English II 2025-2026
On Thursday, 3/19, we will meet at MDHS at 8:50 for the Idaho Shakespeare Theater presentation of The Tempest. I will bring Winston and Scout over from NFS, and we will meet Ari and Georgia there (Everett is out of town that day).
********** SPRING BREAK **********
For Tuesday 3/31:
Read Zinsser: chapter 14 Writing About Yourself and chapter 22 The Tyranny of the Final Product
new vocabulary words: maudlin, disinterested, supercilious, laconic, taciturn, indolent, credulous, reticent, disapprobation
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)
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Three-paragraph essay: Compare Frost’s Mending Wall and cummings’ Space Being (don’t forget to remember)/Curved…
Paragraph 1: Mending Wall — analyze poem & answer: What “doesn’t love a wall” and “wants it down”? (4 quotes)
Paragraph 2: Space Being — analyze poem & answer: Why does cummings mention Frost’s poem in his? (4 quotes)
Paragraph 3: Compare poems — answer: Do the two poems communicate similar ideas or attitudes about something? AND What role do science and “Billiard Balls: seem to play in this for cummings? (2 quotes from Frost; 2 quotes from cummings)
Generations of Fishing
by Winston Gelardi
“I was on the end of the plank when we were running into swordfish. The guy driving the boat turned the boat into the swell. There was about a five or six-foot windswell, real close together, real steep. And we came up on a swell and came down, and I went completely underwater on the head of the plank, and it just snapped the thing.” Commercial fishing can be dangerous. Andy Saraspe is in the middle of three generations of commercial fishermen in San Diego waters. His father, Lauro Saraspe, started taking him out fishing when he was ten years old. “My dad was a fisherman all his life,” Andy says. “I started on my own when I was fifteen years old.” Andy’s success in commercial fishing comes from generations of knowledge and years of hard work.
A typical day out on the ocean includes “pulling our traps all day long. Pull them up, take the product out of them, and rebait them and set them back,” Andy says. “Usually, that’s about a 10-hour day. We try to do 120 traps a day.” As much as he loves his job, Andy also enjoys mushroom hunting around San Louis Obispo, and camping with his family in Oregon: “I like hiking and hunting. ‘Cause I get to be on dry, hard land. I don’t have to be rocking and rolling in the ocean. And I like, I like to be around the old oak trees and the Douglas fir trees, and I like to pick wild mushrooms. And that’s what you do when you go hiking.”
Over time, Andy has noticed that fishing has become less profitable. Areas where his family used to fish have become inaccessible. He reflects, “It was easier to make a living before, but now there's many rules and areas where we used to fish and do good, it’s all been closed for conservancies.” Before, at times, he could fish and set many more traps. “Well, before I used to fish about six or 700 traps, but now there’s a trap limit. You can only fish 300.” The price of lobsters has also been reduced over the years. “[My son] Charlie sold most of our lobsters today for $13 a pound. And normally we get $25 per pound at this time of year.” When 60-year old Andy was younger, he also had a lot more freedom as a fisherman. He boasts:
“A white shark? Yeah. Oh, yeah. We’ve harpooned them before. Yeah. No, it’s illegal now, but back in the day, when we would be swordfish fishing, if we saw a medium, like a ten-foot white chap, we’d be trying to harpoon them. Because you could sell them, and you know, the jaws are worth like $5,000 bucks. Oh yeah, you’d try to kill ‘em, and Mako sharks the same thing.”
Despite these changes in the economics of fishing, Andy remains a commercial fisherman. He notices now that newer fishermen try to steal his spots instead of finding their own. “In the old days, people used to stay away from where you’re fishing and find their own areas. You know, that was tradition.” Andy says. “Now they get as close as they can to your traps. They want all the spots that you know that you’ve learned for the past fifty years. They think they can just come in and take over your spots.” Andy believes that the oceans are getting too crowded. To anyone who wants to start commercially fishing, he advises: “Forget it. Costs too much money --- too inefficient to start from nothing.” His engine costs $160,000, and he has to pay $2,000 each month in fuel.
However, Andy notices that these changes are not all awful for him: “Well, the closures are good, because the lobsters get big and they reproduce more in there, and no one bothers them. The fish get bigger and reproduce a lot. And if you fish on the edge of the reserves, sometimes the fish and the lobsters crawl out of there, and you can do real good.” While he is limited to fewer traps now, the regulations make it much easier for him: “and it made it not so crowded since they closed 60% of the area we fished and made them preserves. It’s not so crowded now.”
