English II 2025-2026
*** *** *** WINTER BREAK *** *** ***
For Monday 1/5:
(NOT NOW; after break) Start 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”?
Paragraph 2: Space Being — analyze poem & answer: Why does cummings mention Frost’s poem in his?
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?
Finish The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle, pp. 160-220
New grading plan for Catcher essays — the grade you have after the exam on 1/15/26 will be your exam grade (maybe you will get an extra weekend; we’ll see where we are on that Thursday); please CALL ME as you write each paragraph to discuss your ideas. You may not write the next paragraph until the previous one has the grade listed below. See your assignment list at right to see where you are after class each day:
¶ 1 (introduction with THESIS) >> D
¶ 2 (Holden traits) >> C-
¶ 3 (Catcher symbols OR Holden development) >> C
¶ 4 (The villagers/atmosphere OR Holden Dream/Inner Child) >> C+
¶ 5 (The Lottery symbols OR Mrs. Miller traits before Miriam arrives) >> B-
¶ 1 (Mrs. Miller traits OR Mrs. Miller development) >> B
¶ 1 (Miriam symbols OR Mrs. Miller Dream/Inner Child) >> B+
¶ 1 (conclusion) >> A-
Sophistication = A or A+
+1 point for every correctly-used vocabulary word
-1 for every missed skill that we have discussed, whether it’s on your skills list or not
Ari Nevala
by Georgia Spilotros
"I’m him," reflects fifteen-year-old Ari Nevala, imagining scenarios in his free time. "I like to think I’m the hero sometimes." Being unafraid gives him more control over situations. Freedom, when you are fifteen, is hard to get. "Maddie and I got lost at Brundage while back country skiing," says Ari, "and I felt an odd sense of freedom." By the time he returned to the parking lot, he felt happy to be safe, but also felt a strange sense of freedom, which is odd because his biggest fear is getting stuck in the backcountry while skiing and being killed by bears. Ari likes challenges. This random new-found freedom, as well as overcoming his fears of heights, are special goals, says Ari. "If I climbed a mountain and didn’t look down I would be good." When he is bored he thinks about skiing and being in nature because, "It’s scenic and I like a change from my house."
The Gymnast
by Scout Weiseth
A solid cedar branch
hovers over dying, yellow-green autumn grass.
Hard wind blows: an athlete’s breath
mid-race.
Forceful gusts, built to break
strong, durable branches. Still,
this evergreen stretches, bends:
flexible, an agile gymnast
relaxing, surviving each devastating gust.
Georgia Spilotros
by Everett Lingle
“I laid on the beach, dreaming, and I saw what looked liked my soul floating away,” says Georgia Spilotros. She was six then and is a tenth grader now. Attending both the public McCall-Donnelly High School, and the private North Fork School, Georgia believes she does not stand out among her peers at first glance, but is uniquely creative and intellectual. Identity is really important to Georgia. At night, when she has profound thoughts, she asks herself if she is really happy: “I believe you can’t be forever happy,” Georgia says, “but you can be satisfied in the moment.” At night she reflects on her emotions. She wonders if she truly knows who she is. “People know the answer but cannot explain it,” she says. In her future, Georgia wants to go to college, but not just to eventually sit in an office all day. “I would want to do something I want to pursue,” she says. If she were rich with no rules, she would: “First take care of my family, and then travel and focus on passion rather than be focused on making money. Like if I wanted to be a barista, I would become a barista.”
Everett Lingle
by Winston Gelardi
“If I could say one thing, it would be that I won the Skier’s Olympics Gold or that I went professional in soccer.” Everett Lingle is an adventurous person. In the Spring of 2024, Everett travelled to France as a foreign exchange student. He described his adjustment there by saying, “I hated and loved France at the same time since I didn’t know what I was doing the first two months and I didn’t know anyone.” His travels have taken him across the globe to: “...almost all of North and South America, France, and all of the UK, like Ireland.”
