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English
The Rivers English Department is dedicated to two fundamental beliefs: first, that reading helps students to understand themselves, others, and the world around them; and second, that writing enables them to express themselves and engage with others in that world. Through literature, students encounter perspectives, experiences, and voices that improve their ability to empathize and interact positively with other people in our diverse, globalized society. We work to instill in students both an appreciation for literature and the critical thinking and interpretive reading skills necessary to understand it. Students learn to communicate with clarity, creativity, and precision in both speech and writing through diligent practice and the study of the English language. We push students to hone their abilities to construct incisive, compelling, and well-supported arguments in analytical writing and to develop their own authentic voices in personal and creative pieces. Inspired by the texts and ideas with which they engage in their English classes, students graduate with the skills necessary to contribute thoughtfully and meaningfully to the world beyond Rivers as compassionate human beings and socially conscious citizens.
MIDDLE SCHOOL COURSES
Middle School English is co-taught with History under a joint Middle School Humanities Program.
UPPER SCHOOL COURSES
English 9
1 credit English 9 focuses on the development of writing, reading, critical thinking, and study skills. In their analytical writing, students learn to organize their thoughts and to make persuasive arguments using evidence from texts that they are studying. In their personal writing, students work to develop their own voices, become aware of audience, view writing as a process, and understand both the structure and the power of language. Additionally, students study Latin and Greek word roots and English grammar and usage to enhance their writing and reading skills. Core texts focus on coming of age and coping with personal challenges, essentially addressing the following questions: Who am I? How have I become that person? What is important to me? Texts may include Angie Thomas ’ s The Hate U Give, William Golding ’ s Lord of the Flies, Julie Otsuka ’ s When the Emperor Was Divine, J. D. Salinger ’ s The Catcher in the Rye, Marjane Satrapi’ s Persepolis, Cristina Henríquez ’ s The Book of Unknown Americans, William Shakespeare ’ s Romeo and Juliet, and various short stories.
Ninth Grade Honors English Seminar
Second semester only. Prerequisite: Recommendation of the department For students with a demonstrated passion for reading and writing, this seminar offers a unique opportunity to study the discipline beyond the standard ninth-grade curriculum. In addition to taking English 9, honors seminar students meet weekly with a department mentor in small “breakout” groups in order to focus more intensely Catalog of Courses • THE RIVERS SCHOOL 23
on particular works and skills. At the end of the first semester, interested students apply to the program. Once admitted, students spend the winter discussing and studying a novel of their choice in their seminar groups. In the past, groups have selected such texts as Charlotte Brontë’ s Jane Eyre, Aldous Huxley ’ s Brave New World, Anthony Doerr ’ s All the Light We Cannot See, and Min Jin Lee ’ s Pachinko. The spring is devoted to the writing of poetry, short stories, and plays. During these sessions, students participate in weekly writing workshops where they receive feedback on their own creative work while also offering feedback to their peers. Both portions of the course culminate in collaborative, interactive presentations. Enrollment in this course constitutes a significant commitment of time and focus. Permission of the department is required, and grading is done on a pass-fail basis.
English 10
1 credit English 10 exposes students to a breadth of literary voices and perspectives. Through a study of works from various cultures and time periods—which provide both mirrors of students ’ own experiences and windows into others ’ experiences—the course helps to foster empathy and cultural competence as it develops the reading and writing skills necessary to explore these texts. Students also draw upon their study of United States history to explore themes of power, leadership, social hierarchy, and injustice in an interdisciplinary manner. Course texts may include selected short stories and poems, a Shakespearean play, Khaled Hosseini’ s The Kite Runner, John Knowles ’ s A Separate Peace, Aravind Adiga ’ s The White Tiger, and Yaa Gyasi’ s Homegoing. In addition, all sophomores participate in the Sages and Seekers program in the spring. English 10 asks students to consider the role that perspective—both authorial and narrative—plays in the interpretation of a text and the role that societal structures play in shaping perspectives. More specifically, students consider how they can better understand their own individual experiences and those of others through striving to understand worlds that may initially seem vastly different from their own.
