● English

ENGLISH

The English curriculum develops and enhances the skills of close reading, thoughtful writing, and respectful speaking and listening. Students practice their critical thinking skills in seminar-style classes, which encourage them to interact in collaboration with their teachers and each other. Harkness discussions (text-based, student driven dialogues) occur regularly in all classes and require participation by all. Over the course of four years, students encounter a wide range of increasingly challenging literature which, combined with their personal experiences, provide a rich mine of shared experience – the subject matter for the extensive writing they do in each of the rhetorical modes. In a multi-layered process, beginning in the ninth grade with complex thesis construction and culminating with the research and organization associated with the I-Search in the eleventh grade, students develop independence of judgment, mastery in the art of persuasion, and familiarity with effective research techniques.

Moses Brown requires students to take four years of English. In the first three years, students enroll in the yearlong course appropriate to their grade level, with the option of applying to the honors program in the fall of junior year. In the senior year, students may choose among various semester courses or apply for admission to the yearlong Advanced Placement course. With guidance from their teachers, students may elect to take the AP exam in either Language and Composition or Literature and Composition in May of either their junior or senior year—or both.

Yearlong Courses

English 1 English 2 English 3 (Honors) AP English

Fall Semester Courses

Civilizing America: Literature & Legality of Race The Campus Novel Literature of War Moby Dick Today Off the Map: Literature of Survival

Spring Semester Courses

Fiction into Film Food: The Evolution of Humanity Reading & Writing Poetry Monsters The Graphic Novel Playwriting

YEARLONG COURSES (2 credits)

ENGLISH 1

This full-year course is required of all ninth graders and seeks to create a shared literary and rhetorical experience aimed at establishing a foundation of critical thinking, reading and writing. Students write in a variety of modes with an eye to developing an analytical voice. As they continue to build linguistic awareness and thematic focus, they encounter a wide range of genres in world literature, including Elizabeth Acevedo’s Clap When You Land; William Shakespeare’s Macbeth or Seamus Heaney’s The Burial at Thebes, a version of Sophocles’ Antigone; a novel such as Gene Yang’s American Born Chinese, Edwidge Danticat’s The Dew Breaker, Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, or Helena Maria Viramontes’ Under the Feet of Jesus; and various collections of poems, personal essays, and short stories. In the spring, ninth and twelfth graders traditionally collaborate on an exercise connected to the performance and school visitation of a poet of national distinction.

ENGLISH 2

This full-year course is required of all tenth graders. Students concentrate on various modes of composition with emphasis on critical analysis and writing in response to the concept of home, considering questions such as, What does the concept of "home" convey? What does it mean to belong to a place or community and what instruments or power are utilized to prevent that? Works to be studied might include: Caleb Azumah Nelson’s Open Water, a Shakespearean play, Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied Sing, James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, essays related to the recognition of one's place in the world, as well as a diverse collection of short stories and poems. The Lit-Search paper, a research project that kicks off Semester II, introduces students to critical responses to poets of their choosing, using secondary sources to help them formulate and articulate their own responses to what they have read.

ENGLISH 3

This full-year course is required of all eleventh graders. American writers provide the primary focus for an examination of the American experience. Attention is given to the cultural and historical contexts of the works studied, which might include Yu’s Interior Chinatown, Morrison’s Song of Solomon, Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, Emily Dickinson’s poetry, and essays by Transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Students focus primarily on writing critical papers which emphasize original, literary analysis. The I-Search Project, central to the first semester of this course, explores some aspect of each student’s personal interest or identity and focuses on interviewing techniques, the conventions and structure of the research paper, and the use of secondary sources. With help in discernment from their classroom teachers, juniors may elect to take the Advanced Placement examination in May, usually the Language and Composition exam (A few test familiarization sessions are required and offered outside of class time ).

ENGLISH 3 with HONORS

At the start of 11th grade, students may apply for the honors program, designed for juniors who wish to intensify their English studies and better prepare for the challenges of senior year English coursework, which may include AP Literature. Accepted students will remain within their current class but will be given more complex assignments that require both supplementary readings and secondary sources. Two times per month, honors students will remain in class during office hours to continue class through student-led discussion and presentations.

The strongest candidates will have demonstrated effort and ability throughout sophomore year, particularly during the Lit-Search process in Semester II. It is expected that students will have attained grades of B+ or higher sophomore year, and final approval, by consensus, of the English Department.

ADVANCED PLACEMENT ENGLISH

For seniors who have demonstrated a committed and earnest approach to the study of English, this full-year course involves frequent writing exercises and intensive reading in poetry, fiction, drama, and non-fiction prose. Works might include Homer’s The Odyssey, Jones’ An American Marriage, Hamid’s Exit West, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Shelley’s Frankenstein, Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Morrison’s Beloved, Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, and Ellison’s Invisible Man. AP candidates must exhibit both a high level of interest in reading and writing about challenging literature and a willingness to engage actively in frequent discussions and to do consistent, college-level work. All students enrolled will have the option to take the AP Literature & Composition exam in May.

