MR. NICHOLAS SEVANO / SPRING VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL / LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

A thoroughly revised and updated edition of Thomas C. Foster’s classic guide—a lively and entertaining introduction to literature and literary basics, including symbols, themes and contexts, that shows you how to make your everyday reading experience more rewarding and enjoyable.
While many books can be enjoyed for their basic stories, there are often deeper literary meanings interwoven in these texts. How to Read Literature Like a Professor helps us to discover those hidden truths by looking at literature with the eyes—and the literary codes-of the ultimate professional reader, the college professor.
What does it mean when a literary hero is traveling along a dusty road? When he hands a drink to his companion? When he’s drenched in a sudden rain shower?
Ranging from major themes to literary models, narrative devices and form, Thomas C. Foster provides us with a broad overview of literature—a world where a road leads to a quest, a shared meal may signify a communion, and rain, whether cleansing or destructive, is never just a shower-and shows us how to make our reading experience more enriching, satisfying, and fun. Source: Amazon.com
PLEASE NOTE: While there will NOT be a formal assessment of this text, I still highly recommend reading it. This will add to your critical reading toolbox for the IB ENGLISH A Part 4: Literature--Critical Study portion of class.
While many books can be enjoyed for their basic stories, there are often deeper literary meanings interwoven in these texts. How to Read Literature Like a Professor helps us to discover those hidden truths by looking at literature with the eyes—and the literary codes-of the ultimate professional reader, the college professor.
What does it mean when a literary hero is traveling along a dusty road? When he hands a drink to his companion? When he’s drenched in a sudden rain shower?
Ranging from major themes to literary models, narrative devices and form, Thomas C. Foster provides us with a broad overview of literature—a world where a road leads to a quest, a shared meal may signify a communion, and rain, whether cleansing or destructive, is never just a shower-and shows us how to make our reading experience more enriching, satisfying, and fun. Source: Amazon.com
PLEASE NOTE: While there will NOT be a formal assessment of this text, I still highly recommend reading it. This will add to your critical reading toolbox for the IB ENGLISH A Part 4: Literature--Critical Study portion of class.
The Language of Literary Study
Please familiarize yourself with all these terms before the start of school.
Additional Recommended Reading
As some of you have asked for summer reading recommendations, I have provided a list of titles.
Some of these texts appear on reading lists for college-bound students.
Fiction
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Beloved by Toni Morrison
1984 by George Orwell
Frankenstein by Mary Shelly
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Non-Fiction
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois
The Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
The Republic by Plato
The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America by Garry Wills
This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
Black Boy by Richard Wright
Drama
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
King Lear by William Shakespeare
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
Fences by August Wilson
The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme
at Spring Valley High School
To date, more than 1.2 million students worldwide have graduated from the Diploma Programme (DP). IB students reflect diverse experiences and perspectives, attend IB World Schools in 147 countries representing an even broader range of nationalities.
"During my DP courses, I was able to develop my critical thinking skills. I explored the relationship between personal superstition and the formation of scientific knowledge. This led to a deep understanding of perceptions toward scientific knowledge, source reliability, and social impact." -- Zheng "David" Zong - Shanghai, China
"I was really interested in medicine, biochemistry, neuroscience, and ecology, and being able to tailor my studies to my passions made the classes much more fun and relevant for me. These also gave me credits for some of my courses in university to accelerate my studies and meant I already had a strong background in a lot of my elective university subjects." --Samantha Nixon - St. Lucia, Australia
10th Grade MYP Personal Project Exhibition
Spring Valley High School
March 21st, 2018
IB Mission Statement
The International Baccalaureate aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect. To this end the organization works with schools, governments and international organizations to develop challenging programmes of international education and rigorous assessment. These programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.
Course Description
The Language A: Language and Literature course introduces the critical study and interpretation of written and spoken texts from a wide range of literary and non literary genres. The formal analysis of texts is supplemented by awareness that meaning is not fixed but can change in respect to contexts of production and consumption. This course is available for study in 17 languages.
