Providing a dynamic framework for the study of English and History, this course encourages exploration of key themes in world history, literature, politics, religion, art, and music. In particular, the course examines the changing nature of cultural values and the relationship between communities and the individual. As students explore how individuals have made moral, spiritual, and intellectual sense of their worlds, they hone skills as critical and creative readers, thinkers, and writers. With respect to the analytical essay, emphasis is placed on the creation of thesis statements and logically coherent paragraphs together with the discovery and integration of appropriate textual evidence. Students are taught techniques of annotating text, note taking, and means of accessing primary and secondary sources. Humanities English 9 is an Earned Honors course.

Providing a dynamic framework for the study of English and History, this course encourages exploration of key themes in world history, literature, politics, religion, art, and music. In particular, the course examines the changing nature of cultural values and the relationship between communities and the individual. As students explore how individuals have made moral, spiritual, and intellectual sense of their worlds, they hone skills as critical and creative readers, thinkers, and writers. Students continue to develop skills in writing analytical essays, and emphasis is placed on techniques of close reading that encourage the discovery and use of textual evidence capable of promoting arguments of increasing sophistication and insight. In the Grade 10 Capstone Project, students reflect on their evolution as writers over the course of the year, analyzing their opportunities and challenges as writers. Humanities English 10 is an Earned Honors course. Students must take Humanities English 10 on an Earned Honors basis to be eligible for advanced English classes in 11th grade.

Providing a dynamic framework for the study of American literature and history from the Colonial period to the present, this year-long course encourages exploration of key themes in American history, prose, poetry, drama, politics, religion, art, and music. In particular, the course examines the changing nature of American cultural values and the relationship between communities and the individual in the United States itself and the world at large. As students explore how Americans have made moral, spiritual, and intellectual sense of their experience, they hone skills as critical and creative readers, thinkers, and writers. As well as continuing to develop skills in writing analytical essays, students are expected to work independently as they originate, frame, and execute distinctive points of view. Through class discussions and writing assignments, students continue to develop their skills in formal and contextual analysis.

Providing a dynamic framework for the study of American literature and history from the Colonial period to the present, this year-long course encourages exploration of key themes in American history, prose, poetry, drama, politics, religion, art, and music. In particular, the course examines the changing nature of American cultural values and the relationship between communities and the individual in the United States itself and the world at large. As students explore how Americans have made moral, spiritual, and intellectual sense of their experience, they hone skills as critical and creative readers, thinkers, and writers. As well as continuing to develop skills in writing analytical essays, students are expected to work independently as they originate, frame, and execute distinctive points of view. Through class discussions and writing assignments, students continue to develop their skills in formal and contextual analysis.

What does it mean to be an American? What are our triumphs and struggles? How do our diverse American stories reflect our young and evolving nation? In AS: Literary Studies in American Voices, students will engage in daily investigation of great works of American literature from the 19th through the 21st centuries and consider what these stories inform us of our national culture and the shared human condition. Grounded in formal, language-based analysis, this course will also expose students to a range of other methodologies and will introduce students to the applications of literary criticism. Literary Studies in American Voices is appropriate for students who love to read and are ready for intensive, college-level study of fiction and its craft. Student-centered and inquiry-based discussion will be the foundation of the daily experience. A range of American poets will be considered along with prose and plays by authors such as: Albee, Baldwin, Cather, Diaz, Faulkner, Hawthorne, James, Jin, Kushner, Machado, Melville, Morrison, O’Connor, Roth, Saunders, Silko, Twain, Whitehead, Williams. Enrollment is by departmental recommendation.

AP English Literature and Composition is a rigorous introductory college-level course that asks students to read broadly—across time and place—and deeply, engaging in continual critical reflection and analysis. Over the course of the year, we will read novels, plays, and poetry from the 16th century to the present. Writing assignments will include expository, argumentative, and analytical essays, as well as informal responses and multimedia projects. The classroom environment will be student-centered, with inquiry and meaning-making as its focus. This is a course for students who love to read and discuss literature, and who want to ask big questions, even if those questions can’t always be answered. Authors considered may include Margaret Atwood, Charlotte Bronte, Ralph Ellison, Edith Wharton, Franz Kafka, Toni Morrison, Oscar Wilde, William Shakespeare, and Virginia Woolf.

