141 English 12 H

The honors program moves students beyond the analytical essay about literature, a type of writing they have had extensive experience in during their first three years at Wellesley High School, and toward a form of writing that integrates those same analytical skills with the skills of writing reflectively, even introspectively, about their own lives.  The work with those skills (including noticing how professional writers use them) culminates in two major essays: first, a term-three essay in which students return to a book they have read earlier in their lives, reread it, re-analyze and re-experience it, and then write an essay that examines the role of the book in their lives both then and now, an examination that leads to a deeper truth about both the book and their lives; second, the senior paper, a more open, independent essay that allows the students to choose a topic and genre, and to demonstrate the skills they have honed during the year.  Extensive outside reading, homework, and preparation are required. 

Representative examples of literature include Hamlet, The Odyssey, The Color Purple, Sula, A Room of One's Own, Othello, The Things They Carried, The Sound and the Fury, The Stranger, and stories by O'Connor, Hemingway, Dubus, among others.  We will also read selected poems and essays, especially ones that provide examples of the techniques students are required to use in their own writing.  and stories by Borges and Kafka.