Romantic poetry.

Writing Lab: An essential component of this course will be an in-class Writing Lab. Students will write two or three critical response papers and a full-scale literary analysis essay each term. Students will continue to hone the components of academic writing, including how to construct a thesis statement that makes an argument, how to support their ideas effectively with textual evidence, how to organize an argument logically, and how to cite sources in MLA format. Students should bring a laptop to class one day per week for in-class writing.

Topics in this Series: British Literature, Part I (Semester 1) and British Literature, Part II (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester receive priority pre-registration for second semester. This is a 13.5 week course that will not meet on 11/7/23.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level and have completed Introduction to Genre or equivalent high school level writing class. Students are expected to take an active role in discussion and complete all writing assignments.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 2-3 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $34.00 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for the class pack of books and handouts.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current literature, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a half-credit (one semester) or full credit (both semesters) in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

This full-credit high school English class will focus on developing critical reading and writing skills through the study of a range of canonical and post-colonial genres and texts written in English. Through exposure to a variety of voices across time periods and geographical regions, students will investigate major themes, such as the importance of language as a locus of power, the continuity of human nature, and the role of the imagination.

Spring semester will introduce students to post-colonial texts and genres featuring Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Mary Wollstonecraft), Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen), Frankenstein (Mary Shelley), and Paradise Lost (John Milton).

Writing Lab: An essential component of this course will be an in-class Writing Lab. Students will write two or three critical response papers and a full-scale literary analysis essay each term. Students will continue to hone the components of academic writing, including how to construct a thesis statement that makes an argument, how to support their ideas effectively with textual evidence, how to organize an argument logically, and how to cite sources in MLA format. Students should bring a laptop to class one day per week for in-class writing.

Topics in this Series: British Literature, Part I (Semester 1) and British Literature, Part II (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester receive priority pre-registration for second semester.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level and have completed Introduction to Genre or equivalent high school level writing class. Students are expected to take an active role in discussion and complete all writing assignments.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 2-3 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $22.00 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for the class pack of books and handouts.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current literature, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a half-credit (one semester) or full credit (both semesters) in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

This full-credit high school English class will focus on developing critical reading and writing skills through the study of a range of canonical and post-colonial genres and texts written in English. Through exposure to a variety of voices across time periods and geographical regions, students will investigate major themes, such as the importance of language as a locus of power, the continuity of human nature, and the role of the imagination.

Fall semester will focus on canonical British texts such as the epic poem Beowulf, Milton’s Paradise Lost, selections from Canterbury Tales (Chaucer), Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and a selection of Augustan and Romantic poetry.

Writing Lab: An essential component of this course will be an in-class Writing Lab. Students will write two or three critical response papers and a full-scale literary analysis essay each term. Students will continue to hone the components of academic writing, including how to construct a thesis statement that makes an argument, how to support their ideas effectively with textual evidence, how to organize an argument logically, and how to cite sources in MLA format. Students should bring a laptop to class one day per week for in-class writing.

Topics in this Series: British Literature, Part I (Semester 1) and British Literature, Part II (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester receive priority pre-registration for second semester.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level and have completed Introduction to Genre or equivalent high school level writing class. Students are expected to take an active role in discussion and complete all writing assignments.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 2-3 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $43.00 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for the class pack of books and handouts.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current literature, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a half-credit (one semester) or full credit (both semesters) in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

This full-credit high school English class will focus on developing critical reading and writing skills through the study of a range of canonical and post-colonial genres and texts written in English. Through exposure to a variety of voices across time periods and geographical regions, students will investigate major themes, such as the importance of language as a locus of power, the continuity of human nature, and the role of the imagination.

Fall semester will focus on canonical British texts such as the epic poem Beowulf, selections from Canterbury Tales (Chaucer), Shakespeare's Macbeth, and a selection of Romantic poetry.

Writing Lab: An essential component of this course will be an in-class Writing Lab. Students will write two or three critical response papers and a full-scale literary analysis essay each term. Students will continue to hone the components of academic writing, including how to construct a thesis statement that makes an argument, how to support their ideas effectively with textual evidence, how to organize an argument logically, and how to cite sources in MLA format. Students should bring a laptop to class one day per week for in-class writing.

Topics in this Series: British Literature, Part I (Semester 1) and British Literature, Part II (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester receive priority pre-registration for second semester. This is a 13.5 week course that will not meet on 11/7/23.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level and have completed Introduction to Genre or equivalent high school level writing class. Students are expected to take an active role in discussion and complete all writing assignments.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 2-3 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $34.00 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for the class pack of books and handouts.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current literature, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a half-credit (one semester) or full credit (both semesters) in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

This full-credit high school English class will focus on developing critical reading and writing skills through the study of a range of canonical and post-colonial genres and texts written in English. Through exposure to a variety of voices across time periods and geographical regions, students will investigate major themes, such as the importance of language as a locus of power, the continuity of human nature, and the role of the imagination.

Spring semester will introduce students to post-colonial texts and genres featuring Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Mary Wollstonecraft), Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen), Frankenstein (Mary Shelley), and Paradise Lost (John Milton). Other authors may include Achebe, Wordsworth, and Blake.

Writing Lab: An essential component of this course will be an in-class Writing Lab. Students will write two or three critical response papers and a full-scale literary analysis essay each term. Students will continue to hone the components of academic writing, including how to construct a thesis statement that makes an argument, how to support their ideas effectively with textual evidence, how to organize an argument logically, and how to cite sources in MLA format. Students should bring a laptop to class one day per week for in-class writing.

This is a 14.5-week semester class that ends on 5/12/23 and does not meet on 4/21/23.

Topics in this Series: British Literature, Part I (Semester 1) and British Literature, Part II (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester receive priority pre-registration for second semester.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level and have completed Introduction to Genre or equivalent high school level writing class. Students are expected to take an active role in discussion and complete all writing assignments.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 2-3 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $40.00 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for the class pack of books and handouts.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current literature, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a half-credit (one semester) or full credit (both semesters) in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

This full-credit high school English class will focus on developing critical reading and writing skills through the study of a range of canonical and post-colonial genres and texts written in English. Through exposure to a variety of voices across time periods and geographical regions, students will investigate major themes, such as the importance of language as a locus of power, the continuity of human nature, and the role of the imagination.

Spring semester will introduce students to post-colonial texts and genres featuring Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Mary Wollstonecraft), Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen), Frankenstein (Mary Shelley), and Paradise Lost (John Milton).

Writing Lab: An essential component of this course will be an in-class Writing Lab. Students will write two or three critical response papers and a full-scale literary analysis essay each term. Students will continue to hone the components of academic writing, including how to construct a thesis statement that makes an argument, how to support their ideas effectively with textual evidence, how to organize an argument logically, and how to cite sources in MLA format. Students should bring a laptop to class one day per week for in-class writing.

Meeting Days:  This is a 14- week class that will not meet on March 26, March 29, May 14, or May 17.