“About twenty years ago, first day of lobster season, I caught 2,000 pounds of lobster.” According to Andy, today he only catches around 70% of what he used to. These days, Andy says, “if you catch 100 pounds a day, that’s a decent day.” Dedicated to fishing, and having worked hard, Andy Saraspe has no plans for retirement. He loves the lifestyle: even after stricter regulations were put in place, he made less profit, and other fishermen keep trying to steal his knowledge.
Nordic Team
by Scout Weiseth
I walk across the parking lot at Bear Basin, skate skis in hand. I see my best friends talking. The younger boys are stealing all the pre-practice cookies, and the coaches attempt to corral the chaos of elementary kids nearby. My body feels more excited with every step I take, preparing to nordic ski for the first time. The snow is not as deep as we all had hoped this season, but the groomed track ahead of me looks fresh and ready for a good day.
Before long, everyone snaps into their skis, and I believe this will be easy, since I have been a downhill skier all my life. I am a freeride athlete, so I’m used to steep ski runs, speed, and gravity doing most of the work. Terrifying mountain faces pump my body full of adrenaline. Nordic skiing looks slower, calmer, and simpler. However, once I click in, I feel like I have stepped onto another planet. My feet feel lighter and unsupported, and I realize almost immediately that gravity is not going to carry me forward. All of my momentum will be self-propelled. I think to myself, this is not going to be as easy as I thought.
Nordic skiing in McCall, Idaho is not only a fun hobby on the weekend, it is also a competitive sport, powered by intense athletes. McCall has a long history of Nordic skiers. These trails have produced college, World Cup, and Olympic athletes. Today, trails around Bear Basin Nordic Center are named after these world-class athletes. Some of my best friends are athletes aspiring to be great and are incredibly fast and often win competitive races. These racers hope that if they put in the effort and do well, they might have a trail named after them, too.
While the competitive spirit of the team runs deep, what surprises me is how supportive the team is. Even though the skiing itself is challenging, the environment around the racers is not intimidating. The coaches are encouraging and fun, skiing alongside athletes, assisting them, and making them faster or more efficient in their form. Racers speed around Bear Basin, while younger kids run around, play games, and learn together. Everyone seems to love being here, and every skier tries to become a little better than they were in their last practice. I had thought everyone would be more competitive, but many of the skiers here are simply doing it for fun.
Dayna Kunkel
by Ari Nevala
“If I am pushing myself at my age of forty-five, there is no reason these young guys can’t push themselves harder,” says Dayna Kunkel, who works at the Manchester Ice and Event Center. Dayna also owns North Fork Coffee Roasters, as well as a sticker company: Peel and Press LLC. Dayna was adopted at the age of fourteen in Boise, Idaho after moving from state to state and city to city.
He reflects: “My whole life took a different direction, and I am a whole different person because of it.” Dayna’s life is important and he works hard at everything he does because of the way he grew up and how his adoptive family treated him. His dad taught him many life lessons. He explains: “My dad is my favorite by far; he taught me how to live a really good life: hard work, education, staying super focused, and grinding day to day.” Dayna’s childhood affected him in good and bad ways, and he doesn’t want kids to experience the same things that he had to go through such as foster care.
“My advice for someone younger who is still finding a path in life would be to surround yourself with people who have like-minded goals,” Dayna offers. “Then you guys can thrive off each other and have more of a collective. Surround yourself with people who have the same mindset to succeed forward and feed off each other. Make it people who want to see you succeed.” Dayna wants to help people not take life for granted. Life can change at any moment: his did, when he was adopted.
Dayna coaches hockey and likes to watch the kids who grew up under his coaching get better. He mainly coaches the younger groups because that is when it is important to learn core skills. “I can coach all ages,” Dayna says, “but I have been coaching the little mite guys for the last seventeen years, and I coach adults as well. I love coaching the little guys because that’s where it’s important to get their skills before they move forward.” When he watches his son play hockey games and do well, it makes him happy knowing that Diego likes the game. Dayna reflects that he loves “Watching my son play a good hockey game. His stride looked nice, and he played defense and blocking and was not scared, I just like watching growth happen.” While Dayna feels that he is good at hockey, he knows that there is always room for improvement.
