In this class YOU WILL TRY.

A large portion of your grade in this class is for participation. That means: Your reading, writing, listening, and speaking

skills should all markedly improve from week to week.

Use class time to complete assignments Positively contribute to class discussions Do your homework Pull your weight during group work Do not turn in papers filled to the gills with BS Do not cheat, copy, or plagiarize Come to tutorials if you need help!

Failure = Learning Opportunity

I will never fail a student who is working hard to do their best.

Rather than saying something is too hard, or too boring, which often means the same thing, you should strive to improve EVERY SINGLE DAY.

I want you to walk out of this class a grammar whiz, a skilled writer and problem solver, a confident, articulate speaker, and an in depth reader who has a newfound love of literature.

FAMOUS FAILURES

"An inventor fails 999 times, and if he succeeds once, he's in. He treats his failures simply as practice shots." Charles Franklin Kettering

Michael Jordan

After being cut from his high school basketball team, he went home, locked himself in his room and

cried.

"I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot . . . and missed. And I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why . . . I succeed."

--Michael Jordan

Walt Disney

He was fired from his job at a newspaper for “lacking imagination” and “having

no original ideas.”

“Failure is a prerequisite for great success. If you want to succeed faster, double your rate of failure.”

--Brian Tracy

Albert Einstein

He wasn’t able to speak until he was four years old. His teachers said he would “never amount to much.”

Oprah Winfrey

She was demoted from her job as a TV news anchor because “she wasn’t fit for

television.”

"Failure is the foundation of success, and the means by which it is achieved."

--Lao Tzu

The Beatles

The band was rejected by Decca Recording Studios, who said, “we don’t like their sound,” and “they’ll never make it in show business.”

“You wouldn't worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.”

-- Eleanor Roosevelt

If you’ve never failed, you’ve never tried…

… and what kind of a life can you live if you never try?

It takes two things to achieve a goal:

1.Belief (confidence)2.Persistence (hard work, a.k.a. --

succeed or die trying)

So…