Honors English 10
1 credit Prerequisite: Recommendation of the department This honors course exposes students to a breadth of literary voices and perspectives. Through a study of works from various cultures and time periods—which provide both mirrors of students ’ own experiences and windows into others ’ experiences—the course helps to foster empathy and cultural competence as it develops the reading and writing skills necessary to explore these texts. Students also draw upon their study of United States history to explore themes of power, leadership, social hierarchy, and injustice in an interdisciplinary manner. Students invited into this class have shown a passion for reading and writing, as well as the ability to handle challenging nightly and long-term assignments. They engage in a rigorous program of reading, writing, language analysis, and vocabulary development, so the pace of the course is vigorous. Texts may include Khaled Hosseini’ s The Kite Runner, Aravind Adiga ’ s The White Tiger, William Shakespeare ’ s The Tempest, Fyodor Dostoyevsky ’ s Crime and Punishment, and Yaa Gyasi’ s Homegoing, as well as selected short stories, poems, and essays. In addition, all sophomores participate in the Sages and Seekers program in the spring, and students pursue a Passion Project that requires outside reading and culminates in their delivering a TED Talk presentation. The course asks students to consider the role that perspective—both authorial and narrative—plays in the interpretation of a text and Catalog of Courses • THE RIVERS SCHOOL 24
the role that societal structures play in shaping perspectives. More specifically, students consider how they can better understand their own individual experiences and those of others through striving to understand worlds that may initially seem vastly different from their own.
English 11
1 credit In this course, students read literature that reflects and comments specifically on American society—literature that oen reveals conflicts between the constitutional ideals of individualism, equality, and opportunity and the realities of prejudice, disenfranchisement, and privilege. By reading a variety of American texts and authors, students investigate the stories that we, as a nation, have told about ourselves, exploring whether these stories illuminate truths or obscure them. Students also consider the contexts in which American texts were written and the ways in which context, more generally, can shape and/or constrain the stories that are told and subsequently read. With an aim toward developing critical literacy skills, students discuss whose voices have historically been privileged and whose have been silenced. Building on the skills that have been developed in ninth and tenth grade, this course further develops students ’ abilities to read and write critically, with an emphasis on developing their voices and honing their skills of analysis as they cra arguments for various audiences. Students also become more adept at reading and responding to literary criticism. Texts may include Nathaniel Hawthorne ’ s The Scarlet Letter, F. Scott Fitzgerald’ s The Great Gatsby, Frederick Douglass ’ s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Arthur Miller ’ s Death of a Salesman, Moisés Kaufman ’ s The Laramie Project, Tim O’Brien ’ s The Things They Carried, Junot Diaz ’ s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and Zora Neale Hurston ’ s Their Eyes Were Watching God, along with a variety of essays, poems, and short stories.
AP English 11
1 credit Prerequisite: Recommendation of the department This AP course, open to invited eleventh graders, is designed with an American literature framework and prepares students for the AP English Language and Composition exam, which primarily measures writing aptitude and analysis of writing styles. Writing skills are honed through assignments based on diverse American authors, including Native American writers, Puritan writers, and a wide range of poets, essayists, and short-story writers. Students also read a number of the following major works: Nathaniel Hawthorne ’ s The Scarlet Letter, Edith Wharton ’ s Ethan Frome, John Steinbeck’ s East of Eden, Jhumpa Lahiri’ s The Namesake, Charlotte Perkins Gilman ’ s The Yellow Wallpaper, F. Scott Fitzgerald’ s The Great Gatsby, August Wilson ’ s Fences, Arthur Miller ’ s Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, Tim O’Brien ’ s The Things They Carried, Larry Watson ’ s Montana 1948, Moisés Kaufman ’ s The Laramie Project, and Toni Morrison ’ s Song of Solomon. The authors ’ biographical backgrounds are also emphasized, and creative writing and independent projects are important elements of the course. Note that all students in this course are required to take the AP English Language and Composition Exam in May.
