English Language Arts Courses
Our English Department program in Middletown is a survey of canonical text emphasizing and establishing a foundation of higher-level thinking in reading, writing, and speaking skills as outlined in the New Jersey Student Learning Standards. Our goal is to ensure that the curriculum is aligned to the complexity of state standards and opportunities for choice to study a variety of literary forms, traditions, and genres. Instruction is explicitly taught through whole-class discussions, mini-lessons, conferencing, collaborative activities, and book club group work. Students deepen their literary analysis and writing skills through independent practice in reading and writing across the grade levels. Research skills employ the MLA Style and APA Style Manuals to ensure students are exposed to and practicing these formats across each grade level. Particular attention is paid to developing test-taking skills in preparation for the required state assessments and the Scholastic Aptitude Test.
The Honors program provides an intense analysis of World Literature, American Literature, and British Literature. Students explore literature and language through close reading, analysis, discussion, and writing. Research skills are refined through participation in a research project. Admission into the English 1 Honors course is determined through use of a matrix. Continuance in the Honors track requires a minimum average of 80.
The English 1 curriculum aligns to the NJSLS, incorporating personalized learning, student choice, and opportunities for students to engage in core novel studies, book clubs and independent reading. The students will grow their capacity as writers by engaging with a range of tasks including narrative, literary analysis, argumentative, research, and explanatory/informational writing.
The English 2 curriculum aligns to the NJSLS, incorporating personalized learning, student choice, and opportunities for students to engage in core novel studies, book clubs and independent reading. The students will continue to grow their capacity as researchers and writers of narrative, literary analysis, rhetoric/argument, and poetry.
English 3 focuses on foundational works of literature from the 18th - 20th Centuries. Emphasis is placed upon works of exceptional craft and thought whose range extends across genres and cultures. Students will develop critical thinking skills in written and oral responses to textual analysis, as well as in required research projects.
English 4 focuses on the wide and deep reading of literature and literary nonfiction of steadily increasing sophistication. Students will read and respond to a variety of cultural works and complementary nonfiction texts. Emphasis is placed on the development of literacy capacities needed for college and career readiness. Students will develop the capacity to build knowledge on a subject through research projects and to respond analytically to literary and informational sources.
These courses offer college-level curricula and texts while requiring commensurate achievement of students. As required by the College Board, students read and write extensively in preparation for the spring Advanced Placement exam. Please note, students can choose either course in 11th and 12th grade for AP English. The College Boards does not have a required sequence.
Elective Course Offerings
In conjunction with Brookdale Community College, interested seniors can earn Middletown credits and three transferable college credits by taking the Writing Process course in which students work on developing writing skills. Students compose, workshop, and revise a series of essays in various styles. In addition, they respond to an assortment of texts and learn to process, rework, and communicate their ideas effectively. Students who wish to earn college credit must take a qualifying test and pay a reduced tuition fee to Brookdale Community College. This honors weighted class must be taken with the Short Story course to fulfill the senior English requirement.
This course is designed to develop students’ appreciation of film technique through the analysis of a selection of “classic” films. Using this popular medium of our culture today as a primary resource, students view, discuss, and develop an awareness of the elements of narrative and theme in film and the impact film artists have on the culture in which they live.
Creative Writing encourages students to overcome writer’s block and tap into their creative resources. Students sharpen their craft by using methods and techniques designed to help organize, clarify, and strengthen creative efforts. They learn to establish plot, characterization, setting, and evocative descriptions in their original short stories. In addition, each student experiments with daily journal techniques, the format of the autobiography, and the discovery of the individual poetic voice. Finally, students study short story techniques from the best of books for young readers and write a children’s story of their own.
The structure of the Graphic Novel curriculum presents opportunities for students to read and write about graphic novels as a form of literature.
The focus of this elective aligns with the New Jersey Student Learning standards. The first unit, “The Language of Comics” is designed to
introduce students to graphic novels, their history, form, and style. The second unit, “Gods and Mortals: The Superhero” is designed to introduce
students to the history and mythology of superheroes, while increasing their ability to analyze the genre and evaluate authors’ choices. The third
and final unit, “The Graphic Memoir: Coming of Age” is designed to introduce students to this subgenre while allowing them to make connections
to their own lives. This curriculum guide begins with a calendar outlining the suggested focus and time for each unit.
This course equips students with an understanding of the principles and practice of journalism: how to recognize good stories, gather facts through skillful interviewing and research, develop sources, craft welcoming leads and satisfying endings, and create articles that inform and engage readers. Students will become intelligent consumers of the mass media and learn legal, moral, and ethical responsibilities inherent in the free press.
This course will be taught utilizing the Workshop Model of Instruction. The workshop model is an instructional practice that often consists of three
parts: a mini-lesson, a workshop, and a debrief. This model is commonly used in Lucy Calkins' Reading and Writing Workshop, and the goal of the
model is to support learners in reading and writing independently. For this advanced class, the model will be modified to mimic the structure of a
newsroom, where students are engaged in independent and collaborative writing, conferencing with instructors and each other as writers and
editors to prepare their work for publication. All work in this class will be produced with the intention to publish on the school’s newspaper
website and/or print issues. In addition, and to provide a well-rounded, advanced journalism education, the course will cover other elements of
media and communication, including editing, design and layout, and public relations.
For this course, students will need to be actively involved in keeping up with current events within the school community. This class is strongly
recommended for those who are planning to pursue a career in Journalism. Students must have successfully completed Journalism I or obtain an
instructor recommendation to enroll in this course. This full-year course may be taken more than once.
On a long enough timeline, all stories transition into myth. This class will focus on stories already in the canon of mythology, highlighting the nature of myth-making and the function of storytelling for individuals and societies, as well as the role of mythology in cultural creation and curation. There will be a focus on Classical Hellenism with explorations of Norse, Indian, Japanese, and Oceanian mythologies, as well as an investigation of how mythology continues into our current time. Throughout the course, students will be in direct conversation with an inquiry-based approach to student-centered study. Having a firm grounding in not just the ability to understand mythological stories and cycles but in storytelling as a whole, students will blossom into active, engaged participants in their own learning and lives through understanding their own mythology. Students are expected to develop a recognition of patterns among myths across differing cultures, time periods, and geographical locations to bolster their understanding of the importance of mythology as a whole.
In conjunction with Brookdale Community College, interested seniors can earn Middletown credits and three transferable college-level credits by reading, analyzing, discussing, and writing about a variety of short stories. Students develop an understanding of the history, structure, and conventions of the short story by analyzing literary works that adhere to and/or challenge this tradition. This course emphasizes close reading skills and contextualizing works within their historical period and as a reflection of various cultures. The relevance of these short stories for the modern reader is examined. Students who wish to earn college credit must take a qualifying test and pay a reduced tuition fee to Brookdale Community College. This honors weighted class must be taken with the English Composition course to fulfill the senior English requirement.
Please be advised, additional elective courses that count towards the Career Education requirement can be found under the “Career Education/Consumer, Family & Life Skills/Vocational Technical” section of this guide.