English II 2025-2026
What’s up for next year?
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ONE CLASS DAY LEFT: please bring revised Odyssey essays (with all the original drafts) to leave at NFS THIS WEEK at history.
Everett, Winston, Georgia: vocabulary test on Wednesday, 5/27
Winston: enter two more contests to complete your publishing requirement.
Everyone: remember that your grade is not done until you receive an award, get published, or receive three rejections
*********** Contests/magazines now open for submission: ***********
Teen Ink Magazine entries (ongoing)
New York Times: My List Review contest (deadline 2/26/26) & Opinion Letter contest (deadline 4/8/26)
New Pages Guide for Writing Contests for Young Writers (choose deadline months on their calendar)
Memoir contest at Write the World — Opens 5/4/26; deadline 5/25/26. Optional feedback 5/11. Winners announced 6/12/26. $$ prize
The America Library of Poetry contest: $$ prizes. Deadline April 30, 2026
Ping!
by Ari Nevala
When I was five years old, my dad brought me to the golf range. That was the first time I ever heard a golf ball ringing. It was the coolest sound I had ever heard. My dad took me to the clubhouse to get food before we went to the range. I was amazed at how big the clubhouse was and how my bowl of spaghetti was so good and tasted like tomato sauce and cheese. Later, we browsed the pro shop: I looked at all the clubs, not knowing anything about them. It was astonishing to see how expensive a set of irons was. My dad went to the checkout to buy tokens for balls, and as we were heading to the range, I heard one of the best sounds of my life: a driver being hit.
At the range I started looking around. Everyone was wearing nice pants, a polo shirt, and golf shoes. I was wearing bright green shorts and a Hulk T-shirt. I watched my dad hit balls for a little while. It did not look very fun at first, but I asked to try it too. That is when it all changed.
I was not good, but it was fun to hit balls at the range with my dad. I saw a driver in his bag and asked him if I could use it. When he hit the ball, it made the same sound from earlier that day: the ding of the ball coming off the driver's face. I was so mesmerized by that sound that I asked my dad to bring me with him to the range more often. I tried hitting his driver and making the same sound, but it just was not the same. It was not as loud and poppy.
A couple weeks after, my dad and I went to Golf Galaxy in Boise to check out some clubs for me and ended up getting the Top-Flite Gamers, which was phenomenal for me when I was younger. The first thing I did when I hit them at the range was check to see if the driver made the ding. Sure enough, it did, and I loved it even more.
Now that I am older, I have been through many drivers. They all sound different, but I will always love the sound of hitting a good shot with a driver. I have a mini driver now and instead of making that same ding, its tone is low-pitched and does not have as much ring to it. The vibration stops right away. My dad, on the other hand, has a driver whose ding is a lot louder than the one he had when I first heard the sound at the driving range. I asked my dad to bring me with him to the range more often. To this day, hearing the ping of drivers is one of my favorite childhood memories. I still love that sound.
Breaking
by Scout Weiseth
The sky is bright blue; the water stretches out in every direction, smooth as glass. A wave slowly starts to build. I am unbelievably bored. Some parts of life are great – I am in classrooms with my friends, and I like my teachers. I only encounter one problem: the classes are too easy. At home, I break down in sadness over how easy my schoolwork is. My mom comes to comfort me, trying to find ways to help me. We talk about enrolling in advanced classes, but we cannot find any in the small town of McCall, and nobody seems to have a reasonable solution. I am less and less inclined to go to school with each passing day. This continues until my mom talks to her friend, a teacher in the school district. The teacher tells my parents about the North Fork School. Somewhere far out, past the break, a wave begins to form.
My mom picks me up from school and tells me about the opportunity. I ask whether it is the best choice for me, what the teachers are like, and whether I would enjoy it more. She thinks it is an option I would enjoy, but it would be a big change. Next week, Tuesday comes around, and nothing could have prepared me for the change. The wave I had watched building from a distance finally breaks and it crashes over me completely, knocking me off my feet. My body floods with stress, and all I want is to find the surface. At this moment, I think that my future is going to be nothing but ocean waves that continually knock me over with no relief. I had wanted waves, and now I had them, but I hadn't expected them to be this big.
I walk into the building, beginning my visit and immediately start learning about all the things they do differently. The teacher hands me something to do. I feel intimidated, but I finally decide to try the assignment, and realize it is harder than any schoolwork I have ever done. I have come to the realization that school is just going to be a lot harder now. I love a challenge, but I have never been prepared for one this difficult. As I continue to attend classes, it becomes even harder. I am assigned the only homework I have ever had, and loads of it.
The waves began to ease, and I remembered that the ocean had always been something I loved, not something to fear. Suddenly, a wave crashed hard, and for a moment all I could feel was the pull of the water, making me want to swim to shore and never come back. But waves follow patterns. You can learn where they build and where they break, when to duck under, and when to go for it. You still get knocked down, that never fully goes away, and some days you drag yourself out of the water exhausted, salt in your eyes, wondering why you bothered. But there is nothing like catching a big wave and riding it all the way in. That feeling makes every wipeout worth it.
