English

The Upper School English Department is made up of experienced teachers with a passion for literature and the teaching of writing as a process.

There are several main goals of the four levels of Upper School English instruction. One is to produce strong critical thinkers. We also believe in providing individual writing instruction, which allows students the personal attention required to strengthen their writing skills. This is done through formal classroom instruction as well as through the use of individual writing consultations outside of the classroom.

Students in English 9 and English 10 read, discuss, and write about a variety of literary works. These include those written by American, British, and European authors such as Salinger, Steinbeck, Shakespeare, Chekov, Shelley, Remarque, and Sophocles. Grammar and vocabulary instruction is also included as a regular part of the curriculum. A course in style, usage, and grammar is also required for ninth grade students to support their mastery of the writing process.

Students in eleventh and twelfth grades take AP Language and Composition, AP Literature and Composition, or select from a choice of semester long seminar classes in order to satisfy their graduation requirement. The seminar offerings vary each semester but include titles such as Detective Fiction, Shakespeare’s Festival of Comedies, Poetry and Poetics, The Art of Short Story, American Dreams and Nightmares, and Literary Non-Fiction.
COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

ENGLISH 9
Full Year - Grade 9

English 9 offers recently graduated Middle School students a safe transformational space in which to develop the fundamental reading, writing, and critical thinking skills that will bring them success in high school, college, and beyond. The intensive process-oriented approach to writing employed in English 9 ensures that students will achieve significant improvement in all aspects of literacy, from reading comprehension and discussion to the analysis of texts and the drafting of sophisticated and multifaceted critical essays. Required reading includes a variety of canonical American and British literary texts from the early to mid-twentieth century. We read these works in the context of the critical moments in history that produced them, such as the Harlem Renaissance, American and British modernism, the Civil Rights Movement, and New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

In the fall, students write and revise thesis-driven literary analysis essays based on close reading and annotation. They keep brainstorming journals and create detailed outlines. They come to understand the value of an argumentative thesis and learn to employ textual evidence effectively, and they discover the utility of unified, coherent, and well-developed paragraphs.

In the spring, we draw on these paradigms and shake them up through a series of curriculum-based “days out” of the classroom. Students use their study of literature as a launch pad for place-based, experiential, and interdisciplinary studies of major cities such as New York, London, and New Orleans. Spring research projects take students, informed and emboldened by intensive literary study, into the social, geographical, and historical contexts in which the classic works of literature they have studied were written. Writing and revising a research-based creative essay and designing a related art project takes students through the multi-layered processes of academic research, including narrowing research questions, identifying credible sources, taking research notes, and outlining, writing, and revising a multi-part creative essay. This course privileges close reading for craft--others’ and one’s own--and emphasizes sentence-level clarity through knowledge of grammar and style and through the study of vocabulary in context.

MODES OF WRITING
One Semester - Grade 9

Through the use of personal and creative writing as well as reading of both fiction and non-fiction models, students in this one semester long required course will practice honing the writing skills necessary for success in high school and beyond. Students will examine how and why writers write the way they do and how diction, tone, and figurative language can influence their own ability to communicate clearly and with style. In addition to completing daily online journals and creative projects, students will also develop an understanding of the grammar and usage concepts covered in the PSAT and the SAT.

ENGLISH 10
Full Year - Grade 10

English 10 emphasizes reading, understanding, and writing about literature using principles of logic. Students read non-fiction, poetic, dramatic, and prose selections of the British and European literature in translation. Readings include primarily fiction works by Sophocles, Shakespeare, Mary Shelley, Chekhov, Remarque, Ibsen, Kafka, and others. This course not only builds on the fundamental reading, writing, and critical thinking skills that were taught in English 9, but it also introduces the formal, in-depth study of literary analysis. Students’ appreciation of the broader social, cultural, and historical context is particularly encouraged, especially since the 10th grade history curriculum coincides with the themes examined in English 10. Ultimately, this course enables students to value literary art and to understand the complexities of human experience. An eight-page research paper, SAT vocabulary, grammar review, and creative writing are also part of this course.

ADVANCED PLACEMENT
ENGLISH LANGUAGE & COMPOSITION
Full Year - Grades 11-12

This course will cover a challenging curriculum based on the practices of rhetorical analysis, argument, and exposition. The main textbook is The Norton Reader, edited by Linda Peterson, supplemented by collections of essays by George Orwell and James Baldwin. The class will read, analyze, and describe essays, articles, journal entries, declarations, decisions and speeches and discover in them, and through students’ own work and process, the principles of the craft of composition. Students will learn and have their performance assessed in a wide variety of genres ranging from relatively casual narratives based on feelings and personal experience to formal research reports. Through arguments adhering to rigorous standards of proof, students will deliberate on matters of public policy and aspects of popular culture.

Instruction and assignments will act as a coordinated sequence throughout the year to provide students with appropriate levels of feedback, assessment, and challenge in order to develop their skills fully in time for the AP exam. Each extended literacy task required will involve the student in a structured process of revision with several stages, peer and teacher feedback, and explicit standards and expectations oriented towards measurable outcomes.

Prerequisite: Departmental recommendation

ADVANCED PLACEMENT
ENGLISH LITERATURE & COMPOSITION
Full Year - Grade 12

This intensive full-year course will prepare students to take the Advanced Placement examination in English literature through the in-depth study of several classic works of prose fiction, drama, and poetry, as a capstone to previous preparation in the other courses in the English department. The reading pace is brisk and the writing requirements are demanding, quite like a lower-division college literature course. The texts for the course include: absurdist and existentialist literature (Kafka, Borges, Beckett, Heller), ancient and modern tragedy (Sophocles, Euripides, Shakespeare, Miller), highlights of realist fiction (Swift, Austen, Dickens, Faulkner, Ishiguro), and selections from the Norton Anthology of Poetry.