Topics in this Series: British Literature, Part I (Semester 1) and British Literature, Part II (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester receive priority pre-registration for second semester.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level and have completed Introduction to Genre or equivalent high school level writing class. Students are expected to take an active role in discussion and complete all writing assignments.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 2-3 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $22.00 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for the class pack of books and handouts.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current literature, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a half-credit (one semester) or full credit (both semesters) in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

In this bridge high school English workshop, students be introduced to the concepts of literary genres and analytical writing. Each quarter, the class will examine one select work or genre. Students will learn to recognize figurative language, tone, subtext and diction, identify symbolism and imagery, and develop an awareness of narrative perspective and of the social-historical contexts in which these works were created. Second quarter will feature Poetry.

Composition: Students will also learn the fundamental components of academic writing, including how to construct a thesis statement that makes an argument, how to support their ideas effectively with textual evidence, how to organize an argument logically, and how to cite sources in MLA format. Some class periods will be dedicated Writing Lab session in which students write in-class in order to get on-the-spot support and feedback from the teacher. Students should bring laptops to these class sessions.

Topics in this Series: The Novel (Quarter 1),  Poetry (Quarter 2), The Play (Quarter 3), and Short Fiction (Quarter 4). Students who continue from one quarter to the next will receive priority registration.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level, and it is recommended that students have had a middle school writing class.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 1-2 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $47.00 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for a poetry anthology.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current novel, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a partial credit in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

In this introductory high school English workshop, students will be introduced to the concepts of literary genres and analytical writing. Each quarter, the class will examine one select work or genre. Students will learn to recognize figurative language, tone, subtext and diction, identify symbolism and imagery, and develop an awareness of narrative perspective and of the social-historical contexts in which these works were created. Second quarter will feature Poetry from an anthology.

Composition: Students will also learn the fundamental components of academic writing, including how to construct a thesis statement that makes an argument, how to support their ideas effectively with textual evidence, how to organize an argument logically, and how to cite sources in MLA format. Some class periods will be dedicated Writing Lab session in which students write in-class in order to get on-the-spot support and feedback from the teacher. Students should bring laptops to these class sessions.

Schedule: This is a 6-week class that does not meet on 10/25/24

Topics in this Series: The Novel (Quarter 1), Poetry (Quarter 2), The Play (Quarter 3), and The Epic (Quarter 4). Students who continue from one quarter to the next will receive priority registration.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level, and it is recommended that students have had a middle school writing class.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 1-2 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $8.00 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for the class packet.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current novel, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a partial credit in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

In this introductory high school English workshop, students will be introduced to the concepts of literary genres and analytical writing. Each quarter, the class will examine one select work or genre. Students will learn to recognize figurative language, tone, subtext and diction, identify symbolism and imagery, and develop an awareness of narrative perspective and of the social-historical contexts in which these works were created. Second quarter will feature Poetry from an anthology.

Composition: Students will also learn the fundamental components of academic writing, including how to construct a thesis statement that makes an argument, how to support their ideas effectively with textual evidence, how to organize an argument logically, and how to cite sources in MLA format. Some class periods will be dedicated Writing Lab session in which students write in-class in order to get on-the-spot support and feedback from the teacher. Students should bring laptops to these class sessions.

Topics in this Series: The Novel (Quarter 1), Poetry (Quarter 2), The Play (Quarter 3), and The Epic (Quarter 4). Students who continue from one quarter to the next will receive priority registration.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level, and it is recommended that students have had a middle school writing class.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 1-2 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $54.00 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for the select novel.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current novel, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a partial credit in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

In this bridge high school English workshop, students be introduced to the concepts of literary genres and analytical writing. Each quarter, the class will examine one select work or genre. Students will learn to recognize figurative language, tone, subtext and diction, identify symbolism and imagery, and develop an awareness of narrative perspective and of the social-historical contexts in which these works were created. Fourth quarter will feature a the Epic tale featuring Robert  Fagle's translation of Homer's Odyssey.

Composition: Students will also learn the fundamental components of academic writing, including how to construct a thesis statement that makes an argument, how to support their ideas effectively with textual evidence, how to organize an argument logically, and how to cite sources in MLA format. Some class periods will be dedicated Writing Lab session in which students write in-class in order to get on-the-spot support and feedback from the teacher. Students should bring laptops to these class sessions.

Topics in this Series: The Novel (Quarter 1),  Poetry (Quarter 2), The Play (Quarter 3), and The Epic (Quarter 4). Students who continue from one quarter to the next will receive priority registration.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level, and it is recommended that students have had a middle school writing class.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 1-2 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $13.00 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for the select novel.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current novel, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a partial credit in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

In this introductory high school English workshop, students will be introduced to the concepts of literary genres and analytical writing. Each quarter, the class will examine one select work or genre. Students will learn to recognize figurative language, tone, subtext and diction, identify symbolism and imagery, and develop an awareness of narrative perspective and of the social-historical contexts in which these works were created.
Fourth quarter will feature a the Epic tale featuring Robert Fagle's translation of Homer's Odyssey.

Composition: Students will also learn the fundamental components of academic writing, including how to construct a thesis statement that makes an argument, how to support their ideas effectively with textual evidence, how to organize an argument logically, and how to cite sources in MLA format. Some class periods will be dedicated Writing Lab session in which students write in-class in order to get on-the-spot support and feedback from the teacher. Students should bring laptops to these class sessions.

Meeting Days:   This is a 6- week class that will not meet on March 29 or May 17

Topics in this Series: The Novel (Quarter 1), Poetry (Quarter 2), The Play (Quarter 3), and The Epic (Quarter 4). Students who continue from one quarter to the next will receive priority registration.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level, and it is recommended that students have had a middle school writing class.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 1-2 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $13.00 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for the select novel.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current novel, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a partial credit in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

In this bridge high school English workshop, students be introduced to the concepts of literary genres and analytical writing. Each quarter, the class will examine one select work or genre. Students will learn to recognize figurative language, tone, subtext and diction, identify symbolism and imagery, and develop an awareness of narrative perspective and of the social-historical contexts in which these works were created. First quarter will feature The Novel: Catcher in the Rye (J. D. Sallinger).

Composition: Students will also learn the fundamental components of academic writing, including how to construct a thesis statement that makes an argument, how to support their ideas effectively with textual evidence, how to organize an argument logically, and how to cite sources in MLA format. Some class periods will be dedicated Writing Lab session in which students write in-class in order to get on-the-spot support and feedback from the teacher. Students should bring laptops to these class sessions.

Topics in this Series: The Novel (Quarter 1),  Poetry (Quarter 2), The Play (Quarter 3), and Short Fiction (Quarter 4). Students who continue from one quarter to the next will receive priority registration.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level, and it is recommended that students have had a middle school writing class.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 1-2 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $16.00 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for the select novel.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current novel, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a component, or partial credit, in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

In this introductory high school English workshop, students will be introduced to the concepts of literary genres and analytical writing. Each quarter, the class will examine one select work or genre. Students will learn to recognize figurative language, tone, subtext and diction, identify symbolism and imagery, and develop an awareness of narrative perspective and of the social-historical contexts in which these works were created. First quarter will feature The Novel: Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Sallinger.

