Mr. B's Home Page

WELCOME TO MR. B'S WEBPAGE!

* Updated 1/5/24

Hello students and parents!

At a recent professional development workshop, I was asked to choose a word to represent what I wanted out of 2024. The word I chose to focus on was balance. My goal this year is to balance my work life and my personal life so that I can thrive in both environments. (I say this as I work on my website, of all the things I have to do, at 7:40 p.m. on the Friday before students return from winter break.)  I'm looking forward to a positive experience with my students in AP English Language and Composition III , English 9 Honors, and English 9 College Prep.

I'm quite excited to teach AP English Language and Composition III. This is my second year teaching the class, and I actually worked with many of the students in the class when they were ninth graders. I look forward to helping them master rhetorical analysis, synthesis, and argument. Our class will be guided by the College Board's unit guide and will focus on the big ideas of the rhetorical situation, claims and evidence, reasoning and organization, and style. I'm looking forward to starting the semester by asking students to read excerpts from American Like Me: Reflections on Life Between Cultures by America Farrera and inviting them to reflect on their own identity by writing about their own personal essay.

After some beginning of year activities, students in English 9 Honors and English 9 College Prep will be reading and discussing short stories, essays, poems, and other texts from our new textbook, HMH Into Literature. Our first unit, Identity and Community, will center around the essential question How can we come together despite our differences?  Some of the texts we will read include "A Quilt of a Country" by Anna Quindlen, "Unusual Normality" by Ishmael Beah, and "Once Upon a Time" by Nadine Gordimer.  The primary difference between the courses is that English 9 College Prep will be more rigorous and will include additional outside readings.

The Writers' Room will continue to meet on Thursdays after school. This is the only club that I am currently sponsoring.

Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

Thanks,

Mr. Jesse Birnstihl