Memorial High School - Reata Yearbook (Houston, TX)

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5. 2 A Q- h Y, .c,'f2, H I . I xy. , O f : 1 Q Qt fy I Us 9'- ',z1s-... ' H - .lA, -..Q X g DV- ' xx sf -xi-1 F? ,fr L is NOTE TAKING AND PAY- ING ATTENTION helps Freshman Ginny Mavor study for tests. Photo by Trent Rosenthal. MYTHOLOGY, AS STUDIED BY THE FRESHMAN ENG- LISH CLASSES, involved reading aloud. Charles - Watson reads to class- mates Tracy Thompson. Photo by Kathy Epps. CONVERSATION IS FRE- QUENT when Mrs. Joyce Young's Freshman English I class is given time to read. FRUSTRATED OVER ONE OF THE- QUESTIONS, Freshman Richard Shalene asks Miss Roberta Frame for assistance on his Eng- Iish. Freshmen have it rough in their first year, having to weed through Romeo nutl Juliet and A Tale of 'Iyyo Cities. Photo by Trent Rosenthal. I lood. Sweat. and Tears. as a rock group. have produced many enjoyable hours of relaxation for all kinds of stu- dents. All kinds of students have also produced blood, sweat. aml tears. ' No. not the rock group. but hours of hard work in far-l'rom- fun-classes such as reading. writing. and arithmetic. Algebra. geometry. trigonometry. and grammar. to name a few. may he mind-building. but they usually didn't appeal to students as highly as a beer-drinking class might. Of course. these subjects were required to graduate. there- fore. their misery was shared by many: hopefully by all. Even though students did not exactly love the courses they did more than stay awake in. they all had to 'grill and bear it.' Freshman English ' l57

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SHORT STORIES OCCU- PIES MRS. JOYCE YOUNG'S FRESHMAN ENGLISH CLASS for part of the year. Mythology and ROMEO AND JULIET help to fill the rest of the year along with the tradi- tional grammar. Photo by Kathy Epps. ONE ACT PLAYS WERE POPULAR when Freshman English class studied analo- gies. Kirk Waldor and Lance Meiia act out The Valiant. Photo by Kathy Epps. SEPARATION OF FRIENDS is one solution to talking during free reading. Fresh- man Steve Poole is moved up next to the teacher's desk to help stop talking. Photo by Kathy Epps. Special Report, Freshman English . . . Fl'l'.9lIl7lf'lI lwzrn llzv ABCS The Basics I 1 l l l rudging through the very basics of the Ninth Grade Englishf program. freslunan students ran the gamut from grannnarl skills to mythology in their studies. I Short stories initiated freshmen to the program. Included in they unit were stories by authors such as Edgar Allen Poe and Sher-I wood Anderson. Almost all of them liked the short stories. said Freslunan Eng-f lish teacher Mrs. Joyce Young. Some of our best stories are not? by well-known authors. A After a cursory'touch of non-fiction. mythology was the next ' unit studied. Using an Edith Hamilton text. Greek and Classical! mythology excerpts were read. including love stories. stories of ' creation. and heroes. As for mythology. Mrs. Young commented that students either, liked it a lot or not at all. .Classic novels were explored with an in-depth study of Charles Dickens' .4 Taft' of Two C'ilfL'.Y and Grunt E.xyu't'Ir1lim1.s-. Learning to put together a five-paragraph paper and writing compositions played a lnajor part of Freslunan English. Compos- itions were written for anything being studied at the time. Students adapted to formal Elizabethan language in their study of drama. William Shakespeare's Rmmw mul .luliul was the major play studied. Teachers used different methods in teaching Ronuw and JIIIIUI. What our class did was before each scene they would .give a part to each person and read the play. said Freslnnan Wendy Kaplan. lt wasn't really acting -it wasjust reading. Poetry studied included short poems and Rwnm um! .lllfft'l. According to Mrs. Young. Roman um! .IIIHUI is both poetry and dranla. Contemporary novels closed out the year with students given a choice of novels to read. Tllrougltout the year grannnar and vocabulary studies were illterspersed. Such thorough coverage of material prepared fresh- men students to move onto Sophomore English. - 30 -

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GLISH Blood weat and tear Novels, Reading, and Poetry alternates he class is quiet: yet not in their own individual worlds. They were reading The Chosen by Chaim Potok in the course Comparative Novels. some disagreeing with its concepts. but oth- ers enjoying it thoroughly. But Comparative Novels wasn't always as quiet as it seemed. In fact. after reading their selected novel, the students turned in a critique on the novel. and had group discussions. It's interesting to hear 30 different views of the same novel. all out in the open. said Senior Mark Wilson. who enjoyed the course and thought Mrs. Kelley did a goodjob teaching it. ln Comparative Novels. students read different novels on varied sub- jects. such as Man's Relationship to his God . Man's Relationship to his Fellow Man . Man's Relationship to Society. and Man's Understanding of himself. The students were graded on their critique and their contribution to class discussions. The class was run com- Qetely by the students. said Mrs. Lola elley. But when Mrs. Kelley needed to help the class along in a discussion. she didn't interfere with the students' opin- ions. Mrs. Kelley led the class without injecting her own opinions too strongly. ' said Senior Tom Schomburg. But the class wasn't just discus- sion. said Senior Rusty Mark, who thought that Comparative Novels was a good course because it compared dif- ferent st les of writing. But gomparative Novels was just one of the many En lish classes offered to all grade levels. 'lghere weren't many which didn't include some kind of poetry. Since the sixth century. the days of King Arthur and Guinevere, poetry has been an important part of every civili- zation and culture. While itgwas not a required part of the English curriculum, poetry was fre- quently studied. I think any literature AFTER READING IVANHOE, Mrs. Sally Leo- nard's Sophomore English classes performed skits. Performing in one were John Payne, Mau- reen Duncan, Lisa Frantz, Shelley Cole, Ed Wakil, and Jim Greer. Photo by Kathy Epps. English - Depth Design hv Leslie Cowan course would be incomplete without some study of poetry, said English Department Chairman Mrs. Lila McGaw. We felt it was an important art of every literary culture. saidp Mrs. McGaw. It's enjoyable. beautifully compact. and contains lofty thoughts. Poetry can say in two lines what takes the prose a whole para vraphf' Poetry was generally well-accepted among students. lt was oka . I like Hood poetry dealing with the 655' said Sophomore David Rankin. I also liked Langston Hughes and absurd poetry. Some English classes studied lafvlls' of fha King by Alfred. Lord Tennyson. I want to be a poet. said Sophomore Diana Lopresti. I like nature poems. CQIIIIIFL' Pura! mill Mllllffl'L' Rnln'rl.s