From The Hunger Games to The Handmaid’s Tale, directors and authors have long explored imaginary worlds that, at first look, seem extreme and utterly impossible. However, students may soon start to realize that these worlds are not as implausible as they thought. Through close analysis of short fiction, a graphic novel, novel excerpts, and TV and film extracts, students will investigate several imaginary worlds of destruction. As we define dystopia and understand the stylistic features of the genre, students will grapple with questions about society’s potential future and about its present. What makes a perfect society? Are rules made to be followed or are they made to be broken? How do we define humanity? Can it be taken away? Can technology be dangerous? Throughout the course students will engage critically with these questions in both analytical and creative formats. Content may include work by: Ken Liu, Yann Martel, Octavia Butler, Margaret Atwood, Suzanne Collins, and Ernest Cline.

Students in this course analyze and evaluate a wide range of persuasive speeches made by leading figures in politics, literature, and other fields. By scrutinizing the rhetorical structures and devices in orations by William Faulkner, Sojourner Truth, Emmeline Pankhurst, Abraham Lincoln, FDR, JFK, and others, students consider how those authors used words effectively to persuade, inspire, influence, and effect change. In exploring the impact and consequences of those speeches, students also consider the role that rhetoric plays in effective leadership. Assessments of the course include frequent writing assignments, both analytical, and personal; the course culminates in a final project that requires students to compose and present a speech on a topic of their own choosing.

From The Daily Show to South Park, satire dominates modern entertainment. But it has a long and rich history reaching back to the ancient Greeks. In this course, we explore a range of satires from antiquity to the present in order to better understand this powerful genre. As we investigate the relationship between satire and comedy, we consider how those in power have reacted when satirized, and we ask ourselves if satire can ever go too far. Students write analytically, but also creatively, trying their hand at satires of their own. Works studied may include those by Aristophanes, Juvenal, Swift, Voltaire, and Vonnegut, as well as film and television excerpts from SNL, The Daily Show, and Get Out.

This course is an exploration of the art of the memoir and the personal essay. We will explore what personal creative nonfiction seeks to do, and in addition to analytical essays, students will write multiple creative nonfiction essays of their own. Students will read work by authors such as Mary Karr, Garnette Cagodan, Kiese Laymon, Shena McAuliffe, Briallen Hopper, and others. In examining all of these models, we will learn the elements of successful creative nonfiction, and frequent creative writing exercises will encourage students to refine their own work. A writing intensive course, students should expect to write frequently, through journaling, nightly writing assignments, and larger memoir pieces on experiences and places of meaning to them. Students may find that one or more of their essays will fit the common application personal essay.

Students will study graphic narratives by Moebius, Shaun Tan, Alex Ross, Neil Gaiman and others to analyze the use of color, line, and texture as storytelling tools. The students will focus their analysis on the ways graphic narrative adapts and transforms literary devices and techniques -- for example, "mood" and "tone" through color scripting, visual forms of metaphor and metonymy, and realism vs. iconography vs. abstraction (in both visual style and narrative style). Ultimately, this is a writing elective -- so, students will draft their own graphic narratives in script format, design character ensembles, and draft page layouts to learn about "the grammar of sequential art," as described by Scott Adams and linguist Neil Cohn. Students will refine their comics through peer workshop. No drawing skills necessary!

What makes for a television show you just can’t stop watching? Can films still get people to come out to movie theaters or is the future of cinema on the small screen? What makes for a theatrical experience that keeps you at the edge of your seat or that stays in your mind years later? Through analysis of writing for film, television, and theater, students in this class will explore the elements of dramatic writing: plot, character, world-building, dialogue, and poetry. Students will explore the way these elements are used in different forms of dramatic writing through readings that may include The Flower of Good Fortune by Kottayam Thampuran, Far Away by Caryl Churchill, Fences by August Wilson, A Woman Among Women by Julia May Jonas, essays and poems by Charles Olson, and a variety of film and television. Writing will include short creative pieces that borrow techniques from each work. Students will then choose the form best suited for a longer creative project of their own devising. Students may bring those projects to life through teasers and short films produced in the school’s Center for Innovation and Design or staged readings of theatrical work.

