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Most parents want to know how they can best help their children do well in school. There are the usual suggestions: ask them about their days and what they learned (follow-up questions are great; it shows you're really listening and it pushes them to process a little more); definitely check PowerSchool regularly; ask teachers specific questions you have about your child's growth, proficiency, and grade.

Beyond those basics, make clear to your charge how school fits into their life. We treat it as a priority here at school and assume that is how families view it at home. If the student has a job, participates in sports, the arts, and/or engages in any other demanding extra-curricular activities, they are still responsible for coming to school, completing school work, submitting it by the deadline, and showing some concern for making progress. 

If there are extenuating circumstances in the family that require a shift in priorities, it's helpful to know about that. Anything  you can share about how best to serve you and your student is greatly appreciated. Understanding among the parties involved fosters positive relationships between and among everyone, and can only help the student grow.

I am committed to doing my best to communicate with you; hence, this website as a small example of that communication. 

Below, please find some of the common goals we strive for in English class. These will be my own paraphrases of a few of the North Carolina State Standards we emphasize the most.  My hope is that they will provide you some insight into what a high school English class asks of the students. 

English is unique in that we do not really teach content--there aren't facts, natural cycles, or computation processes students have to master in ELA. What we mainly do is expose students to new and varied ideas and perspectives through reading literature, and viewing visual texts. We practice comprehension and try to tease out how the author achieves certain effects in their writing. We practice writing our own original texts, clearly and concisely, including citing our sources.

The following list is not exhaustive, but it highlights ideas and skills we return to again and again.

Frequently Practiced Standards

• • Students can find and point to specific parts of a text that sparked the ideas they had while reading.  Reading is an interaction; it spurs thought. Students should be able to say definitively what parts of a writing generated specific thoughts.

  • Students see and can articulate the major ideas that an author conveys in a piece of writing. Themes in fiction, and central ideas in nonfiction are the reason a piece of writing exists, why the author decided to write it. Students should be able to find details in the writing that point to the big messages and concepts an author wants to leave a reader with.

  • Students recognize much of what the author does to make their writing compelling and beautiful. Figurative language, flashback, foreshadowing, conflict--these (and many other elements & techniques) are what keeps readers interested in writing as its own art form.

  • Students expand their vocabularies. Acquiring new words most often happens incidentally through conversation and reading, but practicing new vocabulary is essential to reading comprehension. An expanded vocabulary also makes writing easier. The average high school graduate knows 50,000ish words; there are roughly 400,000 words in the English language--lots of room to grow.

  • Students can convey their own ideas clearly in writing. 

    • Grammar is not a set of arbitrary rules to confound students; proper grammatical structure makes writing more understandable to a reader. 

    • Making bold statements is necessary, but one should be able to back them up with strong evidence and reasoning.

    • If both God and the Devil are in the details, that just shows how important the details are. Explain and connect support for original ideas.

  • Students can share ideas aloud with others.  Students are required to speak to others in their daily lives and will continue to have to do this. Making oneself understood is an essential life skill.

  • Students can work together to achieve a common goal. Working in groups--even with people one may not like--is another essential life skill; most careers require it.