Mr. James R. Lacking's Language Arts Class

After receiving a great foundation at the middle school level, students take their first steps towards college and in life preparation during their freshman and sophomore years. In this English class, the focus of curriculum will be composition, literature, and speech. Composition will feature a variety of forms including expository essays, persuasive essays, and narrative essays, setting/character development exercises, creative writing exercises, comparison/contrast essay, character analysis, descriptive writing, research writing and journaling.     

Students will also study themes and technical construction of the various genres of literature including, but not limited to, short stories, fiction, novels, drama, the screenplay, poetry, and non-fiction (Biographies/Autobiographies). Speech will consist of a variety of individual and group presentations.

All regular classes are required to read at least one novel per quarter.  (Honors classes two/quarter)  Each novel is accompanied with computer software (Reading Counts Program) that quizzes each student on their particular novel.  After a success rate of 80%, they will then complete the book report for each. All grade levels will be involved with ISearch (research process) throughout the year.

What is most important about the curriculum is that the student will be taught the skills necessary for life-long learning. There are interesting and exciting ideas circling us every day and we should have a great deal of fun examining them.

Life is a journey. While it is vital to have to have a worthy destination in mind for a journey, please remember that it is the journey itself and how you conduct yourself on that journey that is important.