Composition: Students will also learn the fundamental components of academic writing, including how to construct a thesis statement that makes an argument, how to support their ideas effectively with textual evidence, how to organize an argument logically, and how to cite sources in MLA format. Some class periods will be dedicated Writing Lab session in which students write in-class in order to get on-the-spot support and feedback from the teacher. Students should bring laptops to these class sessions.

Topics in this Series: The Novel (Quarter 1), Poetry (Quarter 2), The Play (Quarter 3), and The Epic (Quarter 4). Students who continue from one quarter to the next will receive priority registration.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level, and it is recommended that students have had a middle school writing class.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 1-2 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $15.00 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for the select novel.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current novel, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a partial credit in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

In this introductory high school English workshop, students will be introduced to the concepts of literary genres and analytical writing. Each quarter, the class will examine one select work or genre. Students will learn to recognize figurative language, tone, subtext and diction, identify symbolism and imagery, and develop an awareness of narrative perspective and of the social-historical contexts in which these works were created. First quarter will feature The Novel: Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Sallinger.

Composition: Students will also learn the fundamental components of academic writing, including how to construct a thesis statement that makes an argument, how to support their ideas effectively with textual evidence, how to organize an argument logically, and how to cite sources in MLA format. Some class periods will be dedicated Writing Lab session in which students write in-class in order to get on-the-spot support and feedback from the teacher. Students should bring laptops to these class sessions.

Topics in this Series: The Novel (Quarter 1), Poetry (Quarter 2), The Play (Quarter 3), and The Epic (Quarter 4). Students who continue from one quarter to the next will receive priority registration.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level, and it is recommended that students have had a middle school writing class.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 1-2 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $15.00 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for the select novel.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current novel, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a partial credit in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

In this bridge high school English workshop, students be introduced to the concepts of literary genres and analytical writing. Each quarter, the class will examine one select work or genre. Students will learn to recognize figurative language, tone, subtext and diction, identify symbolism and imagery, and develop an awareness of narrative perspective and of the social-historical contexts in which these works were created. Third quarter will feature The Play: Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare).

Composition: Students will also learn the fundamental components of academic writing, including how to construct a thesis statement that makes an argument, how to support their ideas effectively with textual evidence, how to organize an argument logically, and how to cite sources in MLA format. Some class periods will be dedicated Writing Lab session in which students write in-class in order to get on-the-spot support and feedback from the teacher. Students should bring laptops to these class sessions.

Topics in this Series: The Novel (Quarter 1),  Poetry (Quarter 2), The Play (Quarter 3), and Short Fiction (Quarter 4). Students who continue from one quarter to the next will receive priority registration.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level, and it is recommended that students have had a middle school writing class.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 1-2 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $9.00 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for the select novel.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current novel, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a component, or partial credit, in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

In this introductory high school English workshop, students will be introduced to the concepts of literary genres and analytical writing. Each quarter, the class will examine one select work or genre. Students will learn to recognize figurative language, tone, subtext and diction, identify symbolism and imagery, and develop an awareness of narrative perspective and of the social-historical contexts in which these works were created. Third quarter will feature The Play Romeo and Juliet Folger Edition by Shakespeare.

Composition: Students will also learn the fundamental components of academic writing, including how to construct a thesis statement that makes an argument, how to support their ideas effectively with textual evidence, how to organize an argument logically, and how to cite sources in MLA format. Some class periods will be dedicated Writing Lab session in which students write in-class in order to get on-the-spot support and feedback from the teacher. Students should bring laptops to these class sessions.

Topics in this Series: The Novel (Quarter 1), Poetry (Quarter 2), The Play (Quarter 3), and The Epic (Quarter 4). Students who continue from one quarter to the next will receive priority registration.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level, and it is recommended that students have had a middle school writing class.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 1-2 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: All assignments will be posted in a Google Classroom management site. Students will need their own gmail accounts to access Google Classroom.

Assessments: Students' written assignments will be graded using a rubric and assigned points that the homeschool parent can use when assigning an overall class grade.

Textbook/Materials: Because students will need clean, inexpensive copies of each novel to mark in, and they must be able to refer to the passages on the same page numbers, copies of mass market paperbacks will be pre-purchased and bundled for students. (See Supply Fee below).

Supply Fee: A class fee of $8.50 is due payable to Compass on the first day of class for the select novel.

What to Bring: Students should bring the current novel, paper, pen or pencil and highlighter to class each week. Some students may wish to bring paper clips, adhesive flags or post-it notes for marking passages/pages.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a partial credit in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

Overview

The Introduction to Literary Analysis & Writing is a high school student's first look at the higher-level relationship between literature and personal writing. Literary analysis and critical writing move a teen from being merely a good reader- a middle school skill- to becoming a scholarly reader and diagnostic writer which are the foundations of high school and college level inquiry into all forms of written works.

In this course, literature is not restricted to a particular genre or form, and writing is not limited to a common five-paragraph composition. Instead, literature is presented as a survey, sampling many different types of works, and composition is approached as the development of a student's personal responses to what he reads. During the first semester, students will examine the basic elements of literature, and second semester will evaluate forms and genres to create a "big picture" of the development of literature.

Literature

First semester Literary Analysis will focus on the basic elements of literature- character, setting, theme, plot, and conflict- and how they interact to create story. These building blocks exist across all forms of literature, so the class may evaluate the plot in an epic poem, a character in a classic play, or the setting in a short story. Some well-known literature will be used to introduce students to the various literary elements, and new works will be studied to demonstrate the best examples of a vivid fictional universe, a strong narrator, beloved (or feared) characters, and other literary components. Examples of some literature that students may read in this course are The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, Journey to the Center of Earth by Jules Verne, and Lord of the Flies by William Golding. The full reading list will be presented in the course syllabus at the beginning of the term. In addition, students will be asked to read several selections over the summer. Students may also need to do some supplemental, parallel personal reading on his/her own to support the semester project.

Composition

First semester Writing will focus on personal response to literature, with the core being a personal writing journal. The students' journals will be a place to record what they think and feel about what they are reading. Students will learn to annotate, to cite passages from text, and to format. Notes made in the journals will be used to develop short, informal written pieces about the literature read in the course. Observations from the student's journal will also be used to collect supporting, textural evidence to support the reader's opinions which will be formulated into a thesis (personal position). Written assignments will include summaries, compare/contrast analyses, and parallel structure writings that focus on character, setting, plot, conflict, etc., to further underscore and assess student's understanding of the building blocks of literature. First semester will conclude with a culminating project on a subgenre of the student's own choosing which will analyze works for character, plot, setting, and other literary elements studied.

Class Structure

This course is part of a custom curriculum developed and team-taught by Anne Sharp and Melanie Kosar. The courses are designed in a sequential program that complements the developmental skills of the adolescent learner. It is a seminar-style approach that mirrors university literature and writing classes. Mrs. Kosar will teach the literature components of the course on Wednesdays, and Mrs. Sharp will teach the writing portion of the class on Fridays.

