Instrumental Music

Middle School Course of Study

Intro to Lit Arts

This class will provide middle school students with an intro to fiction, screenwriting, and poetry. Students will learn literary basics that they will then exercise via class prompts and projects. Each subject will be supplemented with texts from each genre, and will include class discussions around that text.

High School Course of Study

Archetypes, Symbols, and Motifs

In this course we will explore how iconic characters, images, and meanings shape our writing, our worlds, and ourselves. We will draw on literature, psychology, anthropology, cultural theory, mythology, and pop culture to explore how these figures and ideas resonate.

Broadcasting

High energy, on the spot live broadcasting requires quick decision-making and a few tricks as well. The goal of this course is to train students on the daily workings of radio i.e. programming, music selecting, script writing and show hosting. They will learn to produce live broadcast talk shows, develop their on-air personality including all aspects related. The course provides the opportunity for students to learn basic journalistic and technological skills to be used in career choices and radio & television productions. Students will research, gather, and analyze information to create audio & video productions to be aired on various media outlets including Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and www.kosaradio.org

Creative Non Fiction Workshop

Creative non-fiction can be described as “true stories well told.” In this workshop, we will be using many of the same writing techniques that make our fiction, poetry, and journalism strong, but wielding them with the restraint of truth of experience.

Fiction Workshop

This class is focused on the reading, discussion, and revision of students' short fiction. Students will also be introduced to models of fiction techniques through listening to lectures, reading published stories/essays, and participating in group discussion. Students will also be introduced to creative writing workshops as a tool for both providing and receiving feedback.

Journalism: The OSA Telegraph

Journalism is how we have access to the world’s stories, and to our community’s. The OSA Telegraph Journalism course is an integral part of the Literary Arts subpathway, as well as the broader OSA community. All Telegraph students work on the creation and production of The Telegraph, OSA’s online news and culture publication. Depending on their area of interest, students may work in a variety of capacities: they can write, interview, photograph, copyedit, upload, design and/or promote The Telegraph. Together, the class will publish an issue a month. Writers will come to class ready to pitch story ideas in the beginning of every month, and together the class will brainstorm and develop each issue of The Telegraph. Together, we will produce a high-caliber, well-designed, dynamic online publication that will feature multi-media content and well-written articles relevant to the OSA community and beyond.

Poetry

This class is intended to prepare you to confidently read, write, and discuss poetry. We will read a lot of poems, write a lot of poems, and try a lot of new things. This class is intended to stretch you as a writer and a poet, building upon what you already know, and get you working with form, sound, and language in ways you hadn’t considered before. The semester will include three rounds of workshops, and conclude with you compiling the best of your work into a final project of some digital variety. You’ll also do a short review of a poet of interest, because at the end of the day, the best way to grow as a poet is to learn from those who came before.

Screenwriting

Screenwriting Workshop - In this class, we will explore the fundamentals of this unique form of storytelling through lecture and discussion, readings, film viewings, and of course, writing exercises

Senior Book

This is Lit Art’s penultimate, capstone class! The culmination of your time in Lit Arts! This year, you will be writing, editing, and publishing books in about 9 months. You will have plenty of time to work on your book with our new schedule. We will begin by looking at your strongest work from the last few years: picking the pieces that still have the most energy for you, and considering the themes already threaded in your writing. Then we’ll look at examples of collections we love, and start to outline how your projects might take form. We’ll ensure our progress with regular workshops, one-on-one conferences, and of course deadlines! You will only succeed in this project by sticking to deadlines, and genuinely using your class time and resources. Come second semester, you’ll meet once a week with CCA mentors* who will provide a full read/edit of your manuscript, and have the opportunity to collaborate with a designer on the cover of your book.