I finally reached the end of the semester. Unfortunately, I am swept off my feet unexpectedly at parent-teacher conferences. I am receiving what I see as criticism, but it is just advice. I sit in disappointment and sadness, thinking I am not good enough. As I walk out of the building, I slouch and look at the ground, as though my life was over. But waves always release you. When the wave finally let me go, I realized how far out I still was and how far I had already come. Coming into school the next day was hard, but I was okay with knowing I had more to learn.
I had learned something surfers know: you don't stop going in the ocean just because the waves are big. You learn to read them. You learn that being tumbled under, lungs burning, and world spinning, is just part of what it means to love the water. It turns out, I had actually learned to like the waves. The more time I spent in the water at North Fork, the more I started to understand it. The waves would still break, but they were not as rough as the parent-teacher conferences. And somewhere in the process of getting knocked down and finding my footing again, I found myself proud of what I have overcome.
Golf
by Everett Lingle
Rushing out of a haircut, I ran to my car. McCall was oddly busy, and I was late. Hopping in and quickly pulling out of my parking spot, I turned on the left blinker. I should have known it would be almost impossible turning left in downtown McCall when people were out. It felt like forever, as I wondered how a small town could create so much traffic. Finally, I was able to go and began the loud drive out to Jug Mountain Ranch. In my old car, fifty-five mph felt like a lot for the engine. The cooling system made an annoying, incessant sound that drove me insane. Eventually, on the road that wound slowly to the driving range, the car finally had a break from working so hard. Exiting the car, I was surprised by the size of the golf team.
It was early spring, and the air was still cold enough that I kept my hands stuffed into jean pockets. It reminded me of camping in the forest where air just chills you enough to stay by the fire, while morning birds chirp around you. Everything felt so far away from the chaos that had been my afternoon. The range was wide open, surrounded by pine trees that filled the air with a sharp scent. Hills and mountains rose up into the sky, making the grassy range feel like a small part of the larger landscape. Best of all, it was quiet, except for the sharp crack of golf clubs hitting balls. After the haircut I had earlier, I was worried and checking over everything; I had felt something was missing. The noise my car made when driving on the road spiked my anxiety as I imagined every situation where that noise meant something was wrong; this new sound just calmed me as I walked towards the green.
My friends on the golf team were already there when I arrived. There were more players than I had expected, spread out in small groups across the driving range, leading me right into the middle of it. Nobody was rushing. Even when someone hit a bad shot, they simply reset and tried again like it was normal. It felt like driving on an empty road where it is just you and your car trying to reach where you want to go. Every swing made a clean sound, and the ball flew out into the open field, blending into the balls that were already hit. Watching it, I could not even tell where the ball was supposed to end up. To me, it looked simple, like the ball would just go straight every time.
After watching for a while, I decided to try it myself. Picking up one of my friend’s clubs and stepping into the same space he had been using, I lined up the club and swung. I missed completely. I was not even sure what went wrong. Trying again, more carefully this time, I only barely hit the edge of the ball. My friends laughed each time I missed.
Golf looked calm and simple from the outside, but being there showed me it takes skill. The setting at Jug Mountain Ranch made the experience even better because everything around us was so quiet and open. There was no rush; there was no pressure. I enjoyed being there, and I want to try golf again now knowing it is not as easy as it looks. After leaving the course, I went to get gas, and once again the disorder of my life, just a minute ago so far away, came crashing back.
US History I Zoom code: 842 7571 1368 passcode: 927076
English I/II Zoom code: 828 5560 7845 passcode: 226526
US History II Zoom code: 828 3636 0462 passcode: 217607
Vocabulary >>> Part IV Elements of Style: Words and Expressions Commonly Misused learn ALL WORDS/ERRORS +
sanguine, sardonic, insidious, euphemism, cogent, paradigm, august, vortex, quixotic, arable, hectare, potable, anthropogenic, salinization, reticent/reticence, rhetoric, alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia, consonance, simile, metaphor, homophone, hyperbole, anaphora, enjambment. caesura, antecedent, chiasmus, abstract (noun), utopia, renaissance, explicit, incessant, assimilate, precipitous, lucid, rudimentary, anachronism, fecund, temerity, furtive, ephemeral, itinerant, philistine, profligate, tenet, charisma, chimera, agnostic, static, panacea, ephemeral, itinerant, philistine, profligate, tenet, charisma, chimera, agnostic, static, panacea, parochial, taciturn, unctuous, vitriolic, hypothetical, emulate, bane, ambivalent, solicitous, soporific, colloquial, blank verse, trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter + from EOS Glossary (in the back of the book): adverbial phrase, appositive, complement, colloquialism, conjunction, indirect object, nominative pronoun, predicate + ODYSSEY WORDS: agora, megaron, archetype, dissemble, venerate/venerable, prodigious, tantalize, guile, protagonist, antagonist, bane, chimera, charisma, philistine, vainglory, improvise, amulet, protean, epithet, timé, pandemonium, anon, asphodel, titanic, hekatomb, panacea, maudlin, disinterested, supercilious, laconic, taciturn, indolent, credulous, reticent, disapprobation, assiduous, loquacious, contemporary (n), abstract (n), noxious, dispassionately, arrant, licentious
Grammar, key terminology, and vocabulary items that we have discussed in class are on the AP Language & Composition Vocabulary Archive. While most of you will not take the AP Language exam until next year, it always helps to become familiar with these terms now (rather than cramming next year). The sooner you get started, the sooner (comparative degree) you will know all your terms.