Topics in this Series: Elements of Literature (Semester 1) and Forms of Literature (Semester 2). Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level. Workload: Students should expect to spend 3-4 hours per week outside of class. In addition, students should complete the summer assignments consisting of the literature identified above and a hand-out of literary terminology to learn. Assignments: will be posted on a Google Classroom. Assessments: are portfolio-based. Students will create a digital portfolio that incorporates annotated reading lists, reflects individual interests and accomplishments and showcases a variety of writing. Textbook: Students should purchase or borrow the assigned literature. In some cases, specific editions will be identified with ISBN numbers so students can be on the "same page" (literally!) What to Bring: Students should bring paper or notebook, pen or pencil, current literature selection, and personal writing journal to class each week. Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a credit in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

Overview

The Introduction to Literary Analysis & Writing is a high school student's first look at the higher-level relationship between literature and personal writing. Literary analysis and critical writing move a teen from being merely a good reader- a middle school skill- to becoming a scholarly reader and diagnostic writer which are the foundations of high school and college level inquiry into all forms of written works.

In this seminar-style course, literature is not restricted to a particular genre or form, and writing is not limited to a common five-paragraph composition. Instead, literature is presented as a survey, sampling many different types of works, and composition is approached as the development of a student's personal responses to what he reads. During the first semester, students will examine the basic elements of literature, and second semester will evaluate forms and genres to create a "big picture" of the development of literature.

Literature

First semester Literary Analysis will focus on the basic elements of literature- character, setting, theme, plot, and conflict- and how they interact to create story. These building blocks exist across all forms of literature, so the class may evaluate the plot in an epic poem, a character in a classic play, or the setting in a short story. Some well-known literature will be used to introduce students to the various literary elements, and new works will be studied to demonstrate the best examples of a vivid fictional universe, a strong narrator, beloved (or feared) characters, and other literary components. Examples of some literature that students may read in this course are The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Sallinger), Nation (Terry Pratchett), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams), A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith), Journey to the Center of Earth (Jules Verne), Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury), and a selection of short stories. The full reading list will be presented in the course syllabus at the beginning of the term. In addition, students may be asked to read several selections over the summer.

Composition

First semester Writing will focus on personal response to literature, with the core being a personal writing journal. The students' journals will be a place to record what they think and feel about what they are reading. Students will learn to annotate, to cite passages from text, and to format. Notes made in the journals will be used to develop short, informal written pieces about the literature read in the course. Observations from the student's journal will also be used to collect supporting, textural evidence to support the reader's opinions which will be formulated into a thesis (personal position). Written assignments will include summaries, compare/contrast analyses, and parallel structure writings that focus on character, setting, plot, conflict, etc., to further underscore and assess student's understanding of the building blocks of literature. First semester will conclude with a culminating project on a sub-genre of the student's own choosing which will analyze works for character, plot, setting, and other literary elements studied.

Class Structure This course is part of a custom curriculum developed and team-taught by Anne Sharp and Melanie Kosar. The courses are designed in a sequential program that complements the developmental skills of the adolescent learner. It is a seminar-style approach that mirrors university literature and writing classes. Note:All class meetings will be in a virtual classroom, providing synchronous online instruction via videoconferencing for fall semester. At the instructors' option, the class may transition to in-person instruction for second semester as COVID-19 scenarios improve.

Topics in this Series: Elements of Literature (Semester 1) and Forms of Literature (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester receive priority pre-registration for second semester.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level, and it is recommended that students have had a middle school writing class.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 3-4 hours per week outside of class. In addition, students should complete the summer assignments consisting of the literature identified above and a hand-out of literary terminology to learn.

Assignments: will be posted on a Google Classroom.

Assessments: are portfolio-based. Students will create a digital portfolio that incorporates annotated reading lists, reflects individual interests and accomplishments and showcases a variety of writing. See the Compass memorandum for more information on assessments in Language Arts.

Textbook: Students should purchase or borrow the assigned literature. In some cases, specific editions will be identified with ISBN numbers so students can be on the "same page" (literally!)

What to Bring: Students should bring paper or notebook, pen or pencil, current literature selection, and personal writing journal to both class meetings each week.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a credit in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

Overview

The Introduction to Literary Analysis & Writing is a high school student's first look at the higher-level relationship between literature and personal writing. Literary analysis and critical writing move a teen from being merely a good reader- a middle school skill- to becoming a scholarly reader and diagnostic writer which are the foundations of high school and college level inquiry into all forms of written works.

In this course, literature is not restricted to a particular genre or form, and writing is not limited to a common five-paragraph composition. Instead, literature is presented as a survey, sampling many different types of works, and composition is approached as the development of a student's personal responses to what he reads. During the second semester, students will examine forms and genres to create a "big picture" of the development of literature.

Literature

Second semester Literary Analysis will focus on forms of literature- novels, short stories, essays, plays, poems, etc.- and the different ways they tell a story. Some well-known literature will be used to introduce students to the different forms.

Composition

Second semester writing will continue to incorporate the personal response to literature, through a personal writing journal. The students' journals will be a place to record what they think and feel about what they are reading. Students will learn to annotate, to cite passages from text, and to format. Notes made in the journals will be used to develop short, informal written pieces about the literature read in the course. Observations from the student's journal will also be used to collect supporting, textural evidence to support the reader's opinions which will be formulated into a thesis (personal position). Written assignments will include summaries, compare/contrast analyses, and parallel structure writings that focus on character, setting, plot, conflict, etc., to further underscore and assess student's understanding of the building blocks of literature. Second semester will conclude with a culminating project on a subgenre of the student's own choosing which compare different forms studied.

Class Structure

This course is part of a custom curriculum developed and team-taught by Anne Sharp and Melanie Kosar. The courses are designed in a sequential program that complements the developmental skills of the adolescent learner. It is a seminar-style approach that mirrors university literature and writing classes. Mrs. Kosar will teach the literature components of the course on Wednesdays, and Mrs. Sharp will teach the writing portion of the class on Fridays.

Topics in this Series: Elements of Literature (Semester 1) and Forms of Literature (Semester 2). Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level. Workload: Students should expect to spend 3-4 hours per week outside of class. In addition, students should complete the summer assignments consisting of the literature identified above and a hand-out of literary terminology to learn. Assignments: will be posted on a Google Classroom. Assessments: are portfolio-based. Students will create a digital portfolio that incorporates annotated reading lists, reflects individual interests and accomplishments and showcases a variety of writing. Textbook: Students should purchase or borrow the assigned literature. In some cases, specific editions will be identified with ISBN numbers so students can be on the "same page" (literally!) What to Bring: Students should bring paper or notebook, pen or pencil, current literature selection, and personal writing journal to class each week. Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a credit in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

Overview

The Introduction to Literary Analysis & Writing is a high school student's first look at the higher-level relationship between literature and personal writing. Literary analysis and critical writing move a teen from being merely a good reader- a middle school skill- to becoming a scholarly reader and diagnostic writer which are the foundations of high school and college level inquiry into all forms of written works.