This course will explore how young adult and children's books--many of which we consider "classics" and read time and time again--are in fact, books for adults in disguise. Students will be asked to identify what makes a work of young adult literature that lasts the ages, and then identify and discuss how these young, fictional protagonists find themselves in situations and spaces that ultimately mirror adult experiences and themes. From seemingly idyllic places like a chocolate factory to schools of wizarding, students will find new meaning in spaces and stories reconsidered.

We are what we eat, right? Food is intrinsically tied to who we are as individuals, as people, as a society, as a culture. In this course, we will examine the ways in which literature uses food to represent and understand the human experience. By examining a wide range of literature through the lens of food, our goal in this course is to understand how our identities, traditions, cultures, and history are shaped and molded by the foods we eat and the food others eat. We will consider food as a topic in literary works from different genres, periods, and cultures, as well as contemporary questions of food justice, health, and sustainability. Course materials will focus on diverse perspectives and include personal narratives, short stories, novel excerpts, young adult literature, and film excerpts.

The human psyche is malleable and influenced by numerous interior and exterior factors, and it strives to create order. When this order is disrupted, monsters are born. Therefore, we will explore the nature of “monstrosity,” pondering the following: What do we label as “monstrous” and why? How can we classify a monster, and what makes it successful or unsuccessful? Do we really fear monsters or is there something desirous about them? And do we need monsters in order to define ourselves? Towards answering these questions, we will explore myths, literature, and film, as well as define what it truly means to be a “monster.” Students can expect to engage in class discussions, write creatively and analytically, and work both collaboratively and individually. Readings may include Jeffery Jerome Cohen’s Monster Theory, Angela Carter’s “The Company of Wolves,” Bram Stoker’s Dracula, H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Outsider,” and Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Screenings may include Alien, Dracula, and An American Wolf in London.

Is the sitcom dead? Its demise has been predicted since the 1980s, but it perseveres, still ranking as one of our culture’s most revealing entertainment genres. Over the first half of this course, students explore and examine a range of American television sitcom episodes, one from each of the past six decades. In addition to analyzing characterization, plot, dialogue, theme, and directorial style, students will also consider what each episode suggests about the mores and concerns of the decade in which it aired. Over the second half of the course, students practice and hone their own skills at writing situational comedy. Working first individually and then in small groups, students will workshop, draft, edit short scenes. They will then pitch, develop, and write a 22-minute pilot sitcom episode, the opening five minutes of which they will film in the school’s CID Recording Studio. Assessments in this course include short and long analytical papers, a number of presentations, as well as multiple short--and one major-- screenwriting assignments.

This course introduces the novice or more experienced writer to the art of Journalism. Requirements include an inquiring mind, a willingness to take risks, and determination to write with eloquence and precision. Students examine works by prize-winning authors, as well as topical pieces in The New York Times. Students learn journalistic skills from the basic news story to features, opinion pieces, reviews, and sports coverage, as well as investigative and narrative pieces for the more ambitious. We look with a critical eye at the world of school, the world at large, and the current state of media. In addition to producing stories for the school newspaper, students study modes of rhetoric and produce analytical papers on non-fiction literature and ideas covered in the course.

This honors course introduces students to writing center theory and practice. Students will discover that consulting in the Center for Academic Writing, or leading peer review in a class, involves much more than just "looking over" a paper. Writing center consulting has a rich theoretical base drawing on composition studies, education, and psychology. Tutors do not have to be experts, but they do need to understand the writing process as well as the dynamics of the tutoring relationship. The readings in this course cover writing center history, theory, and practice as well as composition theory and ideas about collaboration and the social nature of writing. The course is highly interactive, calling on students to help construct the direction of class discussions and activities. Because the course is about experience, fieldwork is required. Occasionally, class will be replaced by a practicum in the Center for Academic Writing. Upon successful completion of the course, students will be invited to apply to be peer tutors in the Center for Academic Writing. Please note that this course does not fulfill English core requirements.