Course Description
Sophomore English follows the Utah State Core Curriculum and the goal of the class is to grow the communication, reading, speaking, and listening skills of each student from where they enter at the beginning of the school year to the 10th grade level upon exiting this school year. Hopefully that is possible for each student. Grading
Students are graded on the following scale:
90% .... A- 74% ... C-
87% .... B+ 70% ... D+
84% ... B- 64% ... D
80% ... C+ 59% ... F
Honors students will not receive D's. Honors student work may be returned until it reaches C level or better. It will be stamped "Revise and Resubmit." Please be aware of this if you are registering for an honors class.
Class Expectations
Students are expected to be on time, prepared, and respectful every day. All school rules apply as they are outlined in the school handbook in this class. You can read it here. Students are expected to bring their homework to class finished at the beginning of class. Please be aware of Mrs. Phippen's grading proceedures: scores go into the computer at the beginning of class as an on time roll-call.
Expectations for Assignments
Assignments must be neat, legible, and complete at the beginning of class to be considered for full credit. Any assignment completed after class has begun will ONLY EVER be considered for partial credit. Incomplete assignments will receive partial credit. Students are also expected to put their names on all work. By the time they are 16, they should know their own names. Papers are expected to be typed in MLA style which means that all papers should be typed according to this style guide.Attendance & Participation
There are no wasted days in this class. Every day will be a great day in this class. However, when a student misses the class, this is what is expected:
- Check the blog to see what he/she missed
- Get handouts if they can be downloaded
- Do not "wait and see" what he/she can do for 2 or 3 more days until class is held! That's a lot of wasted time!
- Turn the homework in that's due the next time class happens (especially if it's something on the calendar that's been on the calendar a long time--and something the class does every week. The student knew about it, and there's no excuse for not doing it.)
- Come in the next day during Flex Time--That's what Flex is for!
Mrs. Phippen usually doesn't give participation points just to give participation points; however, when an assignment is something that is not something read, something written, something listening, etc. it is something that is participatory, those points go in the computer as participation. They can only be made up by coming to Flex and participating.
Flex
Flex is Mrs. Phippen's favorite time of day. This is the time of day when, for 25 minutes, she pre-teaches, teaches, or re-teaches multiple concepts from the Utah State Core. The lesson plan will usually be posted at least a week in advance so you can see if you want to attend. If you attend, you will receive up to 10 lab points that will apply to your regular class. These are in addition to your other assignments, and they never require homework. They are extra credit and make up credit. The calendar is posted here.Major assignments are due on their due dates and Mrs. Phippen decides what is a major assignment. When the end of a term happens, it happens. No exceptions are made for extra credit due dates. Plagiarized assignments receive zeroes. Please visit the plagiarism policy in the student handbook on page 16. One of the largest problems in college today is plagiarism and cheating. Every high school student should be able to read and write his or her own papers.
Extra Credit
Please see the extra credit page here.
Students may attend 4 extra credit options each quarter. They may also attend Flex. However, extra credit will not replace major assignments such as book reports, research papers, and other work first. Mrs. Phippen determines what constitutes what is major. Students will be required to complete major assignments before extra credit will be accepted. Extra credit will not count until major assignments have been completed, even if major assignments are significantly late and will only count for partial credit.
Contact Information
If you have a special circumstance and need to contact Mrs. Phippen, please do so via email at jphippen@alpinedistrict.org which will get to her 24 hours a day. You may also phone her at (801) 610.8175 ext. 611 The phone on her desk doesn’t blink, so email will probably be quicker.
You can’t contact her via Twitter or Facebook even though there is a “Stuff for Phippen English 10 GROUP page. Do NOT submit a friend request for Mrs. Phippen as it is against Alpine District policy for a teacher to friend a student. Please feel free to *FOLLOW* on Facebook or Twitter for information. ❀