In this seminar-style course, literature is not restricted to a particular genre or form, and writing is not limited to a common five-paragraph composition. Instead, literature is presented as a survey, sampling many different types of works, and composition is approached as the development of a student's personal responses to what he reads. During the second semester, students will examine forms and genres to create a "big picture" of the development of literature.

Literature

Second semester Literary Analysis will focus on forms of literature- novels, short stories, essays, plays, poems, etc.- and the different ways they tell a story. Some well-known literature will be used to introduce students to the different forms. Some well-known literature will be used to introduce students to the various literary elements, and new works will be studied to demonstrate the best examples of a vivid fictional universe, a strong narrator, beloved (or feared) characters, and other literary components. Examples of some literature that students may read in this course are The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho), Journey to the Center of Earth (Jules Verne), Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury), All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr), Brown Girl Dreaming (Jacqueline Woodson), and Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston). The full reading list will be presented in the course syllabus at the beginning of the term.

Composition

Second semester writing will continue to incorporate the personal response to literature, through a personal writing journal. The students' journals will be a place to record what they think and feel about what they are reading. Students will learn to annotate, to cite passages from text, and to format. Notes made in the journals will be used to develop short, informal written pieces about the literature read in the course. Observations from the student's journal will also be used to collect supporting, textural evidence to support the reader's opinions which will be formulated into a thesis (personal position). Written assignments will include summaries, compare/contrast analyses, and parallel structure writings that focus on character, setting, plot, conflict, etc., to further underscore and assess student's understanding of the building blocks of literature. First semester will conclude with a culminating project on a subgenre of the student's own choosing which will analyze works for character, plot, setting, and other literary elements studied.

Class Structure

This course is part of a custom curriculum developed and team-taught by Anne Sharp and Melanie Kosar. The courses are designed in a sequential program that complements the developmental skills of the adolescent learner. It is a seminar-style approach that mirrors university literature and writing classes. Mrs. Kosar will teach the literature components of the course on Wednesdays, and Mrs. Sharp will teach the writing portion of the class on Fridays.

Note:All class meetings will be in a virtual classroom, providing synchronous online instruction via videoconferencing for the remainder of the year.

Topics in this Series: Elements of Literature (Semester 1) and Forms of Literature (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester receive priority pre-registration for second semester.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level, and it is recommended that students have had a middle school writing class.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 3-4 hours per week outside of class. In addition, students should complete the summer assignments consisting of the literature identified above and a hand-out of literary terminology to learn.

Assignments: will be posted on a Google Classroom.

Assessments: are portfolio-based. Students will create a digital portfolio that incorporates annotated reading lists, reflects individual interests and accomplishments and showcases a variety of writing. See the Compass memorandum for more information on assessments in Language Arts.

Textbook: Students should purchase or borrow the assigned literature. In some cases, specific editions will be identified with ISBN numbers so students can be on the "same page" (literally!)

What to Bring: Students should bring paper or notebook, pen or pencil, current literature selection, and personal writing journal to both class meetings each week.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a credit in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

Overview

Modern Narratives focuses on the incorporation of style, voice, and tone in literature and in writing. Viewing literature as "published writing", students will examine the products and processes of other writers in order to understand and refine their own. Through the analysis of professional and student works, students will explore what makes truly great writing.

Literature

First semester of Modern Narratives in Nonfictionwill examine the works of great essayists. Examples of some essays that may read in this course are those by Henry David Thoreau, George Orwell, Virginia Woolf, Robert Benchley, James Baldwin, Joan Didion, Annie Dillard, and Joyce Carol Oates. In addition, the class will use style manuals and classic writing texts such as Strunk & White's The Elements of Styleand William Zinsser's On Writing Well. The full reading list will be presented in the course syllabus at the beginning of the term. In addition, students will be asked to read several selections over the summer. Students may also need to do some supplemental, parallel personal reading on his/her own to support the semester project.

Composition

First semester Senior Composition, dovetailing with the college admissions season, will focus on "the personal essay", writing to prompts, writing with a deadline, and ruthless editing (a.k.a. "meeting a word count"). Going beyond the five-paragraph template that encourages "cookie cutter" essays, students will create a unique architecture embedded with personal style, voice, and narrative structure. In short, students will uncover not just who they are as individuals, but who they are as writers... and how to fuse these two identities into a creative, organized, clear, and elegant essay.

In the process, students will master their writing process and identify personal writing strengths. These strengths will be developed into a writing workshop that they will present to classmates and the Compass community. Portfolios (now a potential college resume addition) will be expanded to include essays, research papers, and extracurricular support (artwork, performances, powerpoints, etc.) .

This course is part of a custom curriculum developed and team-taught by Anne Sharp and Melanie Kosar. The courses are designed in a sequential program that complements the developmental skills of the adolescent learner. It is a seminar-style approach that mirrors university literature and writing classes. Mrs. Kosar will teach the literature components of the course on Wednesdays, and Mrs. Sharp will teach the writing portion of the class on Fridays.

Topics in this Series: Modern Narratives in Nonfiction Works (Semester 1) and Nobel and Pulitzer Prize Writings (Semester 2). Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level. Workload: Students should expect to spend 3-4 hours per week outside of classAssignments: will be posted on a Google Classroom. Assessments: are portfolio-based. Students will create a digital portfolio that incorporates annotated reading lists, reflects individual interests and accomplishments and showcases a variety of writing. Textbook: Students should purchase or borrow the assigned literature. In some cases, specific editions will be identified with ISBN numbers so students can be on the "same page" (literally!) What to Bring: Students should bring paper or notebook, pen or pencil, current literature selection, and personal writing journal to class each week. Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a credit in English for purposes of a high school transcript.12.06.0612

Overview

Modern Narratives in Nonfiction Work is a seminar-style course that focuses on the incorporation of style, voice, and tone in literature and in writing. Viewing literature as "published writing", students will examine the products and processes of other writers in order to understand and refine their own. Through the analysis of professional and student works, students will explore what makes truly great writing.

Literature

First semester of Modern Narratives in Nonfiction will examine the works of great essayists. A partial list of reading selections includes I am Malala (Malala Yousafzai), I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou), essays by Joan Didion and Ray Bradbury, speeches by Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, etc., Ted Talks, and an discussion of "real" versus "fake" news. In addition, the class will use style manuals and classic writing texts such as Strunk & White's The Elements of Style and William Zinsser's On Writing Well. The full reading list will be presented in the course syllabus at the beginning of the term. In addition, students will be asked to read several selections over the summer. Students will be assigned brief, individual research assignments and take turns leading the class discussion on topics related to the featured author or event.

