The English curriculum aims to help learners acquire communication skills in speaking, writing, listening, and reading. Students learn to express their thoughts and feelings so that anyone who hears or reads their words can understand and empathize. Students also learn to understand what is said to them and what they read so that they can grasp and evaluate the content, tone and intention of a speaker or writer. Through this interaction with language, the learners grow in the power to use, understand, and appreciate language for their own intellectual, social and emotional growth.
Grade 9
Grade 9 English exposes students to literature of the past and the present. Antigone, The Odyssey and Romeo and Juliet bring the world of the past to life. Students focus on the epic form, dramatic conventions and analysis of the novel. Hansberry’s Raisin in the Sun, Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, and select poetry explore the contemporary world. The analysis of literature is encouraged through ample class discussion and analytical writing; the writing process is emphasized through regular writing assignments and the production of several major papers which are revised and rewritten. Grammar and vocabulary skill development is emphasized throughout the year.
Grade 10
In tenth grade English, students read novels, short stories, poetry, drama and non-fiction by esteemed writers including Shakespeare, Austen and Morrison. In studying these various genres, students explore such formal elements as diction, style and structure and consider how form is a vehicle for conveying theme, character, setting, mood and tone. Students complete frequent writing projects related to the readings. In addition, students do a number of expository and creative pieces. Course readings include The Catcher in the Rye (Salinger), Julius Caesar (Shakespeare), Lord of the Flies (Golding), Macbeth (Shakespeare), Song of Solomon (Morrison), Emma (Austen), Great Expectations (Dickens), The Nick Adams Stories (Hemingway), The Sun Also Rises (Hemingway), Wit (Edison) and poems by authors including Collins, Frost, Marlowe, Dickinson, Bishop, Wilbur and Plath. Listening, speaking, writing, grammar, and vocabulary skill development are an integral part of each literature unit.
Grades 11 and 12
English in grades 11 and 12 is an elective program, including an American Studies cycle and a Global Studies cycle, offered in alternate years. Students may apply for Honors and Advanced Placement work in each elective. AP English Language is offered to students in English 11 Honors. In addition to course work as part of their English 11 Honors course, students will participate in a seminar course dedicated to direct preparation for the AP examination. Students passing the AP English Language exam will be given retroactive AP credit for English 11. AP English Literature is offered to those students taking English 12 Honors. English elective courses are offered based on student interest as indicated during sign-ups.
American Studies English Electives- offered in 2008
The American Dream in Literature
The American Dream—one of success and happiness achieved through hard work and perseverance—is as complex as the landscape that names it and the people who pursue it. Writers such as Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby), O’Brien (The Things They Carried), Miller (Death of a Salesman), and Wolff (This Boy’s Life) explore the ways in which Americans struggle to escape the confines of unfulfilling lives.
American Losers
“What a Loser!” Contrary to popular belief, the loser contributes greatly to the fabric of American culture. This course will seek to uncover the value and depth of the loser archetypes through the lenses of a washed-up salesman, a group of misfit con artists and a hotel concierge, among others. Works to be examined will include Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, East of Eden by John Steinbeck, The Iceman Cometh, and Hughie by Eugene O’Neill, and The Great Gatsby by F. ScottFitzgerald.
Americans on the Move
As Americans moved westward across this vast continent, writing about their travels became an integral part of their literary tradition. This course examines the theme of travel in American literature. It considers both actual and psychological journeys across the American landscape. Course readings include novels, essays and stories by Steinbeck, Cather, Hemingway, Faulkner, Twain and Kerouac.
Childhood and the Imagination
We spend our entire lives trying to return to our childhood—a time of innocence, comfort, safety and imagination. This course will invite the student to experience the imaginative world of the child through the lenses of the loner, the prodigy, the forgotten, the leader and the follower. Works to be examined will include, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote, The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, and Visions of Gerard by Jack Kerouac.
Contemporary American Drama: Arriving with a Bang
In this course, we will study a variety of American plays, beginning with Eugene O’Neill’s masterwork, Long Day’s Journey into Night. Before O’Neill, who burst upon the scene in 1914 at the outset of World War I, British plays had dominated the American stage. But O’Neill saw that British dramatic works, which generally portrayed the manners of the upper classes, were not in tune with more democratic American values. From O’Neill, we will move on to Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, Susan Glaspell (a colleague of O’Neill and herself a Pulitzer-prize winning dramatist), and August Wilson, all the while examining the ways in which American playwrights forever changed the genre of drama.
Contemporary Fiction: The Writers Must Be Crazy!
If one believes that art reflects the time in which it is created—the particular values, conflicts and realities of a period—then it is clear that we have cause for alarm. For contemporary life, as seen through the eyes of our writers, is both a fractured and harrowing experience. Works as diverse as The Crying of Lot 49 (Pynchon), The Sweet Hereafter (Banks), Where I’m Calling From (Carver), and The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories (Wolff) share a common theme: society is unraveling. This course examines how, with language that is both searing and strangely humorous, modern authors have sought to capture and explain the overwhelming sense of personal and communal loss.
