Welcome!

Thank you for visiting the class website of Mr. J. This website provides a vast array of resources for parents and students.

Most importantly, this website contains a daily summary of the class activities that occur in each class.

To find the daily summary for your class, complete the following steps

1. Hover your mouse over the “classes” navigational link on the top left of this page.
2. Choose the relevant class as desired.
3. A list of all entries related to the selected class will be displayed.
   

All daily summaries will be displayed using the following format.

Day Date  Class and Block Number

For example: Monday 01-Jan-2011 Communications Block 8

By giving each entry a day, date, class and block number, visitors to this site should be able to easily find the information they seek.

In Class

All text written in this section will contain a summary of the events that occurred in class during the date specified in the title

Distributed Materials

In this section, a bulleted list of items will be displayed. Each item is a link that will open up a document or resource that was distributed to students during class. At times, this will open a document of the multi-media presentation that I used to instruct students during the class period.

Homework

This section will include a bulleted list that will provide instruction on how to complete the assigned homework. This section will also include due dates for all assigned homework.

Although I aim to update this site on a daily basis, I am not always capable of achieving this goal. I apologize in advance if I have not yet update the site with the information you are seeking.

It is my sincere home that this website will be a valuable resource for students and guardians/parents. If you have any suggestions regarding how I can improve the functionality of this site, please contact me.

Books: A Recommended Reading List

Students, the following books have inspired me. They have sparked my imagination, opened up large new worlds for me and many times, have forced me to see a culture, a people group and/or a political ideology from a different perspective. If you ever find yourself at a loss for what to read, read one of these. When you finish a book, I invite you to discuss it with me. Many of these books are old friends of mine and I greatly look forward to discussing any of them with you. As all of these books are important and worth reading, they are not listed in any particular order. Feel free to read them in whatever order you choose. If there is a book you particularly enjoy, send me an email so I too can enjoy the book.

Thanks – mr. j

ShoGun – Author: James Clavell

Sammy & Juliana in Hollywood – Author: Benjamin Alire Saenz

1984 – Author: George Orwell

Flowers for Algernon – Author: Daniel Keyes

The Importance of Being Earnest – Author: Oscar Wilde

The Picture of Dorian Gray – Author: Oscar Wilde

A Tale of Two Cities – Author: Charles Dickens

Crime and Punishment -Author: Fyodor Dostoevsky

Beowulf - Translated By: Seamus Heaney

Democracy – Author: Joan Didion

The God of Small Things – Author: Arundhati Roy

In The Lake of the Woods – Author: Tim O’Brien

The Things They Carried – Author: Tim O’Brien

The Kite Runner – Author: Khaled Hosseini

Native Son – Author: Richard Wright

Catch-22 – Author: Joseph Heller

Snow Crash – Author: Neal Stephenson

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time – Author: Mark Haddon

Tai-Pan – Author: James Clavell

The Color Purple – Author: Alice Walker

Harry Potter Books 1-7 - Author: J.K. Rowling

The Tempest – Author: William Shakespeare

Elegies in Blue (a collection of poems) – Author: Benjamin Alire Saenz

The Fountainhead – Author: Ayn Rand

Anthem – Author: Ayn Rand

Brave New World – Author: Aldous Huxley

Mutual Expectations

Classrooms, like many intricate relationships, are built around expectations. Naturally, you have expectations for me regarding how I will interact with you, how I will teach, what will be taught, etc. In return, I have expectations for you pertaining to how you will apply yourself in my class, how you will interact with me and so on.

In an effort to take some of the guessing out of our relationship, here are my expectations for you as student in my class. In addition, here also is what you can expect from me as a student in my class. Although both you and I are fallible, I trust that knowing what to expect from each other will be of great assistance in creating the desired reality.

What You Can Expect from Me

• You can expect me not to degrade your writing either orally or in writing.
• You can expect me to help you with your writing, but not to write it for you or to develop your ideas.
• You can expect me to respect you as a writer no matter how good or how bad you think your writing is.
• You can expect me to take everything you write seriously and to enjoy reading your writing.
• You can expect constructive feedback on papers that I return to you.
• You can expect me to create a safe environment for you to write in and to share your writing.
• You can expect me to respect any thoughts, feelings and/or emotions that are shared in your writing because I know writing is very personal.
• You can expect me to keep your writing confidential unless I ask your permission to share it. (Except for times when I am legally bound to discuss what you have written with a parent, administrator or counselor.)
• You can expect me not to determine your grade based on whether you applied my opinions to the writing of your paper. Your writing grades will be determined based on your ability to complete papers as instructed and on how your writing improves throughout the course.
• You can expect that reading is as important in this class as writing.
• You can expect respect from me in all things and on all occasions.
• You can expect that I will treat all students the same regardless of gender, age, appearance, social class, sexual orientation and religious beliefs.
• You can expect that multiculturalism will be supported in my classroom and that intolerance will not be acceptable.

What I Expect From You

• I expect you to use the Writing Process.
• I expect you to spend time and effort both in writing your paper and improving your drafts.
• I expect you to enjoy your writing and to creatively write your papers in a way that you think best addresses the paper topic.
• I expect you to respect the writing of your fellow students.
• I expect you to thoughtfully help other students to revise and edit their papers.
• I expect your writing to improve throughout the course of the year.
• I expect you to carefully read everything that I assign to you.
• I expect you to actively participate in class discussions
• I expect you to take charge of your education.
• I expect you to turn all assignments in on time.
• I expect you to be willing to try new things and to test out new ideas.
• I expect you to respect your classmates and the ideas they express in class.
• I expect you to treat me with respect at all times.
• I expect you to be open-minded and fair to help create a classroom community based on mutual acceptance.