Composition

First semester Senior Composition, dovetailing with the college admissions season, will focus on "the personal essay", writing to prompts, writing with a deadline, and ruthless editing (a.k.a. "meeting a word count"). Going beyond the five-paragraph template that encourages "cookie cutter" essays, students will create a unique architecture embedded with personal style, voice, and narrative structure. In short, students will uncover not just who they are as individuals, but who they are as writers... and how to fuse these two identities into a creative, organized, clear, and elegant essay.

In the process, students will master their writing process and identify personal writing strengths. These strengths will be developed into a writing workshop that they will present to classmates and the Compass community. Portfolios (now a potential college resume addition) will be expanded to include essays, research papers, and extracurricular support (artwork, performances, PowerPoints, etc.).

Class Structure This course is part of a custom curriculum developed and team-taught by Anne Sharp and Melanie Kosar. The courses are designed in a sequential program that complements the developmental skills of the adolescent learner. It is a seminar-style approach that mirrors university literature and writing classes. Note:All class meetings will be in a virtual classroom, providing synchronous online instruction via videoconferencing for fall semester. At the instructors' option, the class may transition to in-person instruction for second semester as COVID-19 scenarios improve.

Topics in this Series: Modern Narratives in Nonfiction Works (Semester 1) and Nobel and Pulitzer Prize Writings (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester receive priority pre-registration for second semester.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 3-4 hours per week outside of class

Assignments: will be posted on a Google Classroom.

Assessments: are portfolio-based. Students will create a digital portfolio that incorporates annotated reading lists, reflects individual interests and accomplishments and showcases a variety of writing. See the Compass memorandum for more information on assessments in Language Arts.

Textbook: Students should purchase or borrow the assigned literature. In some cases, specific editions will be identified with ISBN numbers so students can be on the "same page" (literally!)

What to Bring: Students should bring paper or notebook, pen or pencil, current literature selection, and personal writing journal to both class meetings each week.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a credit in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

Overview

Modern Narratives focuses on the incorporation of style, voice, and tone in literature and in writing. Viewing literature as "published writing", students will examine the products and processes of other writers in order to understand and refine their own. Through the analysis of professional and student works, students will explore what makes truly great writing.

Literature

First semester of Modern Narratives in Nonfiction will examine the works of great essayists. Examples of some essays that may read in this course are those by Henry David Thoreau, George Orwell, Virginia Woolf, Robert Benchley, James Baldwin, Joan Didion, Annie Dillard, and Joyce Carol Oates. In addition, the class will use style manuals and classic writing texts such as Strunk & White's The Elements of Styleand William Zinsser's On Writing Well. The full reading list will be presented in the course syllabus at the beginning of the term. In addition, students will be asked to read several selections over the summer. Students may also need to do some supplemental, parallel personal reading on his/her own to support the semester project.

Composition

First semester Senior Composition, dovetailing with the college admissions season, will focus on "the personal essay", writing to prompts, writing with a deadline, and ruthless editing (a.k.a. "meeting a word count"). Going beyond the five-paragraph template that encourages "cookie cutter" essays, students will create a unique architecture embedded with personal style, voice, and narrative structure. In short, students will uncover not just who they are as individuals, but who they are as writers... and how to fuse these two identities into a creative, organized, clear, and elegant essay.

In the process, students will master their writing process and identify personal writing strengths. These strengths will be developed into a writing workshop that they will present to classmates and the Compass community. Portfolios (now a potential college resume addition) will be expanded to include essays, research papers, and extracurricular support (artwork, performances, powerpoints, etc.) .

This course is part of a custom curriculum developed and team-taught by Anne Sharp and Melanie Kosar. The courses are designed in a sequential program that complements the developmental skills of the adolescent learner. It is a seminar-style approach that mirrors university literature and writing classes. Mrs. Kosar will teach the literature components of the course on Wednesdays, and Mrs. Sharp will teach the writing portion of the class on Fridays.

Topics in this Series: Modern Narratives in Nonfiction Works (Semester 1) and Nobel and Pulitzer Prize Writings (Semester 2). Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level. Workload: Students should expect to spend 3-4 hours per week outside of classAssignments: will be posted on a Google Classroom. Assessments: are portfolio-based. Students will create a digital portfolio that incorporates annotated reading lists, reflects individual interests and accomplishments and showcases a variety of writing. Textbook: Students should purchase or borrow the assigned literature. In some cases, specific editions will be identified with ISBN numbers so students can be on the "same page" (literally!) What to Bring: Students should bring paper or notebook, pen or pencil, current literature selection, and personal writing journal to class each week. Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a credit in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

Overview

Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-Winning Non Fiction is a seminar-style course that focuses on the incorporation of style, voice, and tone in literature and in writing. Viewing literature as "published writing", students will examine the products and processes of other writers in order to understand and refine their own. Through the analysis of professional and student works, students will explore what makes truly great writing.

Literature

Second semester will examine Nobel and Pulitzer-Prize winning non-fiction. Examples of some essays that may read in this course include Long Day's Journey Into Night (Eugene O'Neill), The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway), The Bluest Eyes (Toni Morrison) and other prize-winning poets and journalists. In addition, the class will use style manuals and classic writing texts such as Strunk & White's The Elements of Style and William Zinsser's On Writing Well. The full reading list will be presented in the course syllabus at the beginning of the term. In addition, students will be asked to read several selections over the summer. Students will be assigned brief, individual research assignments and take turns leading the class discussion on topics related to the featured author or event.

Composition

Second semester Senior Composition will focus on criteria for the assessment of writing, the writing that fulfills that criteria, and how a writer can meet those expectations. Students will develop a variety of non-fiction writings that reflect communication in the "real world" such as writing boards, contests, ads/solicitations conveying criteria, awards, letters of acceptance and rejection, press releases, announcements, decisions. Finally, students will set their own writing goals called, Personal Writing Agendas (PWAs) and design the criteria for exploration of a genre such as poetry, personal narrative, op-ed, or articles. Going beyond the five-paragraph template that encourages "cookie cutter" essays, students will create a unique architecture embedded with personal style, voice, and narrative structure. In short, students will uncover not just who they are as individuals, but who they are as writers... and how to fuse these two identities into a creative, organized, clear, and elegant essay.

In the process, students will master their writing process and identify personal writing strengths. These strengths will be developed into a writing workshop that they will present to classmates and the Compass community. Portfolios (now a potential college resume addition) will be expanded to include essays, research papers, and extracurricular support (artwork, performances, PowerPoints, etc.).

Class Structure

This course is part of a custom curriculum developed and team-taught by Anne Sharp and Melanie Kosar. The courses are designed in a sequential program that complements the developmental skills of the adolescent learner. It is a seminar-style approach that mirrors university literature and writing classes. Mrs. Kosar will teach the literature components of the course on Wednesdays, and Mrs. Sharp will teach the writing portion of the class on Fridays.

Topics in this Series: Modern Narratives in Nonfiction Works (Semester 1) and Nobel and Pulitzer Prize Writings (Semester 2). Students continuing from first semester receive priority pre-registration for second semester.

Note:All class meetings will be in a virtual classroom, providing synchronous online instruction via videoconferencing for the remainder of the year.