AP English 12
1 credit. Cross-listed with Interdisciplinary Studies Prerequisite: Recommendation of the department This AP course, open to invited twelh graders, is the culmination of the honors English program. While the course prepares students for the AP English Literature and Composition exam, its central aim is to provide an opportunity for sophisticated literary discussion and written analysis. Students pursue a study of a combination of British literature with other literature in English, including the following texts: Shakespeare ’ s Othello, Oscar Wilde ’ s The Importance of Being Earnest, Arundhati Roy ’ s The God of Small Things, Zadie Smith’ s Swing Time, George Orwell’ s 1984, Virginia Woolf’ s To the Lighthouse, Mary Shelley ’ s Frankenstein, and Kazuo Ishiguro ’ s Never Let Me Go. This course also fulfills the Rivers IDS graduation requirement through an interdisciplinary consideration of several of the texts. Students are expected to master additional texts independently. Analysis of poetry is a major element of this writing-intensive class. Note that all students in this course are required to take the AP English Literature and Composition Exam in May.
Senior Electives
Seniors not in AP English 12 take an English elective each semester. First-semester electives are literature courses that emphasize the consolidation of skills built in previous English courses; students practice applying a critical lens to their studies and gain practice researching and using secondary sources in their own studies. Second-semester electives include a mix of literary study and creative writing; students produce writing on a frequent basis and provide peers with written and verbal feedback through writing workshops. The English Department expects to offer the following electives in 2022–2023:
First Semester Electives
Adolescence in Literature
0.5 credits What does it mean to be an adolescent? How do we see these formative years portrayed in literature and other media? In this course, students critically examine texts about teenagers and their experiences. They look at ways in which Americans oen talk about adolescence as a time of self-discovery, filled with newfound freedom, rebellion, and angst—and then explore how potentially flawed and narrow this view can be. Through reading and analyzing texts about teenagers, from classics like S. E. Hinton ’ s The Outsiders to contemporary texts such as Elizabeth Acevedo ’ s The Poet X and Stephen Chbosky ’ s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, students think critically about personal and societal notions about “ coming of age. ” In doing so, students also discuss the role that race, gender, class, and sexuality can play in the lived experience of being an American teenager. Students write a mix of personal, creative, and analytical essays. They also read a significant amount of literary criticism and critical theory in order to help to develop a “Youth Lens ” through which they can better analyze portrayals of teenagers in literature and film. The course culminates in students ’ applying this critical lens to texts of their own choosing for their final projects, which consist of both Catalog of Courses • THE RIVERS SCHOOL 26
presentations and formal writing.
Crime Fiction
0.5 credits Meet the quick minds and diverse characters of detective fiction: Agatha Christie ’ s Belgian mastermind Hercule Poirot, loner private investigator Kinsey Millhone, and the much imitated but never bettered Sherlock Holmes. Beginning at the foundation of the genre with Edgar Allan Poe ’ s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue, ” the class steps over crime scenes and through dark alleys with Conan Doyle ’ s The Hound of the Baskervilles, Gabriel García Márquez ’ s Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Attica Locke ’ s Bluebird, Bluebird, and Sue Graon ’ s “B” Is for Burglar, among other works. Exploration and critique of the genre ’ s treatment of issues of race, gender, and sexual orientation are among the unifying threads of the course. Having explored the ways in which crime fiction texts reflect the values, prejudices, and anxieties of their cultural milieu, students end by composing and sharing crime fiction tales of their own, taking the genre firmly into new territory.
Dystopian Literature
0.5 credits Tempered horror stories that feel at once familiar and strange, dystopian literature invites us to look more closely at the world around us. Indeed, the success of trilogies like The Hunger Games and Divergent speak to our collective desire to imagine a future gone terribly awry. But what explains this impulse? What purpose does dystopian literature serve? Is it escapist science fiction or prescient social commentary? This course examines dystopian novels (and films) as both of those things and more. With an emphasis on description, analysis, and comparison, students study classic dystopian texts like Bradbury ' s Fahrenheit 451, alongside more contemporary texts and media like St. John Mandel' s Station Eleven, Naomi Alderman ’ s The Power, and the Netflix anthology Black Mirror. As cautionary tales, as allegories, and as windows into unknown worlds, dystopian texts ask us to examine the present moment and to consider the future towards which we might be headed. Students should be prepared to study each text alongside relevant current events and social issues.
