Welcome to American Lit. at Panorama High
with Dr. Osborne

"In a school where the sole purpose is to manufacture competent workers for the nation's technological-industrial complex, perhaps the need for literary instruction and reading would not be keenly felt. ...But if schools serve a greater function, to help create empowered and attentive citizens who can both pursue fulfilling and fruitful individual lives and who can contribute in transformative ways to the life of a democracy, then literature must take a central place in the curriculum." from You Gotta BE the Book by Jeffrey Wilhem

You can e-mail me about anything you wish to discuss at ozpk100@aol.com

  • ENGLISH CURRICULUM STANDARDS: Your Course Work and Tests Are Based On These

    11th Grade Online Leadership Academy

    Project/Exhibition Resources

    1. WHAT IS AN EXHIBITION? -- Great explanation and basic directions
    2. Project and Exhibition Grading Rubrics
    3. The America Project: What Does It Mean To Be An American?
    4. The Huck Finn Project
    5. Censorship and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain -- Some great project and activity ideas
    6. More Project Directions
    7. Personal Project Intro
    8. Other Projects
    9. Presentations

      Workshop Approaches we will use in class and On the Web

      Assessment Workshop

    10. We will assess many of our workshop activities adapting these rubrics
    11. How To Assess Your Portfolio
    12. Learning Logs -- A simple, powerful form of documenting and assessing your learning
    13. Double Entry Journals and Learning Logs
    14. Test Maker Tool -- We will attempt more authentic kinds of assessment than the typical paper-and-pencil tests. One of the options you can consider is to develop both a "typical" test and a "Correct Answer Key," almost like a catechism of questions and answers. We will also investigate other improvements in assessment, including self-assessment and a practice used in current business, called 360 degree feedback.
    15. Student Self-Assessment: Making Standards Come Alive
    16. Authentic Assessment -- 23 excellent articles from the Coalition for Essential Schools that can help us develop far more authentic assessment and learning in this course.
    17. Exemplars of Good Student Work
    18. Reasons Not To Plaigiarize

      Team Talk

    19. Shared Inquiry
    20. Conversations Intro
    21. Literature Circles -- Description of reading discussion tool we will use
    22. Fishbowl Discussion -- discussion "in the fishbowl"--in chairs, in the center of the room, surrounded by spectators in their desks
    23. Socratic Seminars - Tutorial -- Excellent procedures and guidelines
    24. Courageous Conversations -- Guidelines and advice for having "Courageous Conversations" about, racism, ageism, sexism, and other issues that tend to raise defensiveness in participants. Useful, too, in confronting, or "carefronting" friends and authorities.
    25. The Collaborative Classroom -- Theory behind the practice

      Acting Out Workshops

    26. Using Creative Dramatics
    27. Acting Workshop Links
    28. Character Immersion Guided Reading and Writing
    29. Creative Drama Guidelines

      Writing Workshops

    30. The Write Source (Writers INC) Home Page
    31. Student Writing Models
    32. Publish It!
    33. The I-Search Process
    34. More on the I-Search Paper
    35. The Writing Process
    36. Internet Writing Workshop -- You can now submit works in progress on-line for feedback!
    37. Online Journal Writing Workshop
    38. Free-Writing -- Also note the techniques called "Looping" and "Cubing"
    39. S.C.O.R.E. Activity Bank -- Note Journal options here!
    40. Pre-writing: Keeping a Journal
    41. Writer's Resource Center -- fabulously fertile site aimed at the real writer in you
    42. The Five-Paragraph Essay -- "Because the five-paragraph essay is a chosen vehicle for measuring a student's writing proficiency, it is essential that each master this patterned format writing to score well."
    43. Guide To Writing A Basic Essay
    44. Revising Writing -- A PowerPoint presentation; you can advance slides by pressing the keyboard's spacebar
    45. Composition Resources from Colleges
    46. Writing a Research Paper -- "Despite the illusion, the research-paper writing process (as with any writing process) is quasi-linear at best."
    47. Write Your Novel Now -- "A Professional Writer is an Amateur Who Didn't Quit"
    48. Writing Fiction: A Beginner's Guide -- from Creative Writing for Teens
    49. Writing Mysteries and Suspense
    50. Mystery Writing
    51. Creative Writing: A Google Directory
    52. Creative Writing Resources -- from the Awesome Library
    53. Character Development Center -- Creating and understanding character is key to writing and reading fiction. This is a great resouce site.

