Welcome to English 3B

Meet your Teacher

My name is Mrs. Dodson-- of course you know that already if you've already been in English 3A!

I'm happy to be your teacher and/or continue as your teacher in English 3B!

I encourage you to take a look at the information below to get to know me better and to know what to expect in this course. We have a presentation/project this semester, and we prepare for CAASPP testing in this semester course, so the more you know going in, the better!

Course Overview

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

The Content

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

Course Weights

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, students who have done this tend to struggle with Tests and Quizzes—that’s 50% of their grade injured by not learning content correctly! Take your time and learn the content.

Academic Integrity & Writing in Google Classroom

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).

Avoiding Plagiarism

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.

BOOKMARK and USE this site as often as you’d like: http://calpac.online/plagiarism.

Gale's Virtual Library Databases

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)

CAASPP Testing, March-May

An important part of Spring semester is state-required California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) Testing. All eleventh graders will take the test through the months of March-May. It assesses their performance in Math, English Language Arts, and Science.

The good news is that your eleventh grade year is the ONLY year in high school you need to take any state tests! On the other hand, there is a lot to prepare for in doing well on the test: how it's formatted, what to expect on the test, and how your critical reading and writing skills come into play.

CAASPP Preparation in English 3B

Regardless of whether you are currently an eleventh grader, you will complete a unit in our class this semester in which you learn what the CAASPP test looks like, the tools available to you on the test platform, the difference between the Computer Adaptive Test component and the Performance Task component, and how to prepare for and do well on the test.

Kahuna's CAASPP Shack

Explore Kahuna's CAASPP Shack for exclusive test preparation tools and information.

Weekly Live Sessions

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!

CalPac's Grading Scale

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.

Contacting Me

I am here for you and I want you to succeed in this course! Please feel free to text, call, 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 3B! Please reach out to me if you need any help as you work through our course. I’m looking forward to working with you!

Your Assignment

In your submission box in Edgenuity, write a few sentences summarizing what kind of content is covered in English 3B and what CAASPP testing is and what you'll learn about it in this course.

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