English

Department Chair: Julia Grandison

The English program provides students with the skills and insights necessary for academic competence and for growth as independent and creative individuals. It introduces students to the literary genres and to many of the great writers. It helps students to see literature as an art form, and as a way to know the world and to extend and understand their own experience. It trains students to be accurate, thoughtful readers and to write clear, correct, and fluent English. Students take English each year in the Middle and Upper Schools.

Twelve credits of upper school English and a final grade of at least 70 in Senior English are required for graduation.

MIDDLE SCHOOL

English 7, Grade level: 7

This course concentrates on the development of basic skills necessary in all subject areas: reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary, and discussion. Students study the Arthurian legend, The Diary of Anne Frank, Maus II, poetry, and A Raisin in the Sun. Writing activities include expository and creative writing.

English 8, Grade level: 8

Students study a variety of genres: short stories, poetry, novels (The House on Mango Street , Animal Farm, and To Kill a Mockingbird), and a Shakespearean comedy (A Midsummer Night’s Dream). The writing program includes critical as well as creative and personal writing, using topics derived from literature read in class.

UPPER SCHOOL

English 9, Grade level: 9, Credit: 3

In English 9, we move from the concrete to the abstract. We will study several genres of literature, expand our study of vocabulary and grammar, further develop our writing skills, particularly with regard to analytical essays, and extend our research skills. Texts: the novels Catcher in the Rye and Their Eyes Were Watching God; the graphic novel Persepolis; the epic poem The Odyssey; and the play Romeo and Juliet.

English 10, Grade level: 10, Credit: 3

This course stresses skills in close textual reading and expository writing techniques. Students read novels by Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter) and F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby), and a variety of short stories by great American writers. Students also read personal essays, poetry, and plays and write an extensive properly-documented research paper. The class emphasizes vocabulary skills and the basic rules and usage errors of English grammar.

English 11, Grade Level: 11, Credit: 3

This course introduces students to major writers in each of the significant periods of English history from the Anglo-Saxons to the Romantics to the Post-colonial era. Students study works from a variety of genres—epic poetry, lyric poetry, plays, and novels—to examine the major themes of British literature. Texts include Beowulf, Gardner’s Grendel, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Asante’s film Belle, Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, and Dangarembga’s Nervous Conditions. The course investigates the way the society of a historical era influences its artistic works and the way those works influence society, then and now; key themes include the definition of the hero, the concept of the Other, the role of gender, the role of the individual in society, the power of ambition in creating good or evil, and the ways literature conceives of love. The writing program prepares students for college-level expository writing and also includes creative assignments.

Please note: Students prepare for the English AP examinations in Language and Composition and in Literature in review sessions outside of class.

Creative Writing Workshop 1 trimester Grade level: 10-12; Credit: 1 per trimester

In this single trimester course, students have the time and space to cultivate writing outside of the core academic framework, and view it as a creative, artistic endeavor. Students will generate original writing both in timed free-write formats and in the form of assigned stories, poems, scenes and plays. We will explore the original detail needed to make writing ring as authentic. No Prerequisite.

SENIOR ENGLISH, Grade Level: 12, Credit: 3

Seniors elect one of the following sections of English 12. Course availability is subject to sufficient enrollment. All English 12 courses conclude with a term paper.

The first half of this course is designed to help seniors write effectively and to become discriminating judges of their own work. All teachers use Ken Macrorie’s Telling Writing as the basic text. Students read aloud what they write for class, hear comments and suggestions, then rewrite and revise. They also study the writing of professionals and end the course by writing a short story or cultural narrative of their own.

English 12/Love in Literature

This course examines women in their relationships with family, friends, lovers, and significant others of all types in fiction and drama. Students read novels and plays that present various roles of women (wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend, sex object, ideal, spinster), keeping in mind what Coleridge believed — that a great mind is androgynous. Works include Toni Morrison’s Beloved and others chosen by the class; recent groups have read Nabokov’s Lolita, Chopin’s The Awakening, Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, and Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Impossibly Close.

English 12/Banned Books

This course explores the reasons public officials and ordinary citizens alike have tried to limit what others can read, despite the First Amendment protections Americans think they have. We will start with Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, which was banned immediately upon its publication as the “veriest trash. . . suited to the slums”, even though years later others called it “the best book we’ve had” and “the book with which we as a literary people began.” The class will select other classic works considered dangerous, offensive, or both, from the list of “100 Most Frequently Challenged Books” over the last 10 years. Writers will likely include Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, John Steinbeck, and Kurt Vonnegut.

