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Welcome to your English class! I hope that each of you are successful this year and develop better reading comprehension and writing skills that will carry you into the future. My goal is to coach you in reading critically, understanding the relationship between a time period and its literature, and to be able to recognize the power of the written word, and use it! Hopefully when you leave my class you will be better prepared for college and the "real world."
About Ms. Lowery:
This is my 6th year teaching at Greenbrier High School. I grew up in Columbia County, graduating from Lakeside High School. I majored in English at the University of Georgia, and also received my MEd from Georgia as well. After that, I worked in Atlanta in Events and Marketing for several years before returning to Augusta to teach high school English.
Teaching English is a passion of mine, as is travel. Every summer Ms Herndon and I take students on an educational tour of England, so if you are interested in traveling with us, and learning about another part of this great big world of ours, please see me for information! Ther is nothing like travel to help you understand more about yourself and relating to people.
I hope that through the photos I share in class, the issues we discuss, the literature we read, and the writing assignments we do, that I can impart to you a piece of this love for reading and travel as well. I hope that this class makes you more culturally aware, spiritually aware of others, and prepares you for your future - no matter what direction you head after high school.
Another goal of mine is to prepare all of you for the senior project. Sophomores, it's not too early to start building skills that will help you with this when you are seniors! Technical writing, research, and public speaking skills will be necessary no matter what you do.
Below are some links that will prove useful to you throughout this course.
Turn It In - Plagiarism Check
MLA and APA Citation Guide
Vocabulary Words and Practice
If you ever need to reach me, please email me at jennifer.lowery@ccboe.net . |
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Senior Project News - Updated 1-11-10
updated January 11, 2010
Senior Projects and Portfolios are due TUESDAY FEBRUARY 9th! Work hard, get your journals, reflections, and your Letters to the Judges EDITED! Check for spelling, run-ons, fragments, and clarity. ...
more >
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It’s Shakespeare Time!
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar was the first play performed in the world famous Globe Theater. It covers the story of Julius Caesar’s betrayal by his close friend Marcus Brutus and his suspected enemy Caius Cassius. While Renaissance and modern audiences alike already know this story and the results of the actions of these historic men, the focus will be on character development and theme. Shakespeare used this story as an example to his audience about what happened when A MONARCH IS KILLED. We will explore the desire for power, its corruptive nature, and its influence on otherwise reasonable people.
Throughout our reading of the play you will be expected to take notes, notes, notes as always! Quizzes will be open notes to reward you for paying attention and writing things down. We will learn to interpret and analyze the poetry of the great Bard Shakespeare, and you will have opportunities along the way to discuss the text and interpret a passage on your own. We will also explore lightly the world of rhetoric.
After this, we will move on to a modern tragedy, Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea.
Link to 10CP - World Literature |
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Board Presentations and Life of Pi -
As you prepare your senior board presentations, keep in mind that whatever you decide to present in class for your test grade should be exactly what you plan to do at the real board presentation in April. From your clothing to your visual aids, down to shaking the judges’ hands, you should think about every aspect before you present. Your class and I will be here for you to support and critique you and give suggestions for bettering your presentation.
While we are practicing in class, we will be working through the novel The Life of Pi, which tells the story of a young man who is shipwrecked and must survive life in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger, Orangutan, Zebra, and a Hyena, on board his lifeboat, not to mention facing the possibility of his own starvation or dying of exposure to the elements. This moving story is a modern novel and has received a lot of critical acclaim. I think it will be a nice change of pace from the older British literature we have been reading. I hope you enjoy it too!
Link to 12CP - British and World Literature |
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Your senior year is almost complete!
This semester we will work through the very modern existentialist genre Theater of the Absurd. Our study will include the themes and ideas presented in this genre as well as its inter-textuality with Hamlet. Subverted logic and a general disconnect define the modern and post-modern eras of literature. How does R&G Are D explore these ideas? How can we use this text to criticize Hamlet, and vice versa?
After this we will study Macbeth, an independent novel, and a lot of poetry.
Please see the senior project article on my home page for details regarding what you should be working on there. Hopefully most of you are finished or almost finished with your product hours and are working on your portfolios at this point! After that, all we have left are presentations, which are my favorite part!
As we begin to prepare for the AP Lit Exam, and we finish the class, you will be required to read one outside novel. The class will be divided into novel groups. I preselected the following novels for you to choose from: All the King's Men, Catcher in the Rye*, Heart of Darkness, King Lear, The Kite Runner, and Wuthering Heights. If nothing on this list appeals to you, go to the following website - AP Lit Books - and see if there is somethig else you and at least one other person would like to read. If so, I can try to accomodate that request. Compromise will be essential however since there is a presentation involved upon completion. Each novel group will give a full class period long presentation over the novel and its criticism, so you wont want to work in groups smaller than 3. Also, if you go to this list, see how many of these works you already know. I think you will find that interesting. And for you avid readers, this might make a great reading list for you!
*If you read "Catcher" in Mr Lucey's class last year, please select a different novel.
Link to AP Literature - British and World Lit |
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If you are signed up to travel with us to England this summer, this page is for you! Right now we are still recruiting for the trip, so please spread the word and get more of your friends to go with us. The more people we have, the more fun our trip can be! Please go to the photo albums link to see pictures of all of the places we will go! The highlights will include famous sites in Bath, Stratford, and London!
Link to Student Travelers - Summer 2010 |
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Greenbrier High School
Jenny Lowery
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