Spanish for Heritage Speakers 1 Honors will develop the language and literacy skills of heritage speakers. Students in this course come from Spanish-speaking family backgrounds. They speak and understand Spanish in the home, and they demonstrate some skills in reading and writing Spanish.
The course will build upon the deep knowledge that heritage speakers of Spanish bring to the language classroom. With a focus on the formal registers of Spanish, this course will advance a student’s proficiency in Spanish for multiple contexts–academic, professional, and personal. Special attention will be given to building vocabulary for specific contexts, using advanced grammar, strengthening formal composition skills, and deepening academic reading ability. In this course, students will increase their knowledge of a variety of topics including but not limited to topics such as identity, communities, world challenges, and literature from the Spanish-speaking world.
Taught exclusively in Spanish, this course is designed for heritage speakers only.
Upon successful completion of this course and the course final exam, students are recommended to enroll in further Spanish courses, such as Spanish for Heritage Speakers 2 – Honors.
*Class receives honors weighting in SI weighted GPA and UC/CSU GPA calculations
English 200 continues the course of study begun in the freshman year. Skills learned the previous year are refined, expanded, and enhanced. Basic grammar is reviewed and new material introduced throughout the year. The lower division writing sequence continues with a review of paragraph writing, which leads into the year’s emphasis on descriptive, narrative, and expository essay writing. Students will write approximately 10-12 papers in a variety of rhetorical modes. The writing becomes not only more formal, but increased in length as well with students writing multi-paragraph expository essays by the end of the first quarter. The reading of literature includes all the major genres: novel, drama, poetry, short story, and essay; however, the study of literature shifts from an organization by form to an organization by themes that reveal an insight into the human condition.
The major difference between this honors course and the regular sophomore course is in the number of books that are read and their inherent difficulty, in the mode of instruction in the classroom, in the student initiative required, and in the number of writing assignments (generally 2-3 additional essays per year) along with their increasing and various difficulty.
Class receives honors weighting in SI weighted GPA
Spanish 2 is a language course designed for students who have successfully completed their first year of Spanish. It is a two-semester course which aims to improve the student’s ability to speak, read, and write in Spanish, to systematically review grammar previously studied, and to master new concepts in Spanish, and to enhance the student’s knowledge of the cultural diversity of the Spanish-speaking world. The emphasis on improvement of oral skills will be considerable, and the student will be encouraged to speak in Spanish on a variety of topics and in a number of situations ranging from question and answer to oral presentations and/or situations.
Spanish 2H is an accelerated course designed to challenge the student who, during his/her first year, has actively participated in class, mastered the grammar and vocabulary presented in level one and/or demonstrated the ability to advance more rapidly than the average college preparatory student. The teacher will aid students in acquiring the following skills: increased oral proficiency on a variety of topics, an expanded vocabulary, the ability to read selections appropriate to intermediate level students and increased ability to write essays. The course materials are designed to stimulate conversation and to perfect that skill, striving to imitate the native speaker’s pronunciation, accent, and rhythm, as the student’s abilities increase. Students will also become more informed about some of the contemporary problems and difficulties affecting Hispanic communities. Students will further develop their ability to express themselves in spoken and written Spanish.
*Class receives honors weighting in SI weighted GPA
The course reviews the basic concepts, terminology, and notation involved in geometry, and is designed for the student who successfully completed Algebra 1 as a freshman, though any student may apply. Both abstract and practical aspects are covered. Conditional statements, conjectures, theorems, and written justifications are systematically brought into the course, along with the subjects to which they pertain, in the context of problem solving as well as in the context of the preparation of formal proofs. Students construct an understanding by spending some of their class time working in collaborative learning groups. Review of algebraic and geometric concepts is employed throughout the course. In this way, algebra skills are maintained and the students are better prepared to enter into the geometric aspects of advanced algebra, math analysis, precalculus, and calculus courses. A Texas Instruments TI-83 or TI-84 series graphing calculator is required.
This course follows generally the description of the traditional geometry course but also includes more proof (direct and indirect; in two-column, flow, and paragraph form). This course is designed for the student who successfully completed Algebra 1Acc as a freshman, but any student may apply. Within the context of Geometry, the Accelerated course includes more challenging algebraic applications, such as solving quadratic equations. It also includes an introduction to analytic geometry and trigonometry, helping to prepare students for Precalculus. A Texas Instruments TI-83 or TI-84 series graphing calculator is required.
This course follows generally the description of the traditional geometry course but provides extensive experience from early stages with the devising, presentation, and defense of student proofs and the theoretical consideration of the nature of proof (direct and indirect; in two-column, flow, and analytical paragraph form). The Honors course includes a more extensive coverage of solid geometry, an introduction to analytic geometry and trigonometry, and opportunities for curricular enrichment in problem-solving. Additional topics include vectors, trigonometric identities, conic sections, and the study of trigonometric and circular functions. Within the context of Geometry, the Honors course includes more challenging algebraic applications, such as solving quadratic, rational, irrational, logarithmic, and exponential equations. This course is designed for the student who successfully completed Algebra 2H as a freshman, but any student may apply. A Texas Instruments TI-83 or TI-84 series graphing calculator is required.
*Class receives honors weighting in SI weighted GPA
The first part of the course reviews basic terminology, notation, concepts, skills, and application of elementary algebra by examination of the real number system. This part includes real number concepts and skills involving operations with positive and negative numbers and zero, solution of linear equations and inequalities, one and two variable equations, solving verbal problems, properties of polynomials and rational expressions. Ideas such as set, variable, number line, open sentence, ordered pair, equivalent sentences, and Cartesian coordinate system are studied and the student is required to demonstrate ability to solve problems involving these concepts.
The course also includes the concepts of function and relation and emphasizes linear and quadratic relations and functions. The text chapters discussing this material employ symbols, concepts, and methods presented in the earlier chapters. Thus, the course continually grows and builds on learned material. The course also includes discussions on exponential functions and logarithms, and a short look at trigonometry. A Texas Instruments TI-83 or TI-84 series graphing calculator is required.
Precalculus mathematics is a course designed for the student who intends to continue the study of mathematics in the direction of the natural or physical sciences and is a preparation for Calculus. Traditional analytic trigonometry is taught at the beginning of the course which includes an intense study of right triangle trigonometry, its applications to vectors, circular functions, and trigonometric identities, and solving trigonometric equations. The rest of the course is an analysis of families of functions and relations – polynomials, rational functions, radical functions, trigonometric functions, logarithmic functions, and exponential functions — and their graphs both algebraically and through the graphing calculator, including an introduction to the fundamental aspects of Calculus. A Texas Instruments TI-83 or TI-84 series graphing calculator is required.
