English Courses
Subfreshman English (World Literature)
(Subfreshmen)(1 unit)
Subfreshman English emphasizes the languages needed for academic success.
Subfreshman English deals with the language of writing. The focus moves from paragraph development to expository essays, including the basics of academic research. Students learn to fully support specific, focused thesis. Creative and personal essays also play a role in the language of writing.
Subfreshman English deals with the language of literature through the study of genre. Students learn the basics of literary analysis with short stories, novels, memoirs, drama (including Shakespeare), poetry, and film from international sources. A unit on classic mythology will provide the students with a frame of reference for much of Western Literature. Thematically the literature will focus on coming-of -age stories from around the world.
Subfreshman English deals with the mechanics of language through the study of grammar. With a goal of improving their own writing, students learn grammar descriptively through analysis of sentences and their own writing. Particular emphasis falls on parts of speech, clauses, basic sentence types and various phrases.
Freshmen English (American Literature)
(9th grade)(1 unit)
Freshman English focuses primarily on American literature. Students learn how to appreciate the historical context of specific literary works; describe the technical qualities of important American short stories, novels, plays, biographies, essays, and poems; explain how theme, character, and setting contribute to meaning; describe the characteristics of a specific writer's style; respond to literature from personal, creative, and critical points of view; and analyze literary passages.
Student writing is essential to the course. Students compose summaries, critiques, essays, research papers, journal entries, short narratives, and poems. Grades reflect how well students prepare unified and coherent essays; paraphrase, summarize, and make generalizations; use evidence to support assertions; locate, evaluate, organize, and synthesize information from various sources; use correct grammar, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization; edit and revise for word choice, organization, consistent point of view, and coherence; and create original poems, monologues, reports, plays, and stories.
Freshman English also reinforces listening and speaking skills. Students learn how to critique an oral presentation; convey complex ideas during class discussion; design and produce oral reports and multi-media compositions; ask relevant questions; deliver a formal speech; and debate.
Sophomore English (British Literature)
(10th grade)(1 unit)
The sophomore year in English reinforces the critical reading, essay drafting, and creative writing skills developed in earlier years and introduces students to more advanced tools of essay organization. Students have ample opportunity to develop their skills of public speaking and oral interpretation of texts. The English II curriculum emphasizes writing as a process, including multiple levels of drafting, peer review, and revision. Major multi-draft papers students write during the sophomore year include a poem explication and a compare and contrast essay. Grammar instruction occurs in the context of writing.
The primary focus of the sophomore literature curriculum is British Literature. Students study works of literature from ancient to modern, engaging with multiple genres including the short story, the non-fiction essay, the novel, poetry, film, and drama. Major works include Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex, Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Jane Austen’s Emma, Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. Students in English II explore works of literature in their larger historical and cultural contexts and are encouraged to make connections between texts. At the same time, students get daily practice examining texts in detail and learning the invaluable skills required for close reading.
Junior and Senior Special-Topics Courses
(semester-long 1/2 unit per semester, 2 semester each year) Native American and Chicano Literature (Fall)
(two sections)
This course will focus on the Twentieth- and Twenty-First century literary contributions of a variety of Chicano and Native American writers across the genres of poetry, fiction, and drama. We will ground our study in a historical exploration of modern Chicano and Native American cultures, examining the two groups as culturally specific and distinct yet sharing significant threads of history and culture. At the same time, we will discuss “culture” and “identity” as complex and shifting concepts, acknowledging that no one writer speaks for the whole of a given community, and examining ways that questions of identity and authority are contested within these cultural groups. Although this background will be important and will inform our discussions throughout the semester, our main focus will be to look at the literature as literature, not cultural artifact. Authors we study may include Luis Valdez, Sandra Cisneros, Ana Castillo, Rudolfo Anaya, Gary Soto, Dagoberto Gilb, Louise Erdrich, Sherman Alexie, Joy Harjo, Ray Young Bear, Leslie Marmon Silko, LeAnn Howe, and Durango Mendoza.
Students will write a series of short response papers designed to hone their skills as writers, close readers, and critical thinkers. They will also write two major, multi-draft essays (one per quarter), one of which will involve significant research.
The Twentieth-Century Novel (Fall)
(two sections)
This course explores some of the major aesthetic, philosophical, and thematic developments in the novel as it mutated throughout the turbulent twentieth century. Our syllabus spans a century of dynamic innovation in narrative fiction, from the modernist experiments of Virginia Woolf to the postmodern discomfort of contemporary writers like Tim O’Brien. We examine how modern anxieties about subjectivity and individuality are reflected in experimental narrative forms and how these novels variously reflect the social, cultural, and psychological preoccupations of their times. As a fall semester course, 20th Century Novel features a research project on a historical or cultural topic relevant to one or more of the novels we study.
Novels by the following authors may be covered: Virginia Woolf, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Albert Camus, Carson McCullers, J.D. Salinger, Kazuo Ishiguro, Nicholas Baker, Tim O’