Registration Information
*More detailed course descriptions can be found in the specific grade level menus on the side.
Course Work Pathways
St. Charles High Schools actively work to ensure every student receives a curriculum that provides high quality assignments and assessments over the significant concepts within each content area.
The Standard Pathway
Our teachers collaborate to refine lessons and increase support so that students in standard classes find higher-level learning experiences to be engaging and achievable. Teachers work to identify key standards within each course and create common assessments that identify when students still need assistance.
We assure students and families that quality teaching and learning are at the foundation of all we do. Critical thinking, reading, and writing are fundamental to every Standard Pathway course. Standard courses are designed to ensure all students meet Illinois Learning Standards.
The Honors Pathway
The Honors Pathway challenges students to extend their learning into content concepts that require more independent investigation and autonomous learning inside and outside of the classroom. As a result, students earning a grade of C or better receive an additional 1.0 point when determining grade point average
Advanced Placement Pathway
The Advanced Placement Pathway can open doors to competitive colleges and universities and to honors programs at other universities. More importantly, completing a successful AP experience can better prepare students for college success. St. Charles High Schools offer a wide variety of Advanced Placement courses.
College admissions offices recognize that an honors curriculum and district-written assessments for honors courses may vary from state to state, and even from district to district. Because the AP curriculum and accompanying exam represent a nationally standardized program, many admissions offices, particularly at competitive colleges, show preference for students who have successfully completed an Advanced Placement curriculum.
Freshman English Options: Sophomore English Options:
English 9 Standard English 10 Standard
English 9 Honors English 10 Honors
English 10 Honors Blended
Junior English Options:
English 11 Standard
In this course, we will study American culture by examining the novels, drama, poetry, documentaries, and non-fiction texts. Projects will include: analytical essays, collaborative research projects, speaking opportunities, creative writing activities, and ACT preparation.
American Studies Standard
This exciting 2 period course blends the very best aspects of United States History and American Literature taking a thematic approach to these subjects. Why should you take this?
· Develop both your writing and analytical skills in two subjects at the same time.
· Fulfill your graduation requirements for both US history and English 11.
· Make logical connections between two subjects that you are required to take.
English 11 Honors (Also offered in a Blended Format)
This course is designed for students who wish to challenge themselves and are willing and able to read complex literature and undertake complex writing and research assignments. Students should be able to balance longer term projects with short term essays as well. Students will explore literary theory, different types of literary movements (such as Gothic and Romanticism), and different modes of writing (argumentative, narrative, etc.). Course content will prepare students to take either AP English Language and Composition or the AP English Literature and Composition course.
AP Language & Composition (Also offered in a Blended Format)
AP Language and Composition is a college-level study of non-fiction texts written in a variety of eras, disciplines, and rhetorical contexts. In order to communicate effectively with mature readers, students will read and analyze complex texts with an understanding of the author's rhetorical strategies and writing techniques; synthesize research materials to elevate their argumentative writing; and authoritatively write in both formal and informal contexts. Students who take this class should be truly interested in a writer’s craft and want to improve their own technique as a writer. In order to improve this technique, students are expected to write multiple drafts of essays and be able to utilize their time management to balance multiple written assignments, in different draft forms, at once. District 303 also requires all students signed up for this course to take the AP Language and Composition exam.
Senior English Options
*All of these courses are year-long and can be taken for elective credit by juniors*
English 12 Options:
College Preparatory English
College Preparatory English is a course that develops skills in reading, critical thinking, research and writing to support student success across all college majors and career pathways. Throughout this course, students will engage in the exploration of self, community, and advocacy. Students will evaluate social issues and how they are created, reinforced, silenced or supported. Students will select a topic of interest to research and present as a capstone project. In addition to the development of valuable insight, skills, and competencies, successful completion of the course with an overall grade of C or better guarantees student placement into college credit-bearing courses with a reading or writing prerequisite at any Illinois community college and select universities in Illinois.
Creative Literature, Writing, and Literature Today
We will examine the role creativity plays today in literature, films, our thinking, and our own writing. We will explore how history shaped our texts today and how our current time will shape the future of creative writing. We will read and write all creative writing genres: creative non-fiction, plays or films, poetry, descriptive, and fiction. You will also generate your own questions to explore in this course similar to ones like these: How does social media affect the way we think and write today versus in just fifteen years ago? Why have our villains become more complex, even evoking our sympathy with their traumatic backstories, like the Joker in Batman? Why do horror films feature fewer monsters and more psychological thriller plot lines? How does the film Brave compare to an earlier film like Cinderella or to a Miyazaki character? How has the archetypal idea of paradise changed from its earliest mention of it in human history to the most recent mention of it in a text? We will think deeply about why we tell creative stories and how these stories shape you and how you shape the stories. We will also do college preparatory work with grammar, style, and vocabulary.
Fantasy & Science Fiction
We expect to focus on broad themes that exemplify human nature and that transcend genre limitations. The Fantasy & Science Fiction course will ask students to contemplate several engaging questions: Are these genres of literature merely escapism? If not, how do they reflect reality? Why are so many Americans obsessed with vampires and other mythological creatures? Why do we seem to need heroes? Does fantasy fiction need a medieval setting and take epic form? What is time? Is there life beyond earth? How should humans use the technology available to them?
