Teachers work with you to hone your critical thinking skills and intellectual faculties so that you can understand and appreciate any given text, communicate clearly and confidently, and produce original work that expresses your voice.
Who am I, and what is important to me? In what ways do the experiences of characters in literature match or challenge my own views? What happens when we meet others with opposing values? These questions drive our English 1 course, where our readings, discussions, and writing help you understand others and yourself. You will be challenged to use our texts as tools for reflection, demonstrating the lifelong role that literature can play in gaining empathy for others and developing your own philosophy. Our classes are community-focused, where you use class discussions and group work to deepen your understanding of our texts and develop your literary analysis skills. In a time when conversations can be fractious and divisive, we ask you to practice listening and seek understanding so that you can respond thoughtfully. Daily informal writing strengthens writing fluency, and our formal writing assignments focus on narrative writing and establish the core skills for analytical writing. You will learn that writing is a process and begin to develop your own style, creating a foundation that enables you to confidently and flexibly approach future communication needs.
Beginning in 10th grade, each of our English courses has an honors option. Both the honors and non-honors options develop similar academic skills. Honors coursework is differentiated by its increased depth, involving additional reading, writing, and research components. Honors options are designed for students who have demonstrated a mastery of grade-level literary analysis and writing skills, and are eager to perform more complex, self-driven assignments. Ideal candidates for honors embody authentic engagement during all-class and small-group activities, and are independent learners who demonstrate original thinking, take intellectual and creative risks, and make insightful connections to other texts and our world. Prerequisites for Honors grades 10-12: writing sample, a brief statement of interest, teacher recommendation, and an A in your current English class.
Why do we write? How do form and language impact meaning? How do I communicate my ideas effectively, powerfully, and confidently? How do audience and purpose impact our communication choices?
This course centers on the art of expression—examining the choices that writers make to communicate their ideas, and learning to apply them to our own communication needs. You will experiment with multiple forms of communication, with an emphasis on analytical writing and argumentation. You will continue to develop and adapt your own writing process and reflect on your growth as a writer. At this stage, you will gain increasing independence in all of your work and engage in abundant peer collaboration, affirming that working with others helps to synthesize and deepen ideas. This class helps you to further develop your voice and acquire the tools to use it most effectively.
Voice + Action is an interdisciplinary opportunity for 10th graders that links History and English classes through the study of the people, ideas, and works that have shaped the United States. While both courses mirror the key content and skills of other U.S. History and English 2 courses, this interdisciplinary approach will allow you to examine the impact of individual and collective voice and action. In addition to these common themes, the courses are linked through shared texts, experiential learning, and collaborative projects. Applying your learning, you will then use your voices to shape your communities.
You will investigate who holds—and who has held—power in the U.S., how people create change in society, and the relationship between voice and social change.
Note: Must be taken in conjunction with U.S. History Voice + Action (regular or honors)
As juniors and seniors, you will engage in yearlong college-style seminars designed by faculty based on their expertise and student interest. Seminars address specific themes, regions, time periods, genres, and authorial circumstances. All seminars are unified by the following overarching essential questions:
How do texts speak to each other? What connections can be made to film, art, music, journalism, and emerging art forms? How does a piece of literature connect to and enrich my understanding of past and current world events? How do I apply historical and cultural contexts to fully understand a text? How do I assume ownership of my unique perspective and employ my writing tools for original expression?
These questions drive the challenging and engaging intellectual content and critical thinking at the core of our seminars. You will engage with difficult and stylistically unconventional literature that will require practice in close reading and recognizing the role of nuance and bias. This experience helps you develop into critical and confident readers, ready to understand and derive meaning from any text that you encounter. Your explorations will extend beyond the text as you independently and collaboratively make connections to other texts, to historical and contemporary world events, and more broadly within the literary world. You will continue to practice adapting form and language to accomplish your communication goals, while working to develop your unique perspective and writing voice.Each seminar below has both an Honors and a Non-Honors option:
Adaptations
Why is it that some stories are able to stand the test of time? Why do we continue to tell the same stories over and over again? This course will explore classic tales and their contemporary reimaginings—literary and film—to better understand how the relationships and messages within are transformed by the audiences that read them. What is it about these stories in particular, and how are they able to stay relevant? We will examine how adaptations have the power to preserve the original while creating something that better reflects the diversity of the human experience.
The Art of Storytelling
Stories are everywhere—embedded in the novels we read, the movies we watch, and the video games we play. Storytelling has been used across time and space to share how each of us sees and experiences the world, how that world could be drastically different, and how who we are and what we believe is affected by the stories we tell. This course will explore a variety of literary works in order to better understand how writers use language to entertain and enlighten. You will create original works, both analytical and creative, and take the time to explore how those stories are a part of the world.
Equipment for Living: Literature & Ethics
Kenneth Burke, writer and literary critic, once described literature as "equipment for living," allowing us to create strategies to navigate our world. In this course, we'll use literature as a means of examining some of life's big questions: What makes a good life? A good death? A good relationship? A good government? A good war? In this course, we'll read broadly across eras and geographies, addressing the relevance of these ethical dimensions as we seek to become responsible citizens in the twenty-first century.
Journalism
In this new course, you will learn about the fundamentals and functions of journalism in the context of a democratic society and develop your skills by conducting interviews, doing research, and writing articles as you pilot and publish our new school newspaper. There will also be opportunities to learn skills in photojournalism and digital publication layout. Units will include Basics of the News, Law and Ethics, and Writing and Reporting. We will study classic, impactful pieces of journalism, both short- and long-form, and analyze the impacts of social media on the field.
Speculative Fiction
What do authors and artists think about when they imagine the future? How do real events inspire the stories they create? You will explore the worlds created by some of the greatest writers in literature, absorbing multiple perspectives on both the past and the future, as well as reflecting on and discussing diverse perspectives on our own evolving world. Through a wide range of authors, texts and essential questions, you will discover and develop stories that inspire passion and creativity, with multiple modes of expressing your ideas and visions.