Find Honors World Literature vocabulary HERE OR play to study on Quizlet!
Student Resources: English II
Check every piece for THESE SKILLS before turning anything in for an edit.
Check ALL CITATIONS (quotes) with these formatting rules before turning anything in for an edit.
Click HERE for directions for email editing
Summer reading list for High School students
Access English II class writing archives to see what our readings and assignments are for this year, and to read sample pieces written by previous English II students.
QUARTER GRADING:
Participation = 30% (purely subjective, based on my perceptions of your initiative, interest, self-motivation, & tenacity)
Assignments = Revisions (20%)
Edits (20%)
Vocab/Multiple Choice tests= 15%
Timed essay grades= 15%
SEMESTER GRADING
Participation = 30% (purely subjective, based on my perceptions of your initiative, interest, self-motivation, & tenacity)
Assignments = Revisions & edits (20%)
Vocab/Multiple Choice tests = 15%
Timed essay grades = 10%
Exam = 25%
“The great skill of a teacher is to get and keep the attention of his scholar... To attain this, he should make the child comprehend...the usefulness of what he teaches him and let him see, by what he has learned, that he can do something which gives him some power and real advantage over others who are ignorant of it.”
— John Locke (1632-1704), on Education
Unfinished Pieces: Semester II
(updated 5/19/26)
Everett
Revisions = 100%
Edits = 100%
Memoir — Taste of Thai
Theme poem (insight)
Inferior argument paragraph
Technical brochure: Soccer Skills
3 entries: published piece OR 3 rejection letters
Winston
Revisions = 100%
Edits = 100%
Odyssey graph
Memoir — “Winnston!!!”
Updated Brag sheet
Inferior argument paragraph
Technical brochure: Making Paper Airplanes
1 entry: published piece OR 2 more rejection letters
Ari
Revisions = 100%
Edits = 100%
Odyssey graph
Travel piece: Coffee Shops
Theme poem (insight)
2025-2026 English II Bibliography of all readings
Inferior argument paragraph
Technical brochure: Hitting a Golf Ball
Georgia
Revisions = 100%
Edits = 100%
2025-2026 English II Bibliography of all readings
Technical brochure: How to do a Waltz jump
3 entries: published piece OR 3 rejection letters
Scout
Revisions = 100%
Edits = 100%
Technical brochure: How to Crochet
4 entries: published piece OR 3 rejection letters
Ocean Breeze
by Georgia Spilotros
I wake up to the sound of seagulls. Soft linens cover my face from the sun. I slowly peek above the covers to see my curtains being brushed away from the windowsill by the ocean breeze. I thought it was a ghost last night. With a familiar smell of salt and hot sand, the breeze cools my sunburn and makes me feel a sense of calm I have never felt before. As it caresses my face, sending a chill down my body, the house is oddly quiet. I feel as though I should be scared of being alone in a big house, but instead I feel a sense of happiness just being alone with the ocean breeze swaying softly through the window.
Out the open door to the front deck, breeze mixes with cedar shingle smell of the hot roof. I spot my grandma and she calls me over. The wood floors are cold and smooth. I scramble to zip up my sweatshirt. She calls, “Come paint with me?” I leap across the porch with excitement, trying to hide it with a subtle “sure” as I pick up a paint brush. We paint the ocean, the seagulls, and the sand, which I have trouble with. Even though this is not my home, the ocean breeze makes me feel like it is. A few hours later, I leave, so my grandma gives me our painting and says “Think of me when you look at this, ok?”
“Ok!” I give her a hug. On the car ride home, I stare at the ocean, smell the breeze, and think about that moment: nothing exactly like that will ever happen again. At home in the city, I try to recreate it with my own paints but it does not work. I am scared of losing that moment.
Six years later, in San Diego, for my sixteenth birthday, the scent of the ocean breeze invites me to pick up a paint brush again. I paint the ocean and let the breeze calm my shaky hands. I probably will never understand how the ocean inspires my creativity. Vacation feels so relaxing in warm places by the beach, not just because of the warm weather. The breeze calms my nervous system, making days more meaningful, and special. Those feelings remind my old self of little me painting with my grandma and living in the moment, not the future.
When I am having a fun time sometimes, I feel so appreciative that I start treating the present like a memory rather than living it. It had never occurred to me until my birthday trip that people waste so much time living in the past or future that they forget to enjoy the present. As that ocean breeze wafted over my 16th birthday cake, I wished on every candle to go back in time. But now I realize that not being able to go back to recreate a memory makes it even more special.