Prerequisites: Students should be able to read at grade level.

Workload: Students should expect to spend 3-4 hours per week outside of class.

Assignments: will be posted on a Google Classroom.

Assessments: are portfolio-based. Students will create a digital portfolio that incorporates annotated reading lists, reflects individual interests and accomplishments and showcases a variety of writing. See the Compass memorandum for more information on assessments in Language Arts.

Textbook: Students should purchase or borrow the assigned literature. In some cases, specific editions will be identified with ISBN numbers so students can be on the "same page" (literally!)

What to Bring: Students should bring paper or notebook, pen or pencil, current literature selection, and personal writing journal to both class meetings each week.

Credit: Homeschool families may wish to count this course as a credit in English for purposes of a high school transcript.

Be part of a team! Join the Compass Collaborative newspaper staff. The staff is a mixed-age team with students from 6th to 12th grade.

Students will learn about journalism and develop writing skills. They will craft effective articles, conduct interviews, and write reviews. Each quarter, writing assignments and responsibilities will be divided based on individual interests. Students will each contribute at least 2-3 items to the Collaborative edition each quarter.

While research and data collection will occur outside of class, a portion of staff meetings will be dedicated to writing and editing. The newspaper advisor will use these sessions to demonstrate what constitutes 'good' writing. All staff members will practice editing skills to improve grammar, punctuation, and overall clarity and accuracy in their writing. Students will be informally paired for peer review and feedback on their writing.

The newspaper staff will also learn about the formatting, layout, and graphic design elements that go into the newspaper. Interested students will serve as layout apprentices and learn to use Microsoft Publisher.

All students register for the same class, and roles and responsibilities will be reviewed and delegated during the first meetings. Students should expect to work on assignments outside of class and will be expected to bring a laptop, notebook, and pen/pencil to each class meeting.

Be part of a team! Join the Compass Collaborative newspaper staff. The Compass student newspaper is growing to include a faculty advisor to help coordinate and schedule the efforts of the student editors, writers, and contributors. The staff will be a mixed age team, with students from 6th-12th grade, where younger students will be informally paired with older students for peer review and feedback on their writing.

Students will learn to write with a purpose and create effective factual articles, interviews, and reviews. While taking notes, gathering data, and collecting details may happen outside of class, part of each weekly staff meeting will be dedicated to writing. In weekly meetings, the advisor will discuss examples from a variety of printed media to demonstrate what constitutes 'good' writing and what is less effective. The group will also learn about the formatting, layout, and graphic design elements that go into the newspaper. All staff members will practice editing skills to improve grammar, punctation, and overall clarity and accuracy in their writing.

Each quarter, the group will decide on writing assignments and divvy up responsibilities based on individual interests. Staff members will report on Compass news and events, interview teachers, review classes, cover clubs, and write about community happenings that would interest other homeschoolers. Students may opt to write reviews of books, movies, tv shows, games, restaurants, or field trips. They may compose editorials, short stories, or poetry. Some may wish to create an ongoing column about a particular interest such as pets, sports, or space. Staff members may submit their own artwork, comics, or photographs, but will also work with Compass art teachers to get scans of other students' works each quarter. Staff may also elect to include regular features such as a recipe, a puzzle, riddles, jokes, trivia questions, or student poll result in each issue. Staff members will each contribute at least 2-3 items to the Collaborative edition each quarter.

Student staff will serve not only as writers and contributors, but also as editors of works that are submitted by other students. One or two high school members will have the opportunity to serve as editors of the student paper, roles that demonstrate leadership and are favorable in the college application process. In addition, one or two other students will serve the layout editors and will be expected to learn newspaper layout using Microsoft Publisher. All students register for the same class, and roles and responsibilities will be reviewed and delegated during the first class meeting. Students will be expected to bring a laptop, notebook, and pen/pencil to each class meeting.

Note: There will be no class meeting on Sept 13, but students will be expected to work on their assignments. To make up for the missed week, 10 minutes will be added to the end of all 6 class sessions.

Be part of a team! Join the Compass Collaborative newspaper staff. The staff is a mixed-age team with students from 6th to 12th grade.

Students will learn about journalism and develop writing skills. They will craft effective articles, conduct interviews, and write reviews. Each quarter, writing assignments and responsibilities will be divided based on individual interests. Students will each contribute at least 2-3 items to the Collaborative edition each quarter.

While research and data collection will occur outside of class, a portion of staff meetings will be dedicated to writing and editing. The newspaper advisor will use these sessions to demonstrate what constitutes 'good' writing. All staff members will practice editing skills to improve grammar, punctuation, and overall clarity and accuracy in their writing. Students will be informally paired for peer review and feedback on their writing.

The newspaper staff will also learn about the formatting, layout, and graphic design elements that go into the newspaper. Interested students will serve as layout apprentices and learn to use Microsoft Publisher.

All students register for the same class, and roles and responsibilities will be reviewed and delegated during the first meetings. Students should expect to work on assignments outside of class and will be expected to bring a laptop, notebook, and pen/pencil to each class meeting.

Be part of a team! Join the Compass Collaborative newspaper staff. The Compass student newspaper is growing to include a faculty advisor to help coordinate and schedule the efforts of the student editors, writers, and contributors. The staff will be a mixed age team, with students from 6th-12th grade, where younger students will be informally paired with older students for peer review and feedback on their writing.

Students will learn to write with a purpose and create effective factual articles, interviews, and reviews. While taking notes, gathering data, and collecting details may happen outside of class, part of each weekly staff meeting will be dedicated to writing. In weekly meetings, the advisor will discuss examples from a variety of printed media to demonstrate what constitutes 'good' writing and what is less effective. The group will also learn about the formatting, layout, and graphic design elements that go into the newspaper. All staff members will practice editing skills to improve grammar, punctation, and overall clarity and accuracy in their writing.

Each quarter, the group will decide on writing assignments and divvy up responsibilities based on individual interests. Staff members will report on Compass news and events, interview teachers, review classes, cover clubs, and write about community happenings that would interest other homeschoolers. Students may opt to write reviews of books, movies, tv shows, games, restaurants, or field trips. They may compose editorials, short stories, or poetry. Some may wish to create an ongoing column about a particular interest such as pets, sports, or space. Staff members may submit their own artwork, comics, or photographs, but will also work with Compass art teachers to get scans of other students' works each quarter. Staff may also elect to include regular features such as a recipe, a puzzle, riddles, jokes, trivia questions, or student poll result in each issue. Staff members will each contribute at least 2-3 items to the Collaborative edition each quarter.

Student staff will serve not only as writers and contributors, but also as editors of works that are submitted by other students. One or two high school members will have the opportunity to serve as editors of the student paper, roles that demonstrate leadership and are favorable in the college application process. In addition, one or two other students will serve the layout editors and will be expected to learn newspaper layout using Microsoft Publisher. All students register for the same class, and roles and responsibilities will be reviewed and delegated during the first class meeting. Students will be expected to bring a laptop, notebook, and pen/pencil to each class meeting.