Dayna likes to DJ for some of the locals on special occasions. “Some of my hobbies include DJ’ing. I’ve done a lot of weddings for some of the local hockey players and people in this town.” He is very proud that he grew up to live a great life with lots of special moments and people. “I’m super happy that I have a wife and kids,” Dayna says. Although he likes his life right now, there is still some stuff that he wants to learn to do better. “I wish I would have learned how to take some money and invest it into something and turn that into way more money,” he says. Dayna loves the hockey community he works with here in McCall and loves watching how kids grow up into who we are today.
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
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: 3rd Quarter
(updated 3/17/26)
Everett
Revisions = 100%
Edits = 100%
Odyssey graph
Odyssey: 4 exam essays —
Heroes desire most; host/guest protocols; servant/aristocracy traits; why home at Book XIII?
Self-Evaluation (see left)
Chart: EOS rules #1-#11
Travel piece: Golf
Blue Poetry: Ballad, Narrative
published piece OR 3 rejection letters
Winston
Revisions = 100%
Edits = 100%
Odyssey graph
Odyssey: 4 exam essays —
Heroes desire most; host/guest protocols; servant/aristocracy traits; why home at Book XIII?
Chart: EOS rules #1-#11
Travel piece: ???
Blue Poetry: Narrative
published piece OR 2 more rejection letters *** 1 entry (Idaho Scholastic Writing Awards)
Ari
Revisions = 100%
Edits = 100%
Odyssey graph
Odyssey: 4 exam essays —
Heroes desire most; host/guest protocols; servant/aristocracy traits; highest value
Chart: EOS rules #1-#11
Travel piece: Coffee Shops
Pink Poetry: General to Specific; The Right Words
Georgia
Revisions = 100%
Edits = 100%
Odyssey graph
Odyssey: 4 exam essays —
Odysseus’ Journey; host/guest protocols; virtues; why home at Book XIII?
Chart: EOS rules #1-#11
interview piece: Tabitha (My Father’s Place)
Pink Poetry: General to Specific; The Right Words
published piece OR 2 more rejection letters: *** 1 entry (Idaho Scholastic Writing Awards)
Scout
Revisions = 100%
Edits = 100%
Odyssey graph
Odyssey: 4 exam essays —
Odysseus’ Journey; host/guest protocols; virtues; highest value
published piece OR 3 rejection letters* ** 1 entry (Teen Ink)
Adam Summerfield
by Everett Lingle
“At about sixteen years old, I was able to qualify for some invitational races [under] the governing body of USSA, the United States Ski Association… [and] I was sponsored by Rossignol,” says Adam Summerfield. Growing up in McCall, Idaho, Adam started skiing at a young age as part of the local alpine ski race team. He excelled in multiple races and ended up on an “international points system getting invited to an International Ski and Snowboard Federation circuit, FIS, and racing against some of the US development team as well!” The kids on the US development teams were already training for the Olympics, and Adam raced right alongside them.
Adam competed in the slalom, which involves skiing as fast as possible downhill while weaving between gates. His other event was giant slalom, which features wider gates and a longer run. To achieve his ultimate goal of reaching the status of a professional ski racer, Adam “took a dream, and wrote down a timeline with goals, and then slowly checked off those goals.” Being sponsored, he earned many perks: “skis, boots, helmets, and poles. I was also with Spider [who gave me] speed suits.” Adam’s training was intense, starting in early December in McCall, and “training and racing all the way through late May, and then going to ski race camps, typically a month, to a month and a half at Mount Hood.” He grew independent early by being away from home, which shaped him positively into the man he is today: able to work on projects and do everything he needs, alone.
After his career in ski racing, Adam transitioned to being a ski instructor, and he spent, “ten years going back and forth to Alaska… [guiding] heli skiing and ski mountaineering expeditions up there.” He took what he had learned when he attended the North Fork School, and used it on the face of mountains, at an extreme elevation of seven thousand feet above sea level: “What I learned from Marie and Bridget… helped me critically think as well as view things in a different light,” Adam says. “I can articulate in necessary circumstances: for example, when dealing with insurance companies on power line plans, when there are millions of dollars at stake.” Adam lived life on the road for a while, working on projects for a rock drilling and blasting company. He spent “thirteen years running multi-million dollar projects building government power lines, and traveling through cities [as he helped with the construction].”
Adam’s choices have led him to feeling most comfortable being outside. He moved back to McCall after running projects on the road, and ski guiding in Alaska. Adam still stays active and connected to nature in his McCall Home.
