"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. "

- Leo Tolstoy

English 1-2 H

Honors English for Grade Nine: Preparation for Advanced Placement English

Welcome to Honors English for Ninth Grade. The curriculum is aligned with CA Content Standards for English but aims beyond proficiency, towards excellence. Students in honors are immersed in rigorous curriculum designed to prepare students to enter Andvanced Placement (AP) English in grades 11 and 12.

Highlights of our curriculum include:

Building a strong foundation for essay writing, while encouraging students to move away from formulaic models, towards original compositions, rich with power and voice.

Developing higher order questions in response to literature and our environment

Exercising critical thinking and analytical skills

Building an expansive vocabulary of literary terms needed to evaluate literature at a college level.

Building voacbulary for the SAT

Encouraging expansiveness of mind

Units

For further information about our curriculum, please click here

Reading Expectations

Students are expected to read a minimum of 80 pages per week outside of class. The independent reading selection is chosen by the student from a list of acceptable texts. This list is expansive, vast, and constantly growing. See the MMHS Library for suggestions.

Honors students are encouraged to select regularly from the "Classics" section of the library, in order to broaden their exposure to some of the classic texts that AP level, college-bound students are expected to have read.