Life and Death
0.5 credits. Cross-listed with Interdisciplinary Studies While one could argue that most reputable literature explores some element of “life ” and/or “death, ” this course means to focus on those themes intensely and to explore these contemplations in a way that promotes examination of our own assumptions and understandings about our lives and the nature of life and mortality more generally. This IDS course focuses on the way in which writers and thinkers across many genres and eras have struggled to pose and answer the questions central to finding meaning in our human existence: How did we get here? Are we alone in the universe? Is there a purpose to our existence? Why must we die? These questions will be approached through the IDS lens, drawing on both local and published expertise in science, philosophy, and religious traditions. Students will be introduced to canonical considerations from Genesis, Aristotle, Plato, Shakespeare, and Kierkegaard, along with more modern thinkers such as Walt Whitman, the Dalai Lama, Herman Hesse, Emily Dickinson, Henry David Thoreau, Toni Morrison, Carl Sagan, Steven Hawking, Maxine Kingston Hong, and Ta-Nehisi Coates. The course will include an extensive unit on death and dying that will include works by Mary Oliver, Virginia Woolf, Catalog of Courses • THE RIVERS SCHOOL 27
Cormac McCarthy, Leo Tolstoy, Paul Kalinithi, Billy Collins, and Atul Gawande. Major assessments will be largely writing-based, but the course will be built upon class discussion and will feature a culminating IDS project that asks students to create their own expression of a chosen element of the topics covered.
Literature of Comedy
0.5 credits Students in this elective study and analyze comedy as a literary form. Studying paired works (a canonical one along with a contemporary one), students examine the comic genres of memoir, romantic comedy, comedy of manners, and satire in a variety of “textual” forms, including memoir, play, stories, TV, radio, and film. As a further means of understanding the genre, students reflect and compose a memoir, essays, and a satire. A theater trip may supplement the reading and writing assignments. Paired works studied may include Shakespeare ’ s Much Ado About Nothing and Smith and McCullough’ s 10 Things I Hate About You; Oscar Wilde ’ s The Importance of Being Earnest and Kevin Kwan ’ s Crazy Rich Asians; Mark Twain ’ s satirical essays, Mateo Askaripour ’ s Black Buck, and Taika Waititi’ s JoJo Rabbit. Additional works may include Tina Fey ’ s Bossypants; writing by David Sedaris, Maz Jobrani, and Mindy Kaling; television such as Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show, Modern Family, and Schitt’ s Creek; and The Moth Radio Hour.
Psychological Literature
0.5 credits This course teaches students to look at literature through a psychological lens and thus prompts them to begin to understand themselves and others with a bit more clarity. The curriculum is taught with the dual purpose of expanding students ’ knowledge of literature, while introducing them to Freudian Theory, as well as some common psychological disorders. Students examine underlying psychological forces at work in the human psyche through reading short fiction, poetry, novels, drama, memoirs, and case studies. Although much of the reading focuses on mental illness, students also explore issues such as family, power, motherhood, racism, sexuality, and sexism, all of which certainly affect one ’ s psychological well-being. The literature examines these issues at the personal level as well as in familial and institutional settings. Texts may include Mira Lee ’ s Everything Here is Beautiful, Robert Akeret’ s Tales from a Traveling Couch, Susanna Kaysen ’ s Girl, Interrupted, Peter Shaffer ’ s Equus, Charlotte Perkins Gilman ’ s “The Yellow Wallpaper, ” Sylvia Plath’ s The Bell Jar, Ken Kesey ’ s One Flew Over the Cuckoo ’ s Nest, William Faulkner ’ s The Sound and The Fury, Judith Guest’ s Ordinary People, James Baldwin ’ s Going to Meet the Man, Tennessee Williams ’ s A Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and verse by Gwendolyn Brooks.
