Overview

The Lower School Reading/Language Arts program is a balanced literacy program that provides several kinds of reading and writing. By reading aloud, teachers help children experience literary work they cannot yet read. In shared reading, children participate in reading, learn how print works, and get the feel of reading. Through guided reading, teachers show children how to read and support children as they read.

Middle School English continues the program begun in the Lower School by allowing students to practice reading, writing, and thinking skills. The fifth grade English/history program is an interdisciplinary course called "The Journey," in which students study the geography, history, and culture of each place they visit. Sixth grade English is all about stories: the parts of a story, what we like about stories, and notable stories inherited from the past. The literary works studied in seventh grade English ask students to grapple with moral and ethical questions: What does it mean to be a good friend? When should I fit in and when should I break away from the crowd? What does it mean to be strong? Eighth grade English introduces students to the literature of the classical world and includes selections from The Odyssey, The Antigone, The Aeneid, and Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

The goals of the Upper School English curriculum are to reinforce reading and writing skills through the study of good literature. In English 9 students read narrative and lyric poetry, non-fiction and fiction, and master an appropriate glossary of literary terms. English 10 continues to stress the basics of English, while students engage in a number of independent reading projects in addition to the study of four major works. English 11 explores the unique nature of the American experience through the study of our national literature. In their senior year students choose their English course from a number of electives, including Humanities, Writing Workshop, The Good Life, The Future, Myth and Modern Literature, and African-American Literature.

Faculty

Courses

English - Grade 9

The goals of English 9 are to train students' reading and writing skills through study of good literature, vocabulary, and grammar. Students read narrative and lyric poetry, non-fiction and fiction, and master an appropriate glossary of literary terms. In addition, students compose in a variety of genres, including narrative, persuasive, and analytical writing. Interspersed with reading and writing assignments are lessons in grammar and vocabulary. Grammar study begins with a review of phrases and clauses and progresses to common problems in usage, diction, and syntax, while vocabulary instruction aims to enhance students' ability to discern meaning through word structure and etymology.

English - Grade 10

English 10 stresses the basics of English: reading, writing, vocabulary, and grammar. Students read in all genres, using the tools of literary analysis. Regular quizzes, thoughtful memorization, and group discussion instruct students in how to read a text carefully and with feeling. Formal writing assignments begin with drafts brought to class. After receiving written comments and suggestions from the teacher, the writer then revises the paper into final form. In-class writing exercises reinforce those skills taught by the longer assignments. Grammar instruction takes place periodically as needed. Students learn vocabulary by studying clusters of related words.

English - Grade 11

English 11 explores the unique nature of the American experience through the study of fiction, poetry, drama, and philosophy. Students approach each work in three ways: for the nature and structure of the work itself, for its expression of American thought, and for the ways in which it informs their own values and beliefs. From the formulation of a complex thesis to the development of a complex argument, students address core American ideas and develop their own voices as writers. Students work through the writing process from drafting to editing to revising. This course prepares students for the SAT and AP literature exam, for those who elect to take it.

Electives

English 12: Honors Humanities (full year)

This course encourages students to understand the roots and validity of their own opinions. As members of a particular century, we see the world with particular eyes and through particular filters. In an effort to come to know our own "filters," we will read works from philosophy, literature, history, and science. Most of the works will ask at least one of the following questions: What will I believe in? Whom and what will I love? What will I do for my own world? How will I educate my children? The reading list will include: sections of Plato's Republic, sections of Aristotle's Ethics, Freud's Interpretation of Dreams, Tolstoy's Confession, and an introduction to Carl Jung.

English 12: Writing Workshop

Intended for students who wish to improve their writing skills, this course offers thorough instruction in how to write powerfully and persuasively. Aiming to achieve writing along the lines of the 18th century French model of prose of "brevity, clarity, and simplicity," students will begin with memoir and progress to more academic writing. Along the way we'll examine examples of good writing and prove the point that anyone can write well and any writer can write better. We'll give special attention to writing creative and forceful college essays.

English 12: Scary Monsters

Some of the essential questions we will confront in this class are: What do we fear and why? What do our fears reveal about our individual selves, our collective human nature, our society, and our culture? Representative texts include Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting, Robert Louis Stevenson's The Island of Dr. Moreau, Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, and short stories of Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

English 12: The Good Life: The Literature of Self-Examination

Basically a general studies humanities course, this class invites students to grapple with life's perennial questions: What is Good? What is Beautiful? What is Real? Readings will feature philosophical and psychological texts as well as appropriate literature. This seminar is for students who are passionate about discussing the thoughts that have shaped the modern mind. Texts are frequently paired (Poe and Jung, Aeschylus and Freud) but also include reading such as Plato and Eastern Philosophy and Mythology. We will also consider studying T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets as well as some autobiographical writing.

English 12: The Future: A Course in Science Fiction

This course will ask the question, "Where is science taking us?" We will read novels and short stories as well as contemporary nonfiction essays that discuss the ethical questions raised by recent advances in science. Representative reading includes: The Martian Chronicles, Starship Trooper, A Canticle for Leibowitz, Brave New World, Ender's Game, Left Hand of Darkness.

English 12: Myth and Modern Literature

From Greece to Japan, from Iran to Polynesia, the same kinds of mythological stories appear and reappear. Stories of the creation, of the great flood, of heroes and quests, of journeys to the underworld and of the end of time seem to be universal. In this class students will study and write comparatively about those common mythological threads. They will study modern poetry, fiction and essays to see how ancient myths continue to play themselves out in our own time and culture. A culminating project will require students to write about a single myth, important to their own experience.

English 12: Self & Other: The Autobiography

The essential questions for Self and Other include the following: What is the Self? What is the Good Life? Representative texts include A Moveable Feast (Hemingway), West with the Night (Markham), The Bell Jar (Plath), The Fire Next Time (Baldwin), Woman Warrior (Kingston); poetry by Whitman, Ginsberg, and the Confessional Poets; and selections from Augustine, Dostoevsky, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Bertrand Russell, and Walker Percy.

English 12: Twentieth Century African-American Literature

Beginning before the dawn of the twentieth century with excerpts from Charles Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition and ending with Toni Morrison's Beloved and the current Hip-Hop movement's Tupac Shakur and Mos Def, we will explore the various ways in which African-American writers have chosen to, and sometimes chosen not to, respond to the racial, sexual, and cultural politics of their day. Representative texts include W.E.B. Dubois's The Souls of Black Folk, James Weldon Johnson's Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, Nella Larsen's Passing, Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Richard Wright's Native Son, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and Alice Walker's The Color Purple.