Leadership Studies
Leadership Studies will focus on the exploration and analysis of the concept and application of leadership in society. In their final year of high school, students will study how the notion of leadership has evolved over time, through different leadership essays, memoirs, articles, memos, speeches and more. Students should expect guest speakers, field experience, and real world application, in addition to an advanced understanding of the rhetoric of speaking and writing. Through this study, students will investigate what it means to be a leader; determine qualities needed to develop effective leadership skills; and ultimately determine their own preferred leadership style. The course will culminate in an extended Service Learning project where students will determine a community issue, solicit a community mentor, and then research and plan a possible solution. Students should have a vested interest in developing their own leadership, but not necessarily specific leadership experience from the past.
Literature: World Tour
Literature: World Tour brings students on a trip through time and around the globe. Each unit incorporates multiple texts that represent various time periods associated with a geographical region. After studying a region’s fiction and nonfiction literature, students will experience the culture first-hand through field trips and guest speakers, allowing students to experience cultural artifacts and art as well as witness cultural practices and traditions. As a part of the course’s studies, students may also use technology to communicate internationally with students in other countries. Each project is designed to expand your literacy abilities as well as your ability to empathize with people of various perspectives.
Multiple Perspectives through Film and Literature (Also offered in a Blended Format)
Multiple Perspectives through Film and Literature allows students to see how their perception is created and ultimately bleeds into the media they read and view. Throughout the course of the school year, students build understanding of critical theory and apply multiple critical perspectives to film, non-fiction, fiction and non-print texts and investigate multiple influences on media in general. Through the comparison of literature to film, students develop an understanding of perspective and an author’s vs. director’s creative intent. Later in the year, the students explore multiple interpretations of drama and investigate how media shapes or interprets a variety of perspectives on any given event/concept. Finally, they create and revise a self-selected guiding question for research based on a topic of personal choice and interest. Students have a variety of choices for each assessment topic and some assessment formats.
HONORS World Mythology
World Mythology will present a cross-cultural and historical survey of world myths. Students will venture on a mythological journey spanning the globe. We will focus on classical Greek and Roman mythology, Middle Eastern, Norse and Celtic, Asian and South Pacific, Indian, and finish with the Americas and African mythology. Students will examine how myth shapes national, regional, and ethnic identities through a variety of analytical lenses. Since myths largely provide the foundation for literary allusions, symbols and motifs, this will enable students to recognize the relationship of mythology to other fields such as philosophy, art, science, and history, and to understand the universality of mythology from our roots to urban legends in our world today.
AP & Dual Credit Options:
English 101 & 102 - Dual Credit Course
Students enrolled in an ECC Dual Credit like English 101/102 automatically get two semesters of college credit and high school credit by taking this year-long course: English 101/102. Colleges are required to accept this credit; you will end up with a college transcript for these two courses.
English 101: First semester college English course normally required by all universities and colleges. Emphasis on improvement of communication through intensive work in composition, reading and skills of discussion. Major objective of course is to develop proficiency in writing thoughtful, well-organized, effective essays. Various forms of prose are studied to help the student achieve a critical understanding of both form and content and to serve as the basis of student essays.
English 102: Second semester college English course normally required by all universities and colleges. Emphasis on achieving logic and precision in handling such extensive compositions as the research paper and persuasive and critical themes based on literature or other academic disciplines. Course fees apply to both and student is responsible for cost of textbook materials.
Student eligibility is determined by SAT or ECC placement test scores. Only seniors are eligible to enroll in the course.
AP English Literature & Composition (grade 12 only)
What makes a novel, story, play or poem quality literature? Can contemporary novels earn the honor of being called a classic? Do authors and poets intentionally infuse their works with hidden symbols and meanings? Why have writers across time, culture, and genre been continuously fascinated by humanity? In essence, what makes us human? AP English Literature and Composition is a college-level course that explores these questions among many others through the careful study of challenging American, English, and World literature in all genres. Our explorations entail the reading and analysis of literary works from thematic, stylistic, structural, historical, and critical perspectives. Students are expected to write complex essays that communicate effectively with mature readers, to participate actively in rich literary discussions, to practice the author’s craft by writing some poetry and short fiction, and ultimately, to present creatively their thoughts on what it means to be human. Finally, this course drives towards the AP Literature and Composition Exam; therefore, students will also participate in a variety of test-preparation activities and tasks.
AP English Language & Composition (grade 11 or 12) (Also offered in a Blended Format)
AP Language and Composition is a college-level study of non-fiction texts written in a variety of eras, disciplines, and rhetorical contexts. In order to communicate effectively with mature readers, students will read and analyze complex texts with an understanding of the author’s rhetorical strategies and writing techniques; synthesize research materials to elevate their argumentative writing; and authoritatively write in both formal and informal contexts. Students who take this class should be truly interested in a writer’s craft and want to improve their own technique as a writer. In order to improve this technique, students are expected to write multiple drafts of essays and be able to utilize their time management to balance multiple written assignments, in different draft forms, at once. District 303 also requires all students signed up for this course to take the AP Language and Composition exam.