English
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All English courses in the Upper School are taught using the Harkness philosophy. Students are expected to arrive to class prepared and ready to engage in meaningful discussions. Close reading and marking the text are essential to this process and to student success. For this reason, unmarked paper copies of all books (i.e. novels, plays, short stories, anthologies) are required.
REQUIRED: Four years of English courses (4 credits)
Level: 9th grade
Length: Year
Prerequisite: Successful completion of English 8 or equivalent.
Description: This course, centered around an exploration of what it means to be human, is a comprehensive study of vocabulary, grammar, the writing process, and selected literary works. Grammar study and writing texts assist students in applying their grammar knowledge in order to enhance their written expression. The primary focus for writing is the effective organization of clear, cohesive paragraphs— including use of topic sentences, transitions, and concluding sentences—into well-formulated essays which utilize various rhetorical modes. In their approach to literature, students apply critical-thinking skills in determining theme and analyzing style. Works discussed include poems, essays, short stories, novellas, memoir, and drama. Students also study vocabulary through Membean and words encountered in literature.
Level: 9th grade
Length: Year
Prerequisite: Successful completion of English 8, performance on departmental placement test, first-semester exam grade, first-semester grade of current English course, teacher recommendation, and standardized test scores.
Description: Honors English 9 is an accelerated course, centered around the theme of personal journeys, which requires students to be self-directed. Students are expected to rise to the challenge in their study of literature, grammar, vocabulary and writing. Literature discussed in this course includes but is not limited to essays, short stories, a graphic novel, an epic, and a Shakespearean comedy. Honors English 9 students are expected to have a strong background in grammar as this course emphasizes applying grammar concepts to their own writing. Students are encouraged to develop their own voice and style when they practice writing cogent, coherent essays. Students also study vocabulary through Membean and words encountered in literature.
Level: 10th grade
Length: Year
Prerequisite: Successful completion of English 9 or equivalent.
Description: English 10 explores the origins of Western literature through works by canonical authors such as Sophocles, Homer, and Shakespeare, while incorporating poetry and contemporary counterparts in various cultures. Throughout the course, students trace the development of human understanding of purpose and fate in Western thought and engage in discussion on a wide range of related topics. Through writing a series of papers relevant to the literature, students elevate their skills to explore and write in a variety of modes, and they expand their study of Shakespeare and the connection between language and performance by participating in the annual Shakespeare Festival. Students also encounter new vocabulary in literature and through their continued study of Membean.
Level: 10th grade
Length: Year
Prerequisite: Successful completion of English 9, performance on departmental placement test, first-semester exam grade, first-semester grade of current English course, teacher recommendation, and standardized test scores.
Description: In this rigorous course, students explore foundational works of world literature, including ancient Greek texts, Elizabethan drama, and key postcolonial writings from Africa and the Caribbean. Poetry is also a major component of the class, allowing students to deepen their study of figurative language and poetic form. Throughout the course, students also engage with the field of literary theory, learn how to select quality criticism through research, and practice incorporating theoretical and critical sources into their own writing. These fields of study help students elevate their writing skills and introduce them to different modes of analytical writing. Students expand their study of Shakespeare and the connection between language and performance by participating in the annual Shakespeare Festival. They increase their vocabulary through Membean and words encountered in the course readings.
English 11
The English 11 curriculum offers several different approaches (described below) to exploring the development of the American literary tradition from America’s colonial period into the modern era. All students study F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God as two very different pursuits of dreams and the way they shape the self.
English 11 Seminars
Through short stories, novels, poetry, and dramas, students examine the historical, philosophical, and stylistic influences of writers. In addition to honing their critical thinking skills through class discussions and written essays, students also increase their vocabulary through both their readings and Membean.
Description: Throughout American history, authors have explored the tension between violence and the “better angels of our nature.” The intersection between ideological principles and destructive forces lies at the heart of much of the literature produced in America since English Puritans first landed in the “New World.” This conflict takes various forms in American literature: physical and psychological, personal and communal, literal and metaphorical. This course explores violence through various lenses, such as the ruthless class divisions in The Great Gatsby, the raw savagery and moral conflict inherent in the Western genre of No Country for Old Men, and the lingering impact of war in The Things They Carried.
Description: While we often think of movement for social change as a modern phenomenon that began with the Civil Rights Movement and the youth countercultures of the 1960s, change and social protest are deeply ingrained in the American literary tradition. In this course, students explore the literature that inspired and responded to significant social movements in American history, such as Abolitionism, Women’s Suffrage, Civil Rights, and Environmentalism.