Hometown, U.S.A.
The American Dream is no more vivid than in the characterization of the "hometown." Looking at suburban, rural and urban life in the U.S.A., students investigate the reality of the American Dream. Readings include Wilder's Our Town, Master's Spoon River Anthology, Lewis's Main Street, Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, short stories by Updike and Cheever, poetry of Sandburg and Robinson, and essays on small town life.
The Jazz Age and Beyond…
The 1920s were an era of turmoil and exuberance in America. World War I shattered our innocence and laid challenges to time-honored values, but at the same time made change and experimentation possible. This course will examine the literary innovations of the Roaring Twenties and beyond. Works to be read include F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Katherine Anne Porter’s Pale Horse, Pale Rider. Students also explore a poetry unit on the Harlem Renaissance.
The Jewish Experience in America
"I know what one must do to be Jewish. He must assume his past with all its sorrows and its joys." (Elie Wiesel). Students examine the Jewish past: Why did Jews come to America? What was their dream? What does it feel like to be Jewish in America? Students explore the problem of Jewish identity through the eyes of Singer (Collected Stories), Wiesel (Night and Dawn), Potok (The Chosen and My Name is Asher Lev), Roth (Goodbye, Columbus), and Malamud (The Magic Barrel). Cultural projects and independent reading broaden the view of the modern Jew.
The Puritan Legacy
What were the dreams of the Puritans? Why were they Utopians? Why were they often disillusioned? This course explores the contradictory aspects of the Puritan ethic. It considers the vestiges of Puritanism that have survived into our own time and their continuing effect on the American consciousness. Readings include the plays The Crucible and Inherit the Wind, Hawthorne's short stories, The Scarlet Letter, and Wharton's Ethan Frome.
Southern Literature—Illusion versus Reality
"The South is a deceptively complex area, varied in its people and its climate, and marked by strong differences of racial origins, social values, temperaments, and landscapes." This course examines the concept of illusion versus reality in Southern writing. Readings include the plays The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire and The Little Foxes. Novels include The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter and Wise Blood. Students also read selected short stories of Faulkner, Capote, and Welty.
Women in Literature
This course explores the challenges that are particular to women’s experience. We will consider the ways that men and women portray female characters and their struggles to reach a coherent sense of self—their crises and their successes. Students read novels, short stories and poems such as The Bell Jar (Plath), The House of Mirth (Wharton), The Awakening (Chopin), Daisy Miller (James), “The Yellow Wallpaper” (Gilman) “Roman Fever” (Wharton), “The Story of an Hour” (Chopin) and assorted poetry.
Writers' Workshop
"Think of writing in terms of discovery," said Gertrude Stein. Writing provides a way for students to sort through their experiences, to make sense of their world, to share their observations with others. This course provides opportunities for those who feel they need more intensive work in writing, as well as those who want to develop their talents in writing. Writing activities include free writing, journal writing, sensory exercises, autobiography, memoir, portrait, profile, interview, as well as college application essays and English achievement test writing. Major objectives include helping students to generate topics for writing, to develop a sense of audience, to decide on form and organization, to edit and proofread.
Voices across Borders: Multicultural Literature from the American Southwest
Many voices come together to tell the story of our nation’s history, and this course celebrates the voices of the American Southwest. Although the US-Mexico border is a clear spatial demarcation, the traditions, values, art and literature have fluidly permeated into the mosaic of United States’ culture. In this course, students will explore different views of cultural and national identity as they are voiced through a range of texts produced in and about the American Southwest. Course readings include novels, poetry and short stories by Native-American, Anglo-American and Mexican-American authors such as Rudolfo Anaya, Sandra Cisneros, Laura Esquivel, Joy Harjo, Cormac McCarthy, Scott Momaday and Leslie Marmon Silko.
Global Studies English Electives
ABCs of Early English Literature
This course provides an overview of early English literature, including Anglo-Saxon Beowulf , where a brave foreigner slays a ruthless dragon, and the Medieval Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, an Arthurian romance of the Knights of the Round Table. In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales students will listen in as the secrets of a motley crew representing the full spectrum of morality are exposed. These texts are important to the understanding of modern English literature; they also are stories that have been enjoyed for centuries because they are entertaining.
Alienation
We live in a time of breakdown when most of the old permanencies are gone: insoluble marriages, social stability, ability to communicate, reasonability of humans. Camus, Sartre, Kafka, Ionesco, Beckett, the Surrealists, the Dadaists—these are the visionaries who exposed the realities of an absurd and confusing world. Class readings include The Stranger, The Myth of Sisyphus, No Exit, The Metamorphosis, The Bald Soprano and Waiting for Godot.
Detective Fiction
Stories of crime and detection have gripped the public’s attention for centuries. The modern day success of television shows like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation demonstrates that our fascination with those who are drawn to commit crimes is matched by our support of those who are driven to expose the truth. In this course, students witness the evolution of the genre of detective literature, from seminal works of writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, to the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous Sherlock Holmes, to Twentieth Century hard-boiled detectives in classics such as Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon and Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep. Honors and Advanced Placement students will read The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins.
