English

Year – 6 credits

Required for freshmen

What compels us to leave our comfort zones and explore the unknown? What are we willing to risk to obtain new knowledge or to ensure our freedom? How do we find our passions and our paths through life? How do we derive meaning from adversity? How can literature transport and transform us? During their freshman year, students will search for answers to these questions by engaging narratives of journeys and self-discovery—from the imaginative to the physical to the emotional. These are the stories of ancient heroes embarking on arduous quests, immigrants seeking refuge in unfamiliar lands, individuals struggling to determine who they are and the causes for which they stand. This high school English course will serve as an introduction to the study of literature and writing at the high school level. Students will study the works of authors from a diverse range of identities, cultures, and eras and will have the agency and opportunity to explore works of their own interests.

Year – 6 credits

Required for sophomores

What does it mean to be American? To what extent do Americans share a common identity? How do American authors respond to the influences of government, the natural world, race, class, and gender in their writing? How have American writers transformed what is possible with literature through innovation and experimentation with form and focus? English 10: American Voices includes a range of genres, assignments, and skills to unpack the complex cultural fabric of American identity. Students deepen skills introduced in the English 9 curriculum: analytical reading, creative and expository writing, student-centered research, and discussion. This course asks students to form arguments and challenge assumptions about American identity through written work and dialogue. Throughout the year, students will study a wide array of voices who have shaped the American literary landscape and will add their voices to this tradition as well through the writings they produce.

Year – 6 credits

Open to juniors and seniors

The human spirit seeks to express itself by any means possible. It strives to be heard in language, image, movement, rhythm, and performance. And what does the human spirit express through these means? Rage, love, defiance--the experience of a single moment or of an entire lifetime. This course will explore the expressive forms of poetry, drama, and film and will trace the ways that these forms all work together to narrate the human experience. We will ask ourselves whether any of these forms adequately captures the nuances of a life lived. We will inquire into the powerful relationship between the form and content of language, both through observation of the text and through practice in our own writing.

Through a variety of reading and writing assignments, this high school English course will engage both the artistic and the analytical sides of the student. Students will learn to evaluate and appreciate the aesthetic qualities of a work, even as they analyze grammar and style--including literary, poetic, and visual devices. This course will ask students to wrestle with questions of authentic expression, communication, and empathy in artistic creation and to respond on a personal and an academic level.

Year – 6 credits

Open to juniors and seniors

What is the human relationship to the natural world? In Environmental Literature, students will explore the complex and intrinsic connection between humankind and the environment. How do authors portray nature and environment? What is humankind’s responsibility to our environment? How do we find the balance between dominance and coexistence? In this class, the definition of “environment” will include both our understanding of our relationship with (and place in) the natural world and our relationship to our home, neighborhood, and community.

Students will explore texts from authors as divergent as Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Rachel Carson to modern day writers such as Helen Macdonald, Barbara Kingsolver, Mary Oliver, and Wallace Stegner. This City as our Campus-based course will bring dynamic environmental speakers in while providing off-campus outings to places such as Frick Park, Carrie Furnace, Beechwood Farms, and Phipps Conservatory. Writing is central to this course with an emphasis on exploring a variety of genres from creative non-fiction work to blogging to poetry.

Year – 6 credits

Open to juniors and seniors

What makes an argument effective? How can the tools of language be used to convince an audience, galvanize support around an issue of importance, and inspire positive social change? This writing-intensive course, the equivalent of a first-year college English course, attempts to answer these questions through the study of rhetoric--the art of persuasion--and academic composition.

Through an exploration of nonfiction visual and literary genres--including advertising, journalism, personal essays, persuasive and argumentative essays, critical reviews, documentary film, public activism, and political discourse--students will develop critical thinking and reading skills that will help them analyze and critique the efficacy of a work. Additionally, in-class discussions and both formal and informal writing assignments will allow students to identify and experiment with a range of rhetorical devices and strategies in their efforts to produce compelling arguments.

This course culminates in participants sitting for the Advanced Placement examination, which measures their ability to analyze the rhetoric of prose passages and to compose critical arguments and research-based essays.

Year – 6 credits

Open to juniors and seniors

What makes the great works of literature great? Why do they endure? This writing-intensive course, the equivalent of a college-level introductory literature course, attempts to answer these questions by engaging students in close, critical readings of imaginative literature. The AP English Literature and Composition test seeks to measure a student’s ability to analyze and write about complex and sophisticated works of recognized literary merit. Through in-class discussions and both formal and informal writing assignments, students will explore the structure and substance of various types of creative writing. Close attention is paid to a work’s macro-level features, such as structure, style, and theme, and the micro-level features, the various rhetorical and poetic devices. Additionally, students will consider the social and historical context of the literary works studied.

This course culminates in students sitting for the Advanced Placement examination, which will test their ability to analyze poetry and prose fiction and to develop original literary arguments.