Description: American Gothic literature provides a glimpse into those familiar images that haunt us all—the haunted house, the living dead, the monster that lives inside of us. In this course, students explore the distinctly American flavor of these tensions, which often stems from a fear of the unknown or a deeply unsettling relationship with our own past. In addition to examining traditional Gothic works from writers like Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe, this course explores the genre's roots and its evolution into contemporary works.
Level: 11th grade
Length: Year
Prerequisite: Successful completion of English 10, overall GPA, first semester exam grade and grade of current English course, teacher recommendation, performance on qualifying test, and PSAT verbal and reading scores.
Description: This class presents students with a more rigorous approach to the standard junior English course material, which focuses on the American literary tradition. Qualified students become fluent in the various short stories, novels, poetry, and dramas that comprise the American canon. Each work is studied within its historical context, but ultimately the course is interested in the fact that none of these texts truly stands alone--each one contributes to a broader conversation about American identity. As students work to understand the connections between these texts, they develop a nuanced and thorough understanding of American culture; throughout the year, they craft numerous essays that examine and define American ideals. In addition to honing their critical thinking skills through class discussions and written essays, students also increase their vocabulary through both their readings and Membean. This course requires a willingness to take risks, think critically, and ask probing questions--both in writing and in discussions. Students should be prepared to complete challenging readings and frequent writing projects. Ultimately, through the study of literature, this course hopes to define “the essential American soul.”
Level: 11th grade
Length: Year
Prerequisite: Successful completion of English 10, placement test performance, overall GPA, first semester exam grade and grade of current English course, teacher recommendation, and PSAT verbal and reading scores.
Description: Students in this introductory, college-level course learn how to read meticulously and strategically, analyzing a broad range of challenging literature, both fiction and nonfiction, while deepening their awareness of the purpose and effectiveness of rhetoric. Close reading and frequent writing assignments help students develop their ability to work with both text and language while also strengthening their own composition skills. Students examine narrative, expository, analytical, personal, and argumentative texts from a variety of authors from a range of centuries. Though the concepts and methodology are similar at each level, the 11th grade course focuses solely on American literature; the 12th grade course, which is predominantly non-fiction, does not limit itself to any particular genre.
English 12
The English 12 curriculum offers seniors two semester-long Senior Seminars (English 12 – Senior Seminars), AP English Language & Composition (taken senior year), or AP English Literature & Composition. Senior Seminars may also be taken as an elective semester as long as the senior English requirement is being met.
Description: James Baldwin once wrote that the story of black people in America is quite simply “the story of America.” That is, there is no way to understand American history or literature without foregrounding the experiences of Black Americans. Taking up Baldwin’s challenge, this course explores the complexity of Black writing in this country by focusing on how these works can help us rethink dominant narratives about literary form and the relationship between art and culture. Students read a wide variety of African American writing in the course, ranging from classic works grounded in folklore and social realism to contemporary works that incorporate elements from genre fiction, hip hop, and other forms of popular culture. Texts will vary from one semester to the next.
Description: This course introduces students to the tradition of the contemporary short story and teaches them how to create their own short fiction. Students familiarize themselves with the traditional, written model of storytelling, but also branch into forms of storytelling that are both unconventional and strange, like podcasts and comic strips. Through participation in daily discussions about stories, students become experts in writing. Students must be willing to write frequently, as they are expected to produce multiple drafts of multiple stories throughout the semester. These drafts are also discussed and workshopped among their peers.
Description: This course delves into humanity’s dark side and the literature that explores it. The class begins by examining the meaning of Gothicism through music, art, and architecture before moving into the literature and the monster archetypes that dominate this dark world, including the vampire, trickster, doppelganger, and gothic other and how they contribute to the conflict and horror. The mystery and terror of the gothic world is examined through a survey of stories, a novel, a novella, and a drama.
Description: When the world ends, what do we do? Many of us think of the apocalypse as the destruction and termination of all things, yet the Greek word from which it derives–apokálypsis–means an uncovering, a revelation. When our societies crumble, do we see ourselves more clearly? In this course, students read literature that explores the apocalyptic–novels, poems, and stories written by and about the survivors of world-altering disaster. Ultimately, we will seek to deeply understand the rawest parts of our humanity that come to light only when our worlds crumble.
Description: The romance genre requires the “Happily Ever After (HEA)” conclusion, but beyond that requirement, the definition is a bit hard to pin down. Students spend the semester uncovering the origins of the romance novel, the tools and tropes that authors use to enhance the novel, and the modern interpretations of an old art form. This genre is about discovering joy through the lens of romantic love ending with marriage or union. In addition to the positive conclusions in these novels, they are brimming with witty insights into social class, relationship dynamics, and gender roles. In this course, students read a classic and a couple of contemporary masters of the genre in order to discover how love, joy, and struggle intertwine to produce timeless discussions on female identity, desire, and independence. Students also write their own creative fiction, experimenting with the tropes and techniques of the romance genre to deepen their understanding of its conventions. Texts will vary from one semester to the next.