Prerequisite: Departmental recommendation

PUBLIC SPEAKING
One Semester - Grades 10–12 (Recommended for Grade 10)

This course introduces students to public speaking as an important component of their academic, work, and social lives. Students develop skills that range from the basics of successful public speaking including getting over communication apprehension, to developing a speech, to word choice, to presenting the material for selective audiences. Participation in this course will increase a student’s confidence and knowledge base when it comes to presenting and speaking in public and learn the fundamental presentation techniques: eye contact, volume, and pacing. Unlike many skills that are sometimes forgotten, students will actually use public speaking skills for many years. Students prepare and present seven presentations covering a variety of topics. The curriculum covers theories of communication relevant to speaking in public including: the communication model; nonverbal communication; critical listening; persuasion theories; great speeches; writing a thesis, using an outline; active listening and effective feedback; and participating in a debate. Students study how to incorporate well-designed visual and multimedia aids in presentations.
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ENGLISH SEMINARS
(offerings vary from year to year)

ENGLISH SEMINAR: DIGITAL NON-FICTION
Fall Semester - Grades 11 - 12

Digital Non-Fiction offers the full standard junior/senior-level English curriculum while also examining the evolving relationship between digital communications technology and traditional writing. The goals of the course are to prepare students to excel on college writing assignments, to help them develop a strong personal voice, and to give them greater confidence and control over the full range of communications that involve writing, from the formal language of academic research to business letters, emails, text messages, status updates, and photo captions. In addition to reading widely in literary non-fiction by canonical authors such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Virginia Woolf, students will encounter digital texts that include such multimedia elements as images, charts, video clips, and interactive displays. The first quarter of the course will focus on personal writing and will assist seniors with writing the college admissions essay. The second quarter of the course will focus on research and investigation and will prepare students to write their first important college research paper. Each unit will include at least one multimedia assignment in which students will develop competency in creating their own digital content. The school will provide loaner iPads to all students enrolled in this class.

Required texts for the school year: Mary Frosch, ed. Coming of Age in America. New Press. 1565841476

Digital textbook. Commonsense Composition. Available for download at ck12.org*

*No need to download the digital textbook until the start of classes in the fall.

SHORT FICTION IN GLOBAL CONTEXT
Spring Semester - Grades 11–12

Virtually all cultures have some kind of tradition involving brief narrative fiction. In this course students will read, compare, and contrast important works of short fiction from several different cultures, including not only the United States and the United Kingdom, but also Africa, China, Japan, Germany, and France. Most of the semester will be devoted to close reading, discussion, and writing about important short stories by 19th and 20th century masters of the genre including Anton Chekhov, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Willa Cather, Ernest Hemingway, Flannery O’Connor, John Cheever, Yukio Mishima, Ha Jin, Raymond Carver, Joyce Carol Oates, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Junot Diaz.
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ENGLISH ELECTIVES
(offerings vary from year to year)

INTRODUCTION TO JOURNALISM
Full Year - Grades 9-12

This course is designed to present the fundamentals of journalism stressing reporting techniques and news writing with an emphasis on grammar usage and story organization. Students apply news judgment to report and write news articles for possible publication in The Fourth Estate. The course is driven by content, mechanics, and organization of stories. Students work in InDesign and Photoshop and learn planning, organization, and writing techniques, copyediting, page design, illustration/informational graphic design, and advertising sales and design. Students also write articles for the website.

ADVANCED JOURNALISM
Full Year - Grades 10-12

This course is required of students who wish to take on a leadership role on The Fourth Estate staff. In this course, students advance their journalism and print publication skills. Editors are expected to assume leadership roles and be responsible for the editorial content. They will oversee the production of the school's award-winning magazine and online news site. Editors will peer-tutor new staff members in reporting, editing, advertising sales, photojournalism and desktop publishing. Editors will develop a polished portfolio that may be used for college applications.

Prerequisite: Successful completion of Introduction to Journalism and consent of instructor

 
YEARBOOK
Full Year - Grades 9-12

The yearbook staff sets a yearly goal to make each year's edition of La Honda the most accurate and inclusive the school has ever seen. While this goal seems lofty, the world of publishing requires a drive for continual improvement. The class provides training in Adobe Photoshop and InDesign as well as photojournalism, copy writing, and organizational skills. Staff members see the importance of the book in its role documenting the school's history, and treat their jobs accordingly.

ENGLISH FOR SCIENTISTS
Grade 12

This course originated from the fact that university study is increasingly interdisciplinary, with the traditional "silos" of academic departments becoming less and less relevant to real-world understanding. Nowhere is this more the case than cognitive science, the field rapidly encroaching upon the domains long ruled by the humanities. At some colleges, for example, the former departments of philosophy, psychology, and neurology are now housed in the same building, often with a comprehensive new name–human behavior. High school study, however, tends to keep the disciplines separate, which is not always helpful to ambitious students aiming for top universities.

The design of this course is simple: students will review the basic insights of evolutionary psychology, reading them in juxtaposition to the basic insights of philosophy drawn from the past 2500 years. We will use literary short stories as concrete examples upon which to focus our discussion, analyzing the behavior of characters through the lens of the competing narratives above. We will make frequent forays to lectures at the local university, and the capstone project of the course will be a 5-8 page research paper. A writing-intensive course, students will learn to construct sharp arguments with clean and efficient prose.
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