What's recently happened?
As eight English credits is an Indiana requirement to graduate high school, the majority of high school students will spend their four years taking an English course—this is no exception at Hebron High School (HHS). HHS students get a solid English education from the wonderful Melissa Sickinger, Mary Cameron, and Barbara Malangoni.
Sickinger’s English 9 classes are finishing up their unit on short stories, in which Sickinger places a heavy focus on writing skills – primarily perfecting thesis statements and integrating text evidence.
Malangoni’s English 9 Honors (E9H) class has just finished William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” the classic tragedy that most are familiar with reading in their high school English experience.
Cameron’s English 10 (E10) class has just finished J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit.” While reading the novel, they explored archetypes in literature and how the hero’s journey plays into stories with different genres. They have also been studying Greek and Latin roots, and just completed a poster project with the roots.
Malangoni’s English 10 Honors class has recently finished John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath,” and is currently watching the film “Seabiscuit.” Students will then be writing an essay on the Great Depression and how it relates to these works.
English 11 at HHS is a survey of literature and speech and is taught between Cameron and Malangoni.
Cameron’s English 11 class has been focusing on speeches. She has covered effective communication by helping build an understanding of various kinds of learning, as well as their uses and importance. Additionally, they have been working on vocabulary and grammar alongside the focus on speech.
"We also learned about how to listen to a speech and what we should be listening for at different parts of a speech,” Cameron said. “Our next two speeches are informative and persuasive, so we spent time learning about the differences between the two types of speeches and how to make sure an informative speech is not persuasive.”
Malangoni’s English 11 class has just finished Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” and is now working on a research project covering modern-day witch trials. Students will be presenting their research in the form of an informative speech.
In Malangoni’s English 12 class, students have recently started reading the Scottish play, “Macbeth,” by William Shakespeare.
As the class is composed mostly of juniors with the SAT quickly approaching, Sickinger's AP Literature (AP Lit) class has been reviewing for the exam. They have recently finished exploring Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible,” and they have picked up and started on J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye.”
Sickinger says that her focus in the class is on broken youth in American literature and their complex characters.
Sickinger’s AP Language (AP Lang) class is wrapping up on writing their argumentative research papers, which students have spent a month on with their labor of blood, sweat, and tears.
What's coming up?
There is a variety of literature and writing that is coming up for HHS students.
Malangoni’s E9H class is preparing to read Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” another literary work commonly referenced that conveys important messages.
Cameron’s E10 class will be writing a paper on the archetypes or the hero’s journey within “The Hobbit.” They will continue to work on noun and verb phrases, learning how to identify and use them.
AP Lit and AP Lang are coming up on their mock exams for the real AP exam which will take place in May. The test is an assessment of a student’s ability, and their score may qualify them for college credit depending on the university. Review for the mock and actual exam has begun in order to prepare students for these exams.
Staff spotlight:
Barbara Malangoni is a veteran English teacher at HHS, and this is reflected in her position as English department chair. She has spent all 34 years of her career as a high school English teacher at HHS.
“I’ve made it a home, and I’ve always liked that HHS was in a smaller, middle-class community,” said Malangoni. “I have always liked the kids, and like that there aren't the problems that a bigger school may have.”
Students appreciate Malangoni as well, even though she may not be the softest teacher. Malangoni is highly respected and is always voted Best Dressed for HHS’s annual Teacher Superlatives.
Malangoni decided to become an English teacher because she always excelled at the subject in school—especially in writing and grammar.
“I wanted to know classical literature, and I knew if I wanted to teach literature, I would need to be a well-read individual, which helped force me to read,” Malangoni said.
Over the years, Malangoni has found she has favored teaching some classes over others. Film Literature has been one of her favorites, with the current setup of the English 12 class as a survey of British literature being a close runner-up.
A career highlight for Malangoni was giving the graduation speech in 2005. Malangoni also looks back on her time as the Yearbook Advisor warmly and has a great memory of the student staff and being close to them, especially with the books being a great physical reminder.
“I think the most memorable moment from this year hasn’t happened yet,” Malangoni said. “I think it will be when I see all of my seniors graduate.”
Malangoni’s favorite novel to teach is “To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, which she will be teaching soon with her freshmen. When asked about her all time favorite book, Malangoni said anything by Charles Dickens.
Outside of HHS, Malangoni is an avid actor and enjoys directing and costuming plays as well. She also enjoys painting, working out, true crime, and anything to do with fashion.
Student spotlight:
Jayden Glover is a senior at HHS and excels in his English courses. Glover is currently a member of HHS’s Mentoring program, Student Council, National Honor Society, German Club, Spell Bowl, and the Academic Super Bowl teams for English and history.
Glover has been an avid reader throughout the years, and his peers would rarely see him without his current read.
“My favorite book is either ‘The Last Lecture’ by Randy Pausch or ‘Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster’ by Adam Higginbotham. Both are very good despite the vast difference between the two,” said Glover.
Glover finds that his favorite part of English classes is writing.
“I love writing; it is very fun for me,” he said.
Over the course of his high school English classes, Glover’s favorite read has been “The Canterbury Tales” by Geoffrey Chaucer. Glover said that he liked them so much that he bought a copy of the book so he could read all of the tales.
Outside of school, Glover does enjoy keeping up with reading and writing. He also enjoys spending free time playing video games and listening to music, specifically EDM.
After high school, Glover is planning to attend Ball State University for either English education or physics. He would like to get his master’s in library science after that. For a career, Glover said he would like to become a teacher or librarian.