English 12/Sixties Protest Literature

John Lennon said, “We were all on this ship in the Sixties, our generation, a ship going to discover the New World.” This course aims to make the Sixties come alive for seniors through the literature that defined and influenced the era. The words of the writers and musicians under study helped fuel the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power, the Women’s Liberation Movement, and the fight against the Vietnam War. Authors will include: Malcolm X, Norman Mailer, Ken Kesey, Eldridge Cleaver, Sylvia Plath, and Bob Dylan.

English 12/War and Literature

This course will examine how artists portray the experience of war in works of art. Students will read works of poetry, fiction, memoir, and drama and also explore other evocations of war—in the visual arts, music, and film. Recognizing that art both reflects and reshapes the way we think, the class will look at how war literature has changed society’s views of war and how war has changed artists’ visions. The course will begin with a brief review of early texts about war and then focus primarily on the works of the twentieth century. Works will include excerpts from Homer, Shakespeare, and the WWI war poets, Catch 22, and The Things They Carried among others. We will also read critical works such as Paul Fussel’s The Great War and Modern Memory. Students will participate in the teaching as leaders of discussion.

English 12/Shakespeare

Students will read four of Shakespeare’s finest plays: Hamlet, King Lear, and two plays to be selected. The course will be run as a seminar, with students taking some responsibility for leading discussion on different elements in each play, including the concept of a tragic hero, parent-child relationships, the role of women, and controversies related to race and religion. To the degree possible, we will see local productions of the plays and compare different film versions of them.

English 12/African-American Literature

In this course, students will begin to develop an understanding of African-American literature as a distinct literary tradition by examining the themes and aesthetics that connect works by African-American authors. Students will examine how African-American forms of artistic expression are necessarily in conversation with their historical and political contexts. Finally, students will trace the ways in which the African-American literary tradition has helped to construct African-American racial and cultural identities. Authors will likely include James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Jesmyn Ward, as well as various poets and critics.

English12/Digitopia—The Implications of a Digitizing World

This course examines the consequences of an increasingly digitized world beginning with a look at the physiological and psychological effects of our devices, an investigation of social media in terms of social construction of identity, and the significance of the coming world of artificial intelligence.

English FAQs

How are students grouped for English classes?

Students are placed in heterogeneous groups for English classes in grades 7-12. In the senior year, students choose from a variety of electives. Juniors and Seniors may prepare for the English AP exams (Literature and Language and Composition) outside of class.

How are reading selections made?

Teachers choose for each grade level a mix of readings which represent a range of traditional and less traditional texts, challenging and more accessible works. Grades 9 and 10 are genre courses where students read examples of each of the four main literary genres: novel, short story, poetry, and drama. Grade 11 offers an historical perspective on British literature. The course begins with a postcolonial novel by Tsitsi Dangaremga and then moves back to Beowulf. The first semester of Grade 12 is a required course in personal writing; electives begin in January. Please see the course catalogue for a sampling of the texts read at each grade level and the electives currently offered for the senior year.

What kind of writing program do you offer? Do students get a chance to do creative writing?

The English Department believes that all writing is to some extent creative. The purpose of most writing assignments in Upper School, however, is to help students develop and refine their skills in exposition, i.e., writing organized to defend a thesis statement with appropriate evidence on both literary and non-literary subjects. Expository essays usually consist of an introduction, several body paragraphs, and a conclusion. At every level there is also some opportunity to write in a less structured or less formal way. Examples are a poem in the voice of an Odyssey character in grade 9, personal essays in grade 10, an original Pilgrim’s Tale in the style of Chaucer in grade 11, and personal narratives in grade 12 which are the focus of the first half of the year for all students.

Which research activities are offered through English classes in Upper School?

Students have a wide variety of research opportunities in Upper School English classes. In grade 9, a research project accompanies the study of Persepolis on the background of the Iranian Revolution. Grade 10 is home to the Term Paper: a 2,500-word paper on a general (non-literary) topic. In grade 11, students research a trade or profession from the Middle Ages and write their own Pilgrim’s Tale on the model of Chaucer and use critical sources to write a long paper on Pride and Prejudice or Wuthering Heights. A term paper on a subject related to each elective is part of every senior course.

What sort of preparation is available for standardized tests?

The verbal and writing sections of the PSAT, SAT, and Subject Test in Literature test a student’s skills in reading comprehension, vocabulary, basic English grammar, and expository writing. Our curriculum is designed to develop and refine these foundational skills throughout the Upper School years.

Is AP English offered?

Juniors and Seniors who wish to take one or both of the AP exams in English are encouraged to do so. Unlike the AP exams in other disciplines, the AP exams in English are not based on a list of required texts or required units as set by the College Board. The Upper School English curriculum in general, and the readings assigned in different senior electives in particular, provide the experiences necessary for most students to perform well on these tests. Beginning in February, students who plan to take either of these exams in May meet in weekly review sessions to become acquainted with the format of the test and to polish their skills on sample questions available from the College Board.