Sports Literature
0.5 credits. Cross-listed with Interdisciplinary Studies According to journalist George Will, “Sports serve society by providing vivid examples of excellence. ” Indeed, playing and/or watching sports enables many people to pursue personal goals, to find connection to others, and to believe in and commit to something greater than themselves. Sports can play an essential role in a person ’ s development and sense of identity, and they have been central in political protest and social justice movements. A quick glance at the news headlines also reveals that there is oen a dark side to sports, filled with corruption, scandal, and immorality. In this course, students adopt an interdisciplinary approach to study a wide variety of sports Catalog of Courses • THE RIVERS SCHOOL 28
literature in an effort to explore the many roles that sports can play within an individual’ s life and within society—the good, the bad, and the nuanced areas in between. Course texts comprise a mix of fiction, non-fiction, essays, podcasts, and documentaries, including the writings of John Wooden, Andre Agassi’ s Open, and Quan Barry ’ s We Ride Upon Sticks. Students respond to the texts through personal writing, analytical essays, in-class presentations, and a substantial final project. Students of all athletic abilities and team allegiances are welcome in this course.
Second Semester Electives
The Art of Short Story Writing
0.5 credits Although brief works of literature, short stories can certainly pack a punch. Typically focusing on a smaller set of characters and a shorter time span than novels, they can evoke particular moods and convey themes that resonate with readers, all within a few pages. In this elective, students read an assortment of contemporary stories by authors such as Zadie Smith, George Saunders, and Neil Gaiman. More importantly, through a series of smaller, in-class assignments, students have the opportunity to experiment with voice, tone, setting, point of view, characterization, symbols, craing dialogue, writing through omission, and developing conflict in their own short fiction. The course culminates with students ’ creating at least two polished short stories of their own. In addition to reading a varied collection of short stories, students should expect daily fiction writing exercises and intensive workshops on student work.
Environmental Writing
0.5 credits The American story has portrayed nature both as the heroic centerpiece of our national identity and as our most fearsome antagonist, celebrating our “ purple mountains ’ majesty ” while awing the barren threat of Jack London ’ s Alaskan landscapes. In this course, students read fiction, non-fiction, and poetry that represent this distinct but expansive literary tradition—from the Puritans ’ divining of nature for signs of grace, through the enthrallment of the Concord Transcendentalists and their late twentieth-century counterparts, to contemporary environmental literature ’ s focus on climate justice and Deep Ecology. The course is writing-intensive, with an emphasis on social, cultural, and political environmental issues and on personal accounts of students ’ own experiences in and observations of nature. In this experiential course, students have opportunities to hike in local woods. While primarily centered on American writers and thinkers, other cultural approaches to understanding our natural world are introduced. Writers studied include Emerson and Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Annie Dillard, Jonathan Safron Foer, Mary Oliver, John Krakauer, Bill McGibbon, Joy Harjo, and Alexis Pauline Gumbs.
Experiential Writing
0.5 credits This course is meant to hone students ’ reading and writing abilities through the study and practice of memoir. In the winter, students read and analyze well-regarded long-form works, which may include Barack Obama ’ s Dreams from My Father and Barbara Ehrenreich’ s Nickel and Dimed. At the same time, students also encounter a wide variety of first-person essays as supplementary texts. In discussing and writing Catalog of Courses • THE RIVERS SCHOOL 29
about these texts, students explore how identity components such as race, class, and gender affect each author ’ s experiences, and they consider the ways in which the creation of memoir is central to the writer ’ s own personal development. In the spring, students produce personal essays based on experience and observation. Weekly assignments ask students to engage in experiences in their communities—for example, cooking a meal with family members, visiting a hospital waiting room, or taking an extended ride on public transportation—and then to develop short essays inspired by those experiences. In weekly workshops, students share and discuss their writing with their classmates, and by the end of the course, students produce a portfolio of revised work based on peer and teacher feedback. Ultimately, the course helps students develop attention to detail in their observations, respond creatively to experiences in the world, and continue their growth as writers.
