Meet Mr.Jarosinski

Hello, my name is Troy Jarosinski. This is my 8th year teaching in Arcadia. I live in town, so you may have seen me around, particularly at Kwik Trip or Randy’s. You might also have seen me at basketball games; I started coaching C-team girls, but I’ve been coaching C-team boys for the last three years. As far as school and teaching goes, I’ve taught every grade at one point or another throughout my time here, but this trimester, I’m teaching English III, English IV, and AP Literature & Composition. 

In English III, students started off with writing narratives, or stories. Some of these stories were works of fiction, but most of their narratives involved writing about a topic and connecting that topic to their own lives. Our next unit was a literature circle unit. Students were put into groups, and each group read a novel and discussed it with their group members, basically like a shorter-scale version of a book club. At the end of the unit, each group made a book trailer, or, to be more specific, each group made a short movie trailer about their book to address the main theme of the book and to “advertise” their book to their classmates. Our current unit is a research paper in which students are researching a specific human rights violation and writing an informative essay about that topic. They’ll write about background information on their human rights violation, specific events in which it has occurred, and potential solutions or ways to prevent it from happening in the future.

English IV also started off with writing nonfiction narratives. Students first tried out different narrative techniques and structures before writing two narratives about their own lives and experiences; they then turned one of these narratives into a short video that visually told the story of who they are as a person. Next, our class wrote a research paper. For this, students had to first pick an issue in society that people disagree on and then examine arguments in favor of and against that issue. They then put this information into an essay which involved them identifying their opinion on their issue and supporting why they held that opinion. Our current unit revolves around reading The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. This book, along with other activities during the unit, will ask students to analyze through writing how war has affected the world and will continue to affect the world throughout their lives, whether that be on a societal or individual basis.

AP Literature & Composition is a two-trimester class for students who are looking for a bit more of a challenge or aiming to prepare themselves for college. Our class is divided up into nine total units; three units involve reading and analyzing short stories, three units focus on poetry, and three units focus on reading and analyzing a novel. Thus far, our class has progressed through three units, one for each type of literature (short story, poetry, and novel). Some of the texts we’ve read so far include “The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury, “Facing It” by Yusef Komunyakaa, and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Each unit involves closely reading a text and analyzing various elements within it, such as mood/tone, narrator’s perspective, word choice, and many more specific structural and technical elements of literature. Each unit has involved a fair amount of writing as well. There are various short writing assignments, and each unit features a longer, more formal response at the end of the unit. Our most recent essay involved selecting a character from Slaughterhouse-Five and analyzing how details about that character reveal what their purpose, meaning, or function is within a story.