The course is organized into four parts, each focussed on the study of either literary or non-literary texts. Together, the four parts of the course allow the student to explore the language A in question through its cultural development and use, its media forms and functions, and its literature. Students develop skills of literary and textual analysis, and also the ability to present their ideas effectively. A key aim is the development of critical literacy.
Key Features of the Curriculum and Assessment Models:
Taken from http://www.ibo.org/programmes
Spring Valley HS is a certified DP high school.
The course is organized into four parts, each focussed on the study of either literary or non-literary texts. Together, the four parts of the course allow the student to explore the language A in question through its cultural development and use, its media forms and functions, and its literature. Students develop skills of literary and textual analysis, and also the ability to present their ideas effectively. A key aim is the development of critical literacy.
Key Features of the Curriculum and Assessment Models:
- Available at higher and standard levels
- Higher level study requires a minimum of 240 class hours, while standard level study requires a minimum of 150 class hours
- Students study 6 works at higher level and 4 works at standard level from a representative selection of genres, periods and places
- Students develop the techniques needed for the critical analysis of communication, becoming alert to interactions between text, audience and purpose
- An understanding of how language, culture and context determine the construction of meaning is developed through the exploration of texts, some of which are studied in translation, from a variety of cultures, periods and genres
- Students are assessed through a combination of formal examinations, written coursework and oral activities
- The formal examination comprises two essay papers, one requiring the analysis of unseen literary and non-literary texts, and the other a response to a question based on the literary works studied
- Students also produce written tasks in a variety of genres, and perform two oral activities presenting their analysis of works read.
Taken from http://www.ibo.org/programmes
Spring Valley HS is a certified DP high school.
Theory of Knowledge (TOK) Integration
Specific cultural and reading practices play a central role in the way we generate the meaning of a text. As these practices change, over time or from place to place, the meaning we ascribe to a text shifts and can become unstable. This creates a clear link with Theory of Knowledge (TOK). In discussing art as an area of knowledge, for example, the following question might be asked: “What knowledge of art can be gained by focusing attention solely on the work itself, in isolation from the artist or the social context?”
Further questions seek to explore the nature and meaning of art through an understanding of its social, cultural or historical context and the role of the reader or audience’s response to the text in generating meaning. Links with TOK also promote an intercultural perspective, encouraging students to reflect on and think beyond their own cultural assumptions as they engage the learning materials in the course.
The relationship between the subject and TOK is central to the Diploma Programme. Students should be able to reflect critically on the various ways of knowing and on knowledge issues. The questions noted below highlight the relationship between TOK and the Language A: Language and Literature course:
How does the reader shape the meaning of a text?
How are our understandings of texts affected by their various historical, social and cultural contexts?
When does a text become defined as literature?
Language and literature are never simply transparent. They also encode values and beliefs. To what extent should this be considered when responding to texts?
How far do power relationships in society determine what is considered literature and define the canon?
Texts can be analysed from different critical positions. In the light of this, how can their effectiveness be judged relative to one another?
If meaning is inherently unstable, conditional on the contexts of the text and reader, how can we determine what a text means?
Taken from http://www.ibo.org/programmes
Spring Valley HS is a certified DP high school.
How's the Water?
An Inquiry into Perception, Perspective, and Persistence
David Foster Wallace
2005 Kenyon College Commencement Address
In Print as "This is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion,
About Living a Compassionate Life"
(1) There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the hell is water?"
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(15)But it will be.
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Dive into inquiry . . .
1. What does Wallace say is the true mark of an educated person? In what ways do you reflect this? In what ways do you still strive for this?
2. What can we take from the address that speaks to abandoning assumptions and illusions and embracing a life of learning and wisdom?
3. How do our perceptions and perspectives serve as barriers and gateways to compassion?
4. How can the commencement address “This Is Water" speak to our responsibility for being globally- minded citizens?
5. In what ways do we have an obligation to persist in striving for compassion? According to Wallace, how might we go about this is our daily lives?