While the English Department considers all students who express a desire to take AP English, the strongest candidates will have attained grades of B+ or higher in both English 2 and English 3, as well as the final approval, by consensus, of the English Department. Students admitted to AP English are required to read one additional book beyond English department summer reading requirements over the summer.

ENGLISH 4: FALL SEMESTER COURSES (1 credit)

CIVILIZING AMERICA: LITERATURE AND LEGALITY OF RACE

Through a multi-media examination, this course will consider the literature of race in twentieth century America through the lens of United States Supreme Court decisions. Ultimately, we must examine whether legal decisions can change the perspective and philosophies of the nation or if the legal domain is one of sheer mechanics. Is it possible that art identifies immorality years before we, as a government, are willing to mandate behavior as illegal? Is art compelled to examine what the law cannot resolve – the prejudices, the pain and the probability of a peaceful society? For instance, Loving vs. Virginia invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriages in 1967; in the same year, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner explored America’s difficulty in accepting that mandate. Through reading, art, and video, we will assess which has had more impact on our lives – literature or the law – or whether they work in tandem to move society forward.

THE CAMPUS NOVEL

Since the post-WWII period, Americans have enjoyed widening access to a college education, a privilege formerly accorded to only a small and fortunate segment of the population. With it—and the university’s increasing intertwinement with the business of a writing career—has arrived a corresponding explosion of novels that take place at college campuses. This course examines these frequently-hilarious “campus novels” and the tensions they expose between colleges and the surrounding society. We will explore: the peculiarities of life as both a professor and student; the joys, struggles, and absurdities of the life of the mind; questions of place and identity; and the coming-of-age that college represents. Secondary sources concerning the history and role of the university may accompany our primary texts. Discussion along with critical and creative writing opportunities will guide the course. These opportunities will include reflection on the transition to college that students will soon make and how the novels may influence it. We will frequently adopt a comparative framework in our readings, which may include a number of the following: The Idiot by Elif Batuman, Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee, The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides, Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov, Normal People by Sally Rooney, On Beauty by Zadie Smith, The Secret History by Donna Tartt, Real Life by Brandon Taylor.

LITERATURE OFWAR

This course will explore the ways war has been captured in American poetry and prose and expressed to a public who lacks the experience of combat. It traces differing perspectives from nationalistic pride and heroism through the disappointment and devastation that war creates. Possible texts include poetry and short stories representing conflicts throughout history and longer works like George Takei’s They Called Us Enemy, Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried and Kevin Powers’ The Yellow Birds. We will also invite war veterans to speak to the class about their experiences related to the texts we read. Students in the course will volunteer at Operation Stand Down Rhode Island throughout the semester, and in December students in the class will travel to Washington, DC to tour Memorial Parks dedicated to fallen soldiers of our country’s wars and volunteer at a local non- profit dedicated to veterans’ issues.

MOBY-DICK TODAY

“Call me Ishmael,” beckons the narrator of Herman Melville’s 1851 encyclopedic masterpiece, Moby-Dick, ushering readers into a richly imaginative world while also offering us a language and sensibility to make sense of our own. The Whale remains an elusive and essential novel that offers an enduring and resonant vision of the most profound and appalling elements of American and global life. Through a sustained, multi-disciplinary, and project-based engagement with Melville’s Moby-Dick, we will savor the enduring wonders of The Whale; consider the existential, racial, gendered, social, political, economic, and ecological energies aboard the Pequod; explore artistic responses to the novel, including in poetry, visual art, and film; develop multimedia creative projects (including through the Y Lab); research the history of whaling in New England; venture on field trips; and learn about the science of whales and oceans, including efforts to maintain our marine ecosystems in the Anthropocene. Through such a variety of modes, we will pursue Melville’s Moby-Dick as a critical reflection of and timely inspiration for our own lives.

OFFTHE MAP: THE LITERATURE OF SURVIVAL

Humans have long been both drawn to and appalled by the empty parts of the map, a wilderness that Robert Frost describes as a “blanker whiteness…with no expression, nothing to express.” In this course, we will explore the lure of the wild and what engagement with it reinforces about the human condition, particularly in the 21st century. What does it take to survive, and ultimately what does it mean to survive? These are questions we will seek to answer, via essays by Wallace Stegner, Rachel Carson and John McPhee, as well as fiction by Tim O’Brien, Margaret Atwood, and Raymond Carver. Texts might include Ernest Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea, John Krakuer’s Into the Wild, William Golding’s The Lord of the Flies, and Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing, as well as films like Werner Herzog’s Grizzly Man.

