Year-Long Courses 2101 Advanced ELL (9, 10, 11) English Language Learners This course is designed to support students transitioning into standard English classrooms. The primary focus is on literacy practices inherent to English Language Learners (ELL) and cultural transition. The major components of this course are improving specific skills in reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Students will be asked to speak formally and informally and to study grammar with an eye toward success on the TOEFL and public presentation. Upon admission, non-native English speakers will be assessed through a combination of previous test scores, interviews, and Skype conversations in August to determine placement in either ELL or standard English. English 2200 (9) This course exposes students to a broad range of literary genres: poems, plays, short stories, and novels by writers from a variety of cultures. The 9th grade curriculum moves from the detailed study of the paragraph to a focus on the critical essay. Students complete a comprehensive writing project in conjunction with their reading of Shakespeare. Additionally, students complete personal essays focusing on our school’s mission—purpose, passion, and integrity—and develop public speaking skills by delivering the essays aloud to their classmates. Frequent writing assignments are supported by ongoing concentration on grammar and vocabulary skills, including an intensive study of roots and prefixes. Texts may include Wharton’s Ethan Frome, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Homer’s The Odyssey, Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies, and Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street. English 2300 (10) This course provides a comprehensive study of the major literary genres: short stories, novels, poetry, and drama. Central themes of the course are coming of age, outsiders, and identity. The course emphasizes the structure and composition of critical essays, especially in the sophomore writing project, a three-week study of the writing process. Students study vocabulary and writing-based grammar, including an intensive study of roots and prefixes. Texts typically include Shakespeare’s Othello, Sophocles’ Oedipus, Shelley’s Frankenstein, Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, Hoffman’s Blackbird House, and McCullers’ The Ballad of the Sad Cafe. English 2400 (11) This course provides students with a look into the variety of the American literary scene. Students come away from the course with a greater understanding of the evolution of American literature, a greater appreciation for its range and depth, and a greater awareness of influential social and historical factors. The curriculum typically includes works by Bradford, Franklin, Hawthorne, Emerson, Poe, Chopin, Dickinson, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Morrison, and Alexie.
10 2013-14 Course of Studies
Central to the course is the cultivation of independent thinking skills through analytical and creative writing assignments, including an introduction to the college essay and a major critical research paper. Grammar and vocabulary are reviewed regularly to increase students’ reading and writing facility, and to prepare them for the SAT. 2490 AP English / Language (11) Application required
This course is conducted as an honors American Literature course that hones the skills required for the AP English Language and Composition Exam. Students will read fiction and non-fiction, focusing on the individual styles and literary contexts of authors. Most writing assignments will be analytical and argumentative, with an emphasis on in-class writing. In preparation for the AP exam, students will take practice tests and write timed essays, considering the audience, purpose, and rhetorical strategies of select passages. All students must complete an application process that includes a timed essay and the recommendation of their 10th grade teacher. Summer work will be substantial, involving reading sections from a required AP handbook and taking a three-hour and fifteenminute practice exam, along with reading three novels. Readings typically include essays by Emerson, Thoreau, and Dillard; poems by Dickinson and Whitman; short stories by Poe, Chopin, and O’Connor; the novels The Scarlet Letter, The Great Gatsby, As I Lay Dying, and Beloved; and the play Death of a Salesman. 2590 AP English / Literature (12) This yearlong course explores the meaning and purpose of literature through the lenses of drama, poetry, and the novel. Students who gain entry to AP Literature have already mastered the basics of composition and are expected to write a number of substantial critical essays and creative pieces. Readings range from classic to contemporary texts and may include authors such as Shakespeare, Ellison, Camus, and Brönte, as well as various poets from the English Renaissance to the moderns.
Senior English Trimester Courses All seniors, except those enrolled in AP English Literature (2590), take English 2500 in the first trimester and choose an English elective in the second and third trimesters. A representative sample of courses appears below. English 2500 This first trimester course is an intense writing workshop through which students express themselves with personal essays, “snapshots,” vignettes, and memoirs. Over the course of the trimester, students build portfolios of their work, providing a rich variety of potential college essays. Students examine models of essay style and structure from a range of writers including Virginia Woolf, E.B. White, Joan