Orange High School

Dr. Rosa Schneider

schneiro@orange.k12.nj.us

The First Year Seminar

Course Description

Who are we? Where do we come from?

This is the question that the texts we are about to read in the Bard Seminar Sequence seek to address: what does it mean to be human? What connects us with the people who preceded us? How might we

discover and learn from our reflection in the past?

The literature we will use to address such questions comes largely from a tradition referred to as the “Western canon,” and for most of history, it has been revered as the core of what are called “great books.” 

And yet we must ask the question: What makes these books “great”? And can they really be great if they depend predominantly on the perspectives of dead, privileged, European, heterosexual, cisgender white men?

Thus, we will not just read these texts, but draw them into conversation with those written by authors and philosophers from outside of this sphere of privilege, writers who question, expand, and even explode the ideas of these great thinkers. It is through these conversations that we will be able to ask:

How do we understand what it means to be human from different

perspectives and starting points?

How do power and privilege shape our understanding of ourselves?

What commonalities can we see across different historical and cultural

moments -- and how might we recognize, account for, and respond to our

differences?

Throughout the Sequence program, we will not just recognize and analyze these conversations, but we will enter into them, adding our voices to the many great writers who have taken on such questions.

We will do so in several important ways: participating in dynamic discussion with our peers, reading extensively and thoroughly, and writing about and annotating what we read and discuss in multiple different forms and contexts.

UNITS, MATERIALS, AND TEXTS

Units may be rearranged or additional texts substituted at the instructor’s discretion and with student

Input.

Texts will be provided in electronic (generally PDF) form or hardcopy.  All classroom work will be posted in our Google Classroom. We will use either Google Docs or Kami to read and annotate texts. You will also be given a notebook to take notes in, and write Focused Freewites. 

Required Supplies:

School Issued Chromebook

Bard Notebook

Pens

Communication:

Students are required to join the following

Google Classroom: 

Remind:

COURSE SKILLS, ACTIVITIES, AND REQUIREMENTS

As participants in Sequence, students should expect to participate in  seminar discussion and to create and respond  to several Packbacks, writing assignments, and annotation activities every week. It will be assessed weekly by the instructor to provide feedback and make sure that everyone is on track.

This course and its activities are centered around a set of core skills that students will develop over their

time in the Sequence. In the First Year Seminar, these include:

Reading assignments.  Students will be expected to read and respond to a series of comprehension questions along with analysis questions. There will not be a requirement to highlight/underline, etc, but an opportunity to do so. Reading assignments will be posted as both Google Docs as well as in hard copy format.  While we will begin reading in class, we will work up to completing a portion of the reading at home. 

*It is incredibly important to do the reading. We will model how to read and annotate in class, but if you do not read at home, it will be difficult to participate in class discussions.*

Seminar Discussion:  Students are expected to be prepared and energized to discuss their readings and to take part in class activities to explore the ideas within them. This is not a passive lecture/handout-based class; instead, it is one in which learning is constructed by the conversation that students create and drive for themselves. 

*NOTE: While verbal response is preferable, participation also counts if you read or add to the annotation. The more people participate, the better our discussions will be!!*

Writing assignments:

Packback: Each week that we work with content (i.e, not workshops), you will be responsible for asking a question on Packback. This will help us generate discussion questions for the day. 

Short responses: these types of assignments will ask students to answer questions/analyze specific sections and begin to work on writing. These will typically be a paragraph (more, of course, is always welcomed). These will help us work toward longer writing. 

Longer responses: These will be a page. Often students will be asked to compare or contrast different aspects of a text.

Papers: These will build off the shorter responses. Students will be asked to revise and join together responses. These papers will have a coherent and cohesive argument. 

GRADING POLICIES

Your grade will consist of 5  differently weighted elements:

10% Free-writes, short writing, and quizzes

20% Writing challenges/Homework

25% Participation and discussion 

20% Annotations (via Hardcopy or Google Docs)

25 % Exams/Final Papers

*Requirements for all homework and paper assignments*:

1. Your submission is spell-checked and edited. For homework a few errors are okay, but it must be understandable. 

2. You must provide evidence for your claims, and engage with the text. Preferably this is quoting the text (so it looks like “Biles avoided any twisting combinations in her routine Tuesday, dismounting with a double pike.”) For homework assignments, referencing the text without quoting it is ok (a reference is a mention of a specific event or moment in the text, ex: When Odysseus  taunts the cyclops from his boat…, without quotations).