Hypothetically speaking, if Everett were to go back to visit one of the countries where he vacationed in the past, he says: “I wanna go back to Thailand because the food is great and I love spicy food. I really like their beaches and lush mountains.” Of all the places he has visited, Thailand holds a one-of-a-kind appeal to Everett. Because he has been to many countries before, he notes that: "It's not that different, but there are a lot of things happening at once which would keep me entertained if I went.”
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: dissemble, venerate/venerable, prodigious, tantalize, guile, protagonist, antagonist, bane, chimera, charisma, philistine, vainglory, improvise, amulet, protean, epithet, timé, pandemonium
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 1
(updated 12/19/25)
Everett
Revisions = 64/72
Edits = 9/12
Catcher essay: Dreams
Frost/cummings essay
Happiness paragraph(s)
interview piece: Adam Summerfield
Opinion piece: No Banned Books
Blue Poetry: Ballad, Narrative
published piece OR 3 rejection letters
Winston
Revisions = 60/72
Edits = 8/12
Catcher essay: Symbols (D)
Frost/cummings essay
interview piece: San Diego Commercial Fisherman
Opinion piece: Plastics in the Oceans
Blue Poetry: Ballad, Narrative
published piece OR 3 rejection letters *** 1 entry (Idaho Scholastic Writing Awards)
Ari
Revisions = 59/72
Edits = 7/12
Catcher essay: Symbols
Frost/cummings essay
interview piece: Dayna Kunkle
peer interview: Scout
Opinion piece: AI in Schools
Pink Poetry: General to Specific; The Right Words
published piece OR 3 rejection letters *** 1 entry (Idaho Scholastic Writing Awards)
Georgia
Revisions = 65/72
Edits = 10/12
Catcher essay: Inner Child
Frost/cummings essay
interview piece: Tabitha (My Father’s Place)
Opinion piece: What Teachers Teach
Pink Poetry: General to Specific; The Right Words
published piece OR 3 rejection letters: *** 1 entry (Idaho Scholastic Writing Awards)
Scout
Revisions = 60/72
Edits = 8/12
Catcher essay: Dreams
Frost/cummings essay
interview piece: Max Silverson
peer interview: Winston
Opinion piece: School Start Times Ignore Student Needs
Pink Poetry: Poem of Feeling
published piece OR 3 rejection letters
Injured
by Everett Lingle
This summer I was injured for the first time in my life. I was playing soccer with the high school team at the MDHS alumni fundraiser game, as I was soon to be finishing middle school. Playing with seniors and alumni, I was doing great for being the youngest at the event. As striker, the player at the front of the attack, I had already scored a goal. It was three/two in our favor, and the game was in full swing.
Near the beginning of the second half, a defender raced towards the ball around the edge of the goal box and sent a wild pass in the air right in front of me. I fearlessly sprinted towards the goal as the ball sailed above. Landing twenty feet in front of me, the ball was still rolling as I chased. Right away the goalie recognized the situation, and he also sprinted towards the ball. We met at the ball: neither of us feared anything, both in full sprint. I knew I was going to get it. I had been in this situation thousands of times before. I stuck my leg out, hoping to take the ball right before we collided. The goalie continued to charge straight through my leg.
Right away I knew something wasn’t right. I fell down and attempted to stand up, only to then realize my pain. I dropped to the ground and sat there in silence as I took in what had just happened. Some of the parents of other players who were at the game rushed me off the field to urgent care. My leg was screaming with pain. It felt like I had a needle stuck in my kneecap poking at me from all sides. I was hoping for just a sprain, but almost my whole summer was going to be spent in crutches.
Surgery was imminent, as I had fractured my tibia. My family and I were horrified. I did not know what to think: this was my only serious injury ever. I could not play soccer for a while, and since it was my first year in high school soccer, I was severely disappointed. My family and I went to Boise a week later for my surgery. Staying at home during my injury was very boring because I love to be moving and with friends. I could not do either with a fractured tibia.
