Foundations of English

Welcome to Foundations of English. I hope you find your time in this course to be both interesting and challenging. It is my goal for you to leave this course as confident speakers, readers, and writers. I look forward to working with you to meet those goals.

Course Competencies

Reading: Students will be able to read and analyze both fiction and non-fiction.

Writing: Students will experiment with narration, exposition, persuasion, and description. There will be a strong emphasis on clarity of ideas, sentence fluency, organization, voice, word choice, and conventions of proper writing.

Speaking: Students will develop skills of public speaking. We will focus on informal presentations, impromptus, and formal speeches.

Language Usage: Students will improve their vocabulary and grammar skills.

Grading:

Students will have many assignments and chances to improve and develop the skills listed among the course competencies. The larger, summative assignments will be weighted more heavily than the practice, formative assignments. Your grade will be an average of your performance in each of the four competencies. Students will receive a final summative activity worth 5% of the overall grade demonstrating competency in all areas assessed throughout the semester.

The State of New Hampshire requires students to demonstrate proficiency in every competency. Therefore, you must achieve a passing grade (70%) in each of the four areas.

Classroom Expectations:

We want our students to be successful learners and active participants in class. In order for that to happen, we have determined that the following three expectations are essential:

Be present and on time.

Show silent respect for the speaker

Use your phone only when given permission