This is my second decade teaching! I taught at a high school in Rancho Cucamonga, California for thirteen years and have been teaching online ever since. A majority of my career has been spent teaching students taking English 3.
I am particularly passionate about the curriculum in this course and have been fortunate enough to get to know America on a level many don't: I've traveled through and lived in 30 states in the last few years, exploring the many cultures, people, historical markers, and seasons that create the American character. We live in a unique country with a vibrant, and in some cases, living past that makes us one-of-a-kind and ever changing.
I'm looking forward to working with you and seeing you succeed as you work your way through our course!
English 3 centers around American Literature. You’ll trace American history and read how it affected people directly through their writing and what they left behind. You’ll learn tools used in writing and about the culture and events that were affecting writing as pivotal events happened in our timeline as a country.
As you move through the course, you’ll find that not only will your skills as a reader and writer develop and improve, but so will your understanding of the way people lived through American history.
It’s my favorite year in the English curriculum!
Course Objectives
Throughout the course, you will meet the following goals:
· Demonstrate knowledge of foundational works of American literature
· Analyze seminal works of American literary nonfiction and evaluate their structure and reasoning
· Analyze the impact of an author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a text
· Demonstrate increasing sophistication in the six traits of writing
· Learn to use Standard English from a variety of grammar lessons
English 3A
Unit 1: American Roots: From Native Traditions to the American Revolution
Unit 2: Bright Romanticism: American Individualism
Unit 3: Dark Romanticism: American Gothic
Unit 4: A Nation Divided and Expanding: Civil War, Regionalism, and Realism
Unit 5: Realist Novel Study: The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Unit 6: “Make It New”: Early Modernism
English 3B
Unit 7: Modern Drama Study
Unit 8: Victory and Despair: The Roaring Twenties, Modernism, and Postwar Outlooks
Unit 9: “I, too, Am America”: The Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights Movement
Unit 10: Cultural Rebellion: Mid Twentieth-Century Voices
Unit 11: Heritage and Multicultural American Identities: Contemporary Voices
Unit 12: Globalization and the Information Age: Postmodernism into the Twenty-First Century
Doing well in this course means completing all assignments to learn content for the quizzes and tests. The better you do on all of your assignments, the better your grade will be! Don’t skip any assignments in lessons!! Though it seems like a speedy way to get through the course, successfully completing the learning activities (assignments) is worth as much as the scores on the assessments! Take your time and learn the content.
You will be doing all of your written work and graphic organizers in our Google Classroom, which screens student work for originality, so always be sure you avoid plagiarism and submit only your own work.
Copying and pasting into the documents provided for you to do your written work in Google Classroom is not allowed, and your teacher will be reviewing your typing and revision history for all work. Submitted work that has been pasted into or uploaded into the Google Classroom assignments in our course will not be accepted and may be cited for Academic Integrity.
For multiple assignments in our course, you are expected to cite from outside sources, so properly using citations and a Works Cited page are skills you will review and apply in English 3.
Our Plagiarism Policy is available for your review (see below).
*You'll join Google Classroom in the next assignment in our course.
We want you to feel confident and prepared when it comes to avoiding plagiarism, so we’ve created a website just for CalPac students that not only explains what qualifies as plagiarism but also includes dozens of 2-3 minute informative videos showing how to cite sources and incorporate cited material into your writing correctly. This site also includes information about avoiding improper use of AI to compose material submitted for course assignments.
BOOKMARK and USE this site as often as you’d like: http://calpac.online/plagiarism.
When it comes to conducting research and finding good sources and their MLA formatted citations, it doesn’t get better than using scholarly databases.
CalPac’s Gale Resource Library is comprised of three different types of databases that provide you instant access to relevant sources including magazine, newspaper, and journal articles as well as primary sources, tables and charts, and videos. Sure beats a Google search!! Please use our databases of any of your research needs. (password: calpac)
Throughout the course, you'll find resources your instructor has provided as assignments, including graphic organizers, thesis generators, and more. While you will find everything you need in our course, you may also want to bookmark the site linked below. Mrs. Dodson has compiled all of the special assignments with resources you'll find in your Course Map all in one place.
English 3 Essay & Project Prompts and Resources
In the Traditional and Honors program at CalPac, students are required to attend a weekly live virtual session. You will learn more about the details of our live sessions for English 3 in the next lesson. Our weekly sessions are the best, and we really have a lot of fun while learning the content in our course! I look forward to seeing you there!
Credit Recovery students are always welcome at live sessions for English 3! The time, location, and recordings of past live sessions are listed below:
When: Every Wednesday at 9:00am
Where: http://calpac.online/English3
Recordings of Live Sessions: English 3A & 3B Live Session Recordings
CalPac's Grading Scale works within a system that applies +/- grades across all letter grades. In light of this, CalPac course grades are never rounded up.
If you would like to improve your grade to reach the next letter grade or grade bandwidth on the Grading Scale, I am happy to work with you to supply additional and alternative assignments that you may complete to demonstrate proficiency where you grade may indicate otherwise.
Your grade is always in your hands, and I am happy to offer opportunities that allow you a chance to show what you know better than your scores in Edgenuity may reveal.
On that note, keeping track of your grade can be tricky. Below is guide to understanding the different types of grades you'll see on your Progress Report in Edgenuity:
Your Relative Grade is ultimately your report card grade. It calculates your average on assignments you have completed with remaining zeroes for anything not yet completed up the end of the course. Watch it carefully, especially as you near the end of the course to know where you stand.
Your Overall Grade reflects your average only on assignments you have completed and does not reflect anything currently in progress or ahead of your pace in the course. It is a good indicator of your success up to where you currently are in the course.
Your Average Grade calculates your Overall Grade with any zeroes up to where your Target Completion is in the course. If you are on pace, your Average Grade and Overall Grade will be the same. If you are behind pace, your Actual Grade includes zeroes for everything up to your Target Completion.
Additionally, anyone looking to meet A-G requirements for college need to earn a 70% or better in the course in order for the course to count toward your graduation requirement when applying for a college after high school.
I am here for you and I want you to succeed in this course! Please feel free to text, call, Google chat, or email me when needed, but do note that I am not available after 4pm or over weekends.
Teacher: Mrs. Dodson
Email: kdodson@cal-pacs.org
Phone: (949) 393-4780
I hope you enjoy your experience working through English 3! Please reach out to me if you need any help as you work through our course. I’m looking forward to working with you!
In your submission box in Edgenuity, write a few sentences summarizing what kind of content is covered in English 3 and what you'll need to do or consider to be successful in the course. If you have any questions for Mrs. Dodson, this is also a great place to ask!