Be part of a team! Join the Compass Collaborative newspaper staff. The staff is a mixed-age team with students from 6th to 12th grade.

Students will learn about journalism and develop writing skills. They will craft effective articles, conduct interviews, and write reviews. Each quarter, writing assignments and responsibilities will be divided based on individual interests. Students will each contribute at least 2-3 items to the Collaborative edition each quarter.

While research and data collection will occur outside of class, a portion of staff meetings will be dedicated to writing and editing. The newspaper advisor will use these sessions to demonstrate what constitutes 'good' writing. All staff members will practice editing skills to improve grammar, punctuation, and overall clarity and accuracy in their writing. Students will be informally paired for peer review and feedback on their writing.

The newspaper staff will also learn about the formatting, layout, and graphic design elements that go into the newspaper. Interested students will serve as layout apprentices and learn to use Microsoft Publisher.

All students register for the same class, and roles and responsibilities will be reviewed and delegated during the first meetings. Students should expect to work on assignments outside of class and will be expected to bring a laptop, notebook, and pen/pencil to each class meeting.

Be part of a team! Join the Compass Collaborative newspaper staff. The Compass student newspaper is growing to include a faculty advisor to help coordinate and schedule the efforts of the student editors, writers, and contributors. The staff will be a mixed age team, with students from 6th-12th grade, where younger students will be informally paired with older students for peer review and feedback on their writing.

Students will learn to write with a purpose and create effective factual articles, interviews, and reviews. While taking notes, gathering data, and collecting details may happen outside of class, part of each weekly staff meeting will be dedicated to writing. In weekly meetings, the advisor will discuss examples from a variety of printed media to demonstrate what constitutes 'good' writing and what is less effective. The group will also learn about the formatting, layout, and graphic design elements that go into the newspaper. All staff members will practice editing skills to improve grammar, punctation, and overall clarity and accuracy in their writing.

Each quarter, the group will decide on writing assignments and divvy up responsibilities based on individual interests. Staff members will report on Compass news and events, interview teachers, review classes, cover clubs, and write about community happenings that would interest other homeschoolers. Students may opt to write reviews of books, movies, tv shows, games, restaurants, or field trips. They may compose editorials, short stories, or poetry. Some may wish to create an ongoing column about a particular interest such as pets, sports, or space. Staff members may submit their own artwork, comics, or photographs, but will also work with Compass art teachers to get scans of other students' works each quarter. Staff may also elect to include regular features such as a recipe, a puzzle, riddles, jokes, trivia questions, or student poll result in each issue. Staff members will each contribute at least 2-3 items to the Collaborative edition each quarter.

Student staff will serve not only as writers and contributors, but also as editors of works that are submitted by other students. One or two high school members will have the opportunity to serve as editors of the student paper, roles that demonstrate leadership and are favorable in the college application process. In addition, one or two other students will serve the layout editors and will be expected to learn newspaper layout using Microsoft Publisher. All students register for the same class, and roles and responsibilities will be reviewed and delegated during the first class meeting. Students will be expected to bring a laptop, notebook, and pen/pencil to each class meeting.

Be part of a team! Join the Compass Collaborative newspaper staff. The Compass student newspaper is growing to include a faculty advisor to help coordinate and schedule the efforts of the student editors, writers, and contributors. The staff will be a mixed age team, with students from 6th-12th grade, where younger students will be informally paired with older students for peer review and feedback on their writing.

Students will learn to write with a purpose and create effective factual articles, interviews, and reviews. While taking notes, gathering data, and collecting details may happen outside of class, part of each weekly staff meeting will be dedicated to writing. In weekly meetings, the advisor will discuss examples from a variety of printed media to demonstrate what constitutes 'good' writing and what is less effective. The group will also learn about the formatting, layout, and graphic design elements that go into the newspaper. All staff members will practice editing skills to improve grammar, punctation, and overall clarity and accuracy in their writing.

Each quarter, the group will decide on writing assignments and divvy up responsibilities based on individual interests. Staff members will report on Compass news and events, interview teachers, review classes, cover clubs, and write about community happenings that would interest other homeschoolers. Students may opt to write reviews of books, movies, tv shows, games, restaurants, or field trips. They may compose editorials, short stories, or poetry. Some may wish to create an ongoing column about a particular interest such as pets, sports, or space. Staff members may submit their own artwork, comics, or photographs, but will also work with Compass art teachers to get scans of other students' works each quarter. Staff may also elect to include regular features such as a recipe, a puzzle, riddles, jokes, trivia questions, or student poll result in each issue. Staff members will each contribute at least 2-3 items to the Collaborative edition each quarter.

Student staff will serve not only as writers and contributors, but also as editors of works that are submitted by other students. One or two high school members will have the opportunity to serve as editors of the student paper, roles that demonstrate leadership and are favorable in the college application process. In addition, one or two other students will serve the layout editors and will be expected to learn newspaper layout using Microsoft Publisher. All students register for the same class, and roles and responsibilities will be reviewed and delegated during the first class meeting. Students will be expected to bring a laptop, notebook, and pen/pencil to each class meeting.

Students will have fun exploring fables and folktales from around the world in anthologies compiled by the Great Books Foundation. Classroom activities are designed to promote reading comprehension, vocabulary, critical thinking, and an introduction to literary analysis skills. Students are asked to read the short story fable or folktale each week before class (alone or with parent) and pose questions about the story, character, or theme. Class sessions will include re-reading of key passages and a facilitated, Socratic-style group discussion about the story. Suggestions for further, optional follow-up at home will also be provided.

Each student should come to the first class meeting with his or her own copies of the Junior Great Books® Series 3, Book One Student Anthology (priced at $16.95) AND the Junior Great Books® Series 3, Book Two Student Anthology (priced at $16.95.)  Families of registered students will receive a link to a class website where assignments are posted.

A journey is not as simple as a trip or a vacation. A journey changes you, makes you grow somehow or think differently, expands your horizons or hopes. In this course, middle school writers will explore the concept of The Journey in literature and create an original story around this concept.
With a focus on character development and the transformational powers of a journey, students will examine classic and modern journeys in myths and fairy tales (The Odyssey), children s literature (The Little Prince, Where the Wild Things Are), short stories and novels (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn/Tom Sawyer, Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Incredible Journey, To Kill a Mockingbird).
Students will build complex characters who have strengths, weaknesses and flaws, then construct a physical or situational journey that presents challenges and opportunity for growth. Characters will fail and succeed and provide readers with both entertaining and inspirational stories. Some characters may even emerge as heroic. Genres will include fantasy, science fiction, adventure, historical fiction, supernatural. Students may develop a new story or choose to further expand or revise one created in a previous fiction course.
A portion of each class will be dedicated to sharing students' working drafts with collaboration and in-class feedback. Students will be expected to conduct some writing and reading at home each week. Literature selections will not be assigned in their entirety, but students may want to continue reading the complete work. The culmination of the students work will be a bound class literary magazine.