Exploring Ethics: Language, Literature, and the Brain
0.5 credits. Cross-listed with Interdisciplinary Studies This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to the investigation of central ethical ideas: freedom, justice, empathy, and virtue. Students integrate disciplinary contributions from English, science, and philosophy in order to fashion their own resolutions of some key ethical questions: What role do empathy and imagination have in moral thinking? How do recent developments in psychology and neuroscience shape our views of identity and responsibility? How can I strive to become a more ethical person in the practical world of day-to-day life? Assessments consist of both personal and analytical responses, collaborative group work, online discussion boards, and two projects. The “disagreement project” is designed to nurture skills of empathetic, careful listening and dialogue across cultural and socio-political differences. The culminating “ community engagement project” supports students in making a positive social impact with a pressing ethical issue of their choosing.
Heartbreak and Healing
0.5 credits This course examines three contemporary novels that center on a fractured family in crisis. These broken families face such traumas as murder, slavery, and terrorism as they struggle through their respective journeys full of confusion, pain, and discovery. As students explore the heartbreak and subsequent healing of these characters, they similarly take a look at such influential cultural factors as the aermath of 9/11 in New York City, enslavement in Kentucky in the late 1800’ s, and the political caste system in India in the late 1900’ s. While examining these texts and issues, the class additionally unearths how both family and community play a role in shaping who we are. Students are also asked to consider how the respective authors choose to tell their stories; thus, as they untangle these fractured families, they simultaneously analyze the various styles of these cutting-edge, iconic authors. In particular, the second half of this course uses the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close as a springboard, both stylistically and thematically, for the creation of students ’ own written work. As the class examines Jonathan Safran Foer ’ s 9/11 narrative, students write a variety of short papers that deal with their own experiences with family, fear, and loss. Additionally, students write a longer paper that first involves going on a “ scavenger hunt” as they mirror the mysterious journey and discovery of Jonathan Safran Foer ’ s protagonist. Along with weekly reading and writing, students share their written work with their peers in a workshop setting as they take note of their classmates ’ written and verbal feedback. Catalog of Courses • THE RIVERS SCHOOL 30
Playwriting
0.5 credits In this writing-intensive course, students study a variety of plays and write a series of their own 10-minute plays. In addition to reading and writing plays, the heart of the course is a playwright’ s workshop, a time when the plays are cold-read and then critiqued both live and online. As part of the Boston University Young Playwrights ’ Festival, a professional playwright mentor visits campus twice to work with the students and their plays; in April, students attend a daylong festival of student plays at BU. At the end of the course, each student selects one of their plays to cast, rehearse, and stage at our own Night of Short Plays. Works studied may include Lorraine Hansberry ’ s A Raisin in the Sun, Bruce Norris ’ s Clybourne Park, Tennessee Williams ’ s A Streetcar Named Desire, Jean-Paul Sartre ’ s No Exit, August Wilson ’ s Fences, Tony Kushner ’ s Angels in America, John Cariani’ s Almost, Maine, Sarah DeLappe ’ s The Wolves, and a variety of 10-minute plays.
Reading and Writing Place
0.5 credits How can writers effectively capture place in their writing? In their English classes, students oen discuss the importance of setting in the literature that they read. Building from this foundation, this writing-intensive course takes a deep dive into exploring the ways in which authors can use descriptions of place to evoke meaning. Beginning with Jhumpa Lahiri’ s The Namesake, students explore how writers can use setting to develop themes, establish context, and drive plot. The next course text, Dave Eggers ’ s The Circle, prompts students to analyze a dystopian setting and discuss how fictionalized landscapes can convey important truths about the real world. Students conclude their literary study with a historical fiction text, Erik Larson ’ s The Devil in the White City, to look at how an author can use research to create a vivid historical setting. Inspired by the various settings and genres that they study, students write short stories and personal essays, craing their own pieces in which an understanding of place is vitally important.