Evil in Literature: The Dark Side of the Soul
Are people inherently good or evil? For centuries writers have wrestled with this question concerning the nature of humanity. In this course students examine some of the psychology of Freud and Jung to gain a better understanding of those writers who have looked deep within the human experience and found only darkness in the heart. Students read Demian, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Richard III, and Heart of Darkness.
Irish Literature
Through the study of Irish history, novels, short stories and poetry, the class discusses the tragedy and triumph that is Ireland. The course searches out the effect of the Irish heritage on the Irish people. Readings include A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners by Joyce, The Beauty Queen of Leenane by McDonough, Dancing at Lughnasa by Friel, and After Rain by Trevor.
Literature of the Fantastic: Monsters and Madness
“Fantasy is the only truth.” (Abbie Hoffman)
“Humankind cannot bear very much reality.” (T.S. Elliot)
Students will explore monsters and madness who present universal human dilemmas. Through such works as Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels and Shakespeare’s The Tempest, students learn to admire many fantastical creatures.
The Romantics
"Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings," proclaimed Wordsworth during an explosive cultural movement in Europe that has come to be known as Romanticism. English Romantic Poets and Writers (1798-1830) saw themselves as individual rebels against classical traditions. Poets and novelists wrote on common topics: a profound interest in the natural world, the desires of the human heart, the experience of the poor and the vulnerability of women. The works we will explore include the major poems of Blake, Wordsworth, and Keats as well as Lyrical Ballads by Coleridge and Wordsworth, Mary Shelley’s Mathilda, DeQuincey’s Confessions of an Opium Eater, and Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.
Russian Literature: A Lust for Life
The Russians are among the greatest storytellers in the world. “Man is a mystery,” wrote Dostoevsky. “If you spend your entire life trying to puzzle him out, then do not say that you have wasted your time.” In this course, students will explore the many pieces of the puzzle that make up men and women as we grapple with the works of Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Turgenev and Solzhenitsyn. Reading their novels, stories, plays and poems will help us make meaning out of the complexities of modern life.
Shakespeare
"He was not of an age, but for all time!" (Ben Jonson on Shakespeare, 1623). Shakespeare's continued fame is largely due to his understanding of human nature. His characters, from all walks of life, are timeless in their predicaments. They struggle through the world of the play as real people struggle through life, sometimes successfully and humorously, and sometimes painfully and tragically. Students explore Shakespeare's world through an intensive scrutiny of character, language, and theme. Readings include King Lear, Twelfth Night and Henry IV, Parts I and II.
Tragic Drama
Tragedy concerns men and women in their search for truth, love and justice. It "offers an astute comment upon humanity" today whether written in Greek, Elizabethan, or modern periods. Readings include Aristotle's Ars Poetica, Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, Euripides’ Media, and Shakespeare's Hamlet and Othello. Class writings focus on universal elements of the tragic hero in both ancient and modern times.
Victorian Women
The Victorian Age produced both women who could write and men who wrote about extraordinary women. All chronicle the quest for love and adventure. Course readings include Bronte's Wuthering Heights, Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese, the play The Barretts of Wimpole Street, and Tennyson's The Idylls of the King. Essays emphasize analysis of character, theme and the elements of Gothic writing.
World Literature: All of us here
Adopting the role of tourist, we will visit unfamiliar places and people, escaping the city limits and returning home with a better understanding of what links and separates us. Rather than trace a map, however, the theme of this course will reveal itself as we travel from story to story; the journey is the destination. The texts will arrive from countries as varied as Russia, Japan, India and Latin America. Readings will include Vladimir Nabokov’s Pnin, Julian Barnes’ The History of the World in 10-1/2 Chapters, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera.
Writers' Workshop
"Think of writing in terms of discovery," said Gertrude Stein. Writing provides a way for students to sort through their experiences, to make sense of their world, to share their observations with others. This course provides opportunities for those who feel they need more intensive work in writing, as well as those who want to develop their talents in writing. Writing activities include free writing, journal writing, sensory exercises, autobiography, memoir, portrait, profile, interview, as well as college application essays and English achievement test writing. Major objectives include helping students to generate topics for writing, to develop a sense of audience, to decide on form and organization, to edit and proofread.
Humanities: The Art of Being Human
The Humanities help us make sense of our lives and our world. By showing us how others have lived and thought about life, the humanities can help us determine what is important in our own lives. Through film, music, visual arts, and literature, students in this course will explore major Twentieth Century issues and trends, along with timeless topics of love, conflict and identity, specifically in terms of how they relate to real people. Students witness the evolution of modern society and learn what has influenced that development. Among the topics covered will be cinema, from its primitive beginning to modern day blockbusters; the birth of jazz, the blues, rock and roll, and rap; the development of modern media; and the evolving role of women throughout the twentieth century.