ENGLISH 4: SPRING SEMESTER COURSES (1 credit)

FICTION INTO FILM

How does the language of literature, a written medium, translate into the language of film, a visual medium? We will consider three to four texts as independent works of fiction as well as sources that inspire a range of adaptations/translations. By examining how each film either remains faithful to or alters the original work’s intent, we will consider the different mechanisms of storytelling that film offers versus literature. Further, we will explore how each medium creates a sense of time and place, via two works set in the American West during the latter half of the twentieth century, and two that take place in futuristic societies. Texts might include Brokeback Mountain: Story to Screenplay, by Annie Proulx, Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana; No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy; Children of Men, by P. D. James; and Annihilation, by Jeff Vandermeer.

FOOD: THE EVOLUTION OF HUMANITY

This course will study the myriad ways in which food has shaped human beings, culture, and the environment. Through multi-disciplinary work, we will discuss ways in which humans have evolved based on the food that we eat; the manner in which food has shaped and altered the environment; how cultures have developed and intersected; relationships between food and systemic racism; the economics of food preparation, pre and post pandemic; and the basic chemistry of cooking. Texts will include Mark Bittman’s Animal, Vegetable, Junk, In Defense of Food, Christopher Carter’s The Spirit of Soul Food: Race, Faith & Food Justice, as well as documentaries such as Right to Harm, Forks Over Knives, The History of Food, and Food Inc. and guest speakers. Assignments will include individual work with an emphasis on project based learning. Examples include a study of historical menus to assess what these primary documents tell us about geography, culture, and social systems; an exploration of food in art (poetry, literature, painting, film) as a mechanism for manifesting identity; and a study of migration patterns in creating new cuisine and modern ethnicity (e.g. Japanese-Peruvian, New Orleans, Italian-Argentinian, and French-Lebanese.)

READING AND WRITING POETRY (Open to 11th and 12th grades, 10th grade with permission)

Emily Dickinson described poetry as a visceral experience: “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry;” while Percy Shelley imagined the poet’s political power: “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” In this course we will work to decipher for ourselves: what is poetry? Where do we find it? And why should we study poetry at all? We will endeavor to strengthen our critical thinking, reading, and writing skills, as well as develop a language with which to discuss, experience, and understand poetry in its many forms. Our focus will be on the analysis, appreciation, and craft of poetry through the study of a variety of poetic forms across period, place, and genre. We will work through historical poetry before turning to contemporary works. Through reading the work of poets ranging from William Blake to Sylvia Plath to Ocean Vuong, together we will strive to be more engaged and curious readers of poetry and to develop our thinking about literary texts. The latter part of the course will be a creative writing workshop wherein students will be equipped with the poetic license to develop their own distinct voice and style. We all come to reading and writing poetry from different places and students need not have any prior experience with poetry, but rather should possess curiosity and a willingness to engage with the genre.

MONSTERS

What is a monster, and why are they so troubling? Where may we find monsters, and what questions may we ask of them? And what may our monsters tell us about our cultures and ourselves? Assuming that literary and cinematic evocations of the monstrous both negotiate differences and reveal anxieties inscribed onto the social imagination (including around categories of race, class, gender, sexuality, subjectivity, nationality, and history), this modest monster-hunt interrogates the durability, adaptability, and irrepressibility of our cultural nightmares. Considering both canonical and contemporary monsters, this course will begin with the problem of Grendel and examine figures such as ghosts, vampires, zombies, androids, and the Other on both the page and screen. Texts might include Beowulf, The Tempest (William Shakespeare), Frankenstein (Mary Shelley), The Turn of the Screw (Henry James), Zone One (Colson Whitehead), Her Body and Other Parties (Carmen Maria Machado), and Frankenstein in Baghdad (Ahmed Saadawi); films might include Alien, 28 Days Later, The Babadook, Ex Machina, The Shape of Water, and Us.

THE GRAPHIC NOVEL

In short, a graphic novel is just a novel in comic strip form. But as a genre of literature, it is so much more. Graphic novels tell complex stories and use the language of pictures to interact with words in storytelling. In this course we will talk about the history of comics and how they have gained respect as a form of literature over the past few decades. We will explore the different genres of graphic novels, from memoir to adventure to coming of age tale, seeing the ways visual narrative works on the page. Possible texts include Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, Jarrett J. Krosoczka’s Hey, Kiddo, Marjane Sartrapi’s Persepolis and G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona’s Ms. Marvel. The final project requires students to create their own short-form graphic novel.

PLAYWRITING (open to 11th & 12th grades) This class will study the craft of playwriting by creating monologues, scenes, and short plays. In addition, students will study and practice screenwriting and evaluate the differences between the two forms. As students write their own plays, they will study the work of leading playwrights in the American Theater as a means to understand current trends and styles of contemporary dramatists. Students will share their final one-act plays or short films in a showcase at the end of the semester. This course may be taken for either Arts or English credit.