What a fantastic start to the school year. I met almost all of the WHS Freshman and have to say, I liked them all.  I can’t wait to really get down to work with this group!  Today we went over the classroom layout, rules, and talked about my philosophy on assigning homework. While everyone is starting out the year with one very simple homework assignment, it will be my policy that homework will be assigned only on a by need basis. This means that if students are engaged and using their classroom time appropriate they should not have addition homework assigned. However, if students fall behind or need more study time than class provides they will be assigned homework on an as needed basis. I will provide in class time for all reading and writing assignments. Some students will need to devote outside of classroom time to catch up on reading if they are slower readers or do not finish an in class assignment.  If this practice is not working, it will be adjusted as we go, but for now (after this first assignment) I do not plan to schedule homework.

An English 9 class syllabus was given to each student today in class. A second copy of the last page was also given to each student. This copy of the last page should be signed and returned to Mrs. Scales next week. Finally an assignment handout was provided to each student today in class. A recap of the assignment handout follows.

      High school English is all about perfecting your ability to learn from the written word and express your thoughts in meaningful ways. To facilitate both I have chosen this friendly letter exchange as your first assignment.

Read your assignment handout carefully and use the following formatting information to complete your assignment over the weekend.