Description: What do Robin Hood, the Three Musketeers, Beowulf, King Arthur, Guinevere, or Don Quixote have in common other than they are characters in myths or legends? Well, most students graduating from Episcopal haven’t read anything they are in. In this course, students will be reading excerpts, ballads, poems, and an epic and studying them and other fairy tale characters like the Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and even Beauty and her love interest the Beast. Students who have seen the film versions of these characters will be shocked how they have been altered, cleaned up, and their lessons changed. Through this literature study, seniors will be exposed to the life altering conflicts they contain. Reading other pieces like “The Handless Maiden” and “The Fisher King” will also help the class explore both the hero and heroine’s psychology. The journey through this course will give individuals the opportunity to meet, follow, and learn from famous heroes and heroines and will help solidify an understanding of the hero archetype and its application to one’s future journey through life.
Description: Students in this class explores a variety of books from the last fifty years which, for one reason or another, have been banned in America. Many units explore a specific type of banned books–be it young adult novels, dystopian works from the 1950s, or graphic novels. Students also explore the role that public resources, such as libraries and schools, play both in the arena of book bans and in our society as a whole. Students in this course should expect to have some agency over their reading list and be interested in exploring the cause and impacts of the rise of book bans both today and in the past.
Description: In this course, students will learn to write their own original poems as they are immersed in poetry of all kinds. Students will work in a variety of poetic modes and explore various forms in order to reflect on their memories, ideas, fears, and hopes, ultimately strengthening their sense of self as they look toward college. In writing workshops, students will receive critiques on their own poems and give suggestions for improvement in their peers' works. As writers, students will advance their ability to compose with voice, and they will learn to approach writing-both personal and analytical-as a craft. Lastly, students will enhance their reading and analytical abilities through various analytical responses to class texts.
Description: Where do sports and literature intersect? This course examines how athletic endeavors serve as a lens to explore the human condition, revealing truths about character, conflict, perseverance, and glory. Drawing inspiration from journalist Heywood Broun’s assertion that “sports do not build character, they reveal it,” students will analyze fiction and non-fiction works that use sports as a metaphor for life. Through discussion, research, and critical thinking, the class will delve into the historical and social contexts of these texts, honing skills in literary analysis, personal writing, and interdisciplinary thinking. By considering themes such as defeat, resilience, and the pursuit of greatness, students will uncover how the world of sports reflects and shapes our understanding of humanity.
Level: 12th grade
Length: Year
Prerequisite: Successful completion of English 11 and an application.
Description: Students in this class will explore a variety of novels and short stories that will help them grow as both readers and writers of contemporary fiction. The texts provided in this course will span multiple genres and styles as students explore their own literary taste, as well as their own style of writing. Students who enroll in this course should be excited to read, write, and rewrite extensively, as they will need to produce a robust body of work by the spring semester. Throughout the course, students will also share their own writing with their peers in a workshop setting and continue to revise a portfolio of their own work, which will be shared with the Episcopal community in the spring. This course differs from other creative writing courses in the amount of work that students are asked to produce; since students are writing and revising across multiple semesters, they should be prepared to produce a far more extensive portfolio by the end of the course.
Level: 12th grade
Length: Year
Prerequisite: Successful completion of English 11, performance on placement test, overall GPA, first semester exam grade and grade of current English course, teacher recommendation, and PSAT verbal and reading scores.
Description: This course is designed to engage motivated students in the careful study and analysis of imaginative literature (mainly novels and poetry). Through the close reading of selected texts, students deepen their understanding of the ways writers use language to convey meaning. During the reading process and through class discussions, students focus on such topics as theme, style, and diction. Students also learn to see the way writers convey purpose through such elements as figurative language, imagery, and tone. Writing assignments emphasize the exposition of major themes and techniques of the works studied in class.
Level: 12th grade
Length: Year
Prerequisite: Successful completion of English 11, placement test performance, overall GPA, first semester exam grade and grade of current English course, teacher recommendation, and PSAT verbal and reading scores.
Description: Students in this introductory, college-level course learn how to read meticulously and strategically, analyzing a broad range of challenging literature, both fiction and nonfiction, while deepening their awareness of the purpose and effectiveness of rhetoric. Close reading and frequent writing assignments help students develop their ability to work with both text and language while also strengthening their own composition skills. Students examine narrative, expository, analytical, personal, and argumentative texts from a variety of authors from a range of centuries.
AP Language and Composition (12): Please see the course description at the end of the English 11 offerings.