Late homework policy: Completing homework and papers as close to on time for this class is extremely important, as this class is scaffolded (which means that each assignment builds on one another. If you miss one, it will be harder to complete the others). All work will be due at the end of the week, Sunday at 5pm (that is, if you have an assignment due on Wednesday, you have until Sunday night to complete it). I will not accept late work, unless you ask for an extension prior to the deadline.  

What does this mean? If you need more time on an assignment (not counting Packbacks), you must ask me, via email or remind, by Sunday at 3. If you do not request an extension or contact me, I will not accept late work. 

HIGH SCHOOL VS. COLLEGE GRADES

You will be receiving high school and college credit for this course. In most cases, you will receive the SAME grade for both high school and college credit, if you maintain a 70 average. However, in the case that you have completed work for this course but have not yet been assessed by your instructor to have reached a passing level of college work, you may receive TWO different grades – one for high school and one for college -- at the end of a marking period or semester in this course.

If your overall grade in the course is a “C-” (70%) or above, you will receive the SAME high school and college grade for the course. If your overall college grade is lower than “C-” (70%), you will receive a separate high school grade that is calculated using the alternative weights for assignments provided in the table below.

The intention of these two grading scales is that you are given the chance to reach for a college-level standard in your work, but you will receive high school credit for attempting to reach that standard even if your work may not yet reach the college level.

[Assignment types that are given a higher weight in the separate high school grade are given in bold; assignment types that are given a lower weight in the separate high school grade are given in italics.]

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY

Plagiarism, copying, or otherwise cheating on exams, quizzes, or written work is a grave offense. In most college courses, the attempt to take credit for work that is not one’s own would result in an automatic “Failing” grade in the course, and students could risk further university discipline, including expulsion.

Because this course is intended to prepare students for college success, any instances of academic  dishonesty are taken very seriously, indeed, but we also strive to provide students with a chance to restore  their good standing in the course through renewed academic honesty.

If I detect plagiarism in your assignment (plagiarism means to steal others' work and pass it off as your own—for example, by copying what a website says, particularly wikipedia) you will get an automatic 0 for the assignment. You will have the chance to rewrite the assignment and resubmit it. For a major assignment (such as a paper), the discovery of plagiarism will also result in a notification to your guardians, your guidance counselor, as well as your vice-principal. 

Classroom Rules of Conduct: 

All Rules and Regulations set forth by the Orange Public School District will be upheld in the classroom. No cell phones, iPods, or any other electronic device may be used during class unless otherwise directed. Electronic devices other than those used for instruction must remain out of sight in a bag or pocket. Any student caught using an electronic device will receive one warning to put it away for the remainder of the class. Failure to do so will follow the general sequence of consequences. Any derogatory or foul language addressed to the teacher, students or any other person or group is unacceptable and will result in loss of class participation points.

 General Sequence of Consequences:

 In general, this is the pattern of steps that will be taken for some behavior or activity that is distracting to the educational process.

 ● The first time an incident occurs, the student will be given a warning to correct the action.

 ● The second time an incident occurs, the student will be pulled aside to speak with the teacher and/or a call will be made to the parent or guardian.

 ● Further occurrences will result in a referral to the office and/or a parent teacher conference will be arranged

English Credit Transfer

Bard Seminar is a reading and writing intensive course where students will develop, refine, and practice college level English and Literature based competencies. All Seminar students are expected to write a minimum of three major analytical or comparative essays per year.  Throughout their Seminar experience, students will be expected to: 

• Practice close reading to identify authorial voice and intent, audience, purpose, logic, and biases

• Incorporate appropriately cited evidence and the ideas of others as evidentiary support and intellectual engagement with relevant intellectual, cultural, and social discourses 

• Participate in processes of drafting, writing, and revision with peers

• Adapt writing style to fit different contexts, audiences, and purposes

• Participate in community-based, purposeful learning through dialogue, debate, and discussion

• Conduct self directed research and information gathering including scholarly, peer reviewed sources 

• Make distinctions between different kinds of sources/texts and identify the most appropriate uses for different texts

• Investigate contemporary hierarchies and inequalities including personal and community based connection of the self and the community to the text

• Embrace reading and writing as creative acts of self and community definition and expression