Course Description
How do writers and speakers effectively communicate to their audiences? When is it appropriate to use formal and informal English? When writing or speaking, why are smooth transitions from one idea, event, or concept to another important? Learning to become an effective communicator includes knowing how to receive, evaluate, comprehend, and respond to verbal and nonverbal communication. Students learn effective communication in the context of fiction and nonfiction writing as well as in one-on-one and group discussions. Students strengthen their writing skills by varying syntax and sentence types, and through the correct use of colons, semicolons, and conjunctive adverbs. Students learn to keep their audience, task, and purpose in mind while maintaining a formal style and objective tone, and use style manuals and reference materials to appropriately cite sources and ensure that their writing meets the conventions of formal English.

Course Breakdown

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
“I Am Offering This Poem” by Jimmy Santiago Baca
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen
“When You Are Old” by William Butler Yeats
“The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats
“Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas
“For My People” by Margaret Walker
“Changgan Memories” by Li Po
“The Latin Deli: An Ars Poetica” by Judith Ortiz Cofer
“The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
“Musée des Beaux Arts” by W. H. Auden

Course Goals
Read and analyze Don Quixote.
Explore the elements of plot.
Read and analyze Romeo and Juliet.
Examine the structure and elements of a drama.
Write a cause-and-effect essay. Analyze elements of poetry and literary nonfiction.
Write a compare-and-contrast essay on two poems.
Read and analyze The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Explain how culture and history influence a work of literature.