      POETRY

    54. The Poetry Room - Unconventional prose poet Louis Jenkins, an intriguing source for study
    55. Poetry 180 -- A poem a day from Billy Collins, our 2003 Poet Laureate of the United States
    56. Modern American Poets -- 161 companion sites for poets in the Anthology of Modern American Poetry
    57. Poet On-Line -- poems on different topics, poetry tips, a poetry contest and more
    58. Poetry for the 21st Century
    59. A Poetry-Lover's Guide To the World-Wide Web, Post-1950
    60. A Poetry-Lover's Guide To the World-Wide Web, Pre-1950
    61. Shakespeare's Sonnets
    62. Links to Other Poetry Collections and Poetry Guides
    63. Cataract -- An Eclectic and Idiosyncratic Collection of and Introduction to Poetry
    64. Lance and Eskimo -- A Providence student in one of the Coalition of Essential Schools built this site as a project/exhibition. Now she continues to maintain it for her and friends' writing, cartoons, parodies and satire.
    65. Music Links -- Song lyrics are another form of poetry. These are from a variety of sources and traditions.

      AMERICAN LITERATURE

    66. American Literature Survey
    67. American Literature Resources
    68. Transcendentalism
    69. Ralph Waldo Emerson
    70. Henry David Thoreau
    71. Others in the Transcendentalist Circle
    72. Selected Works of Edgar Allen Poe
    73. Nathaniel Hawthorne
    74. The Life and Works of Herman Melville
    75. The Walt Whitman Archive
    76. The Dickinson Electronic Archive
    77. Literature in Latin America -- by country; this site is in Spanish.
    78. Undoing Racism -- "Racism has been done to everyone in the United States; therefore it can be 'undone'."
    79. Short Stories
    80. Mark Twain Resources, including searchable online text of *1*The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
    81. Favorite Mark Twain Links
    82. *2*A Farewell To Arms
    83. *3*The Grapes of Wrath
    84. *4*The Catcher In the Rye
    85. *5*Billy Budd
    86. *6*The Great Gatsby -- a site by classes in Springfield Massachusetts
    87. *7*Invisible Man
    88. *8*On Civil Disobedience
    89. *9*To Kill A Mockingbird
    90. Other American Novels and Guides -- Good choices to work on meeting Course Grading Rubric requirements
    91. 20 Great American Short Stories
    92. American Literary Classics
    93. Center for Electronic Projects in American Culture Studies (CEPACS)
    94. Mything Links

      GUIDES for LITERARY TEXTS

    95. SparkNotes -- over 200 study guide titles written exclusively by Harvard students and recent graduates
    96. English Study Guides (Novels)
    97. More Literature Study Guides
    98. CyberGuides: Grades 9-12
    99. ThinkQuest Internet Challenge: Book Web Quests
    100. Shakespeare Web Quests
    101. High School Hub: English -- Note literature study guides along the right margin

      Study and Test Prep Resources

    102. Study Guides & Strategies -- Study skills are shown to result in higher readings skills than reading instruction!
    103. Dictionary for Students (Merriam-Webster)
    104. Dictionary and Thesaurus (Merriam-Webster)
    105. Vocabulary University
    106. Academic Vocabulary List
    107. An Abundance of Word Info about English-Vocabulary Sources -- Roots and suffixes from Latin and Greek are key to advanced vocabulary.
    108. College Board Advice on Essays, etc.
    109. High School Standardized Test Preparation -- Flexible, well-constructed site from Chicago Public Schools with numerous tips ALL teachers should use in coaching and encouraging students.
    110. Open Response Questioning Strategies
    111. Regents Exam Prep Center -- A rich New York state site
    112. Constructed Response -- Students must use critical and creative (higher order) thinking in these test items, a new "state of the art" aspect of current testing.
    113. Writing Constructed Response Items
    114. FreeTranslation.com -- Free translation of web sites and text for Spanish, French, and German to English and English to Spanish!
    115. Careers.org
    116. Bull's Eye Business Writing Tips -- FREE weekly business writing tips will help you improve your business writing. An amazingly resourceful collection of tips and self-tests.
    117. WritingEnglish.com -- Go the the bottom of this page for links to great, brief advice on cover letters, resumes, and common errors. The top portion advertises their for-a-fee service.
    118. How To Interview -- "Your resume will get your foot in the door but your interview skills will decide whether you get the job or not."

      Acknowledgements


    Academic Success

    American Literature Course Grading Rubric

    The following rubric describes what you must do to earn each grade. These grades are course grades, not six-week “progress report” grades. Thus you have approximately four months to meet these standards.

    Students who earn an A:

    • Always arrive on time, with the necessary supplies, and are ready to work.
    • Maintain at least a 3.0 grade point average (GPA) on rubric scores and assessments.
    • Demonstrate development of leadership abilities.
    • Develop and demonstrate familiarity with at least 7 American writers and their work.
    • Complete work assigned/committed to in this class, including web work accessible any time from any Internet connected computer.
    • Keep portfolio well organized with selected exemplars and Overview Narrative ready for periodic review.
    • Work well independently and with others, and contribute to the workshop groups and class.
    • Read at least 1100 pages in progressively more difficult books by semester’s end.
    • Improve reading speed, and increase stamina significantly, and grow in fluency, flexibility, originality and quality of writing
    • Do at least one major project/exhibition with noteworthy originality and elaboration.
    • Show creative adaptations and critical awareness in assignments and projects/presentations.

      Students who earn a B:

    • Consistently arrive on time, with the necessary supplies, and are ready to work.
    • Maintain at least a 2.5 cumulative GPA on rubric scores and assessments.
    • Demonstrate development of leadership abilities.
    • Develop and demonstrate familiarity with at least 5 American writers and their work.
    • Complete nearly all work assigned/committed to in this class to the best of your ability, including web work accessible any time from any Internet connected computer.
    • Keep portfolio organized with selected exemplars and Overview Narrative ready for periodic review.
    • Work with more independence and improved ability to collaborate and contribute to both workshop groups and the class.
    • Read at least 800 pages in progressively more difficult books.
    • Improve speed, and increase stamina measurably, and grow in fluency and quality of writing
    • Do at least one major project/exhibition with adequate originality and elaboration.
    • Show ability to translate ideas and concepts in assignments and projects/presentations.

      Students who earn a C:

    • Usually arrive on time, with the necessary supplies, and are ready to work.
    • Maintain at least a 2.0 cumulative GPA on rubric scores and assessments.
    • Demonstrate development of leadership abilities.
    • Complete nearly all work assigned/committed to in this class, including web work accessible any time from any Internet connected computer, but the quality varies.
    • Develop and demonstrate familiarity with at least 3 American writers and their work.
    • Do at least one major project/exhibition with fluency and elaboration.
    • Portfolio spottily organized with selected exemplars and Overview Narrative not fully ready for periodic review.
    • Work with limited independence; collaboration and contributions to the workshop groups and class are often unproductive.
    • Read 600 pages in progressively more difficult books. Improve reading speed, and increase your stamina minimally, and grow in fluency of writing
    • Show basic mastery of course tasks and content in assignments and projects/presentations.

      Students who earn a D:

    • Rarely arrive on time (or often absent); with the necessary supplies, and are ready to work.
    • Maintain at least a 1.5 average on rubric scores and assessments.
    • Demonstrate adequate development of leadership abilities.
    • Complete few assignments in this class; minimal effort and low quality prevent success.
    • Portfolio spottily organized, with missing drafts and Overview Narrative, not fully ready for periodic review.
    • Develop and demonstrate familiarity with at least 2 American writers and their work.
    • Do at least one project/exhibition with fluency.
    • Rarely work independently; often distract others and undermine class discussions and workshops.
    • Read 400 pages in progressively more difficult books.
    • Show no measurable or observable gains in the area of reading and writing
    • Show minimal mastery of course content in assignments and projects/presentations.

      Students who earn an F:

    • Chronically absent and/or tardy; rarely have the necessary supplies; are not willing to work.
    • Have a cumulative GPA below 1.5
    • Demonstrate inadequate development of leadership abilities.
    • Portfolio poorly organized, with missing drafts and sketchy Overview Narrative, not fully ready for periodic review.
    • Complete few assignments in this class; make no observable effort to work or improve.
    • Cannot work independently; routinely distract others and undermine class discussions.
    • Read less than 350 pages.
    • Show no measurable or observable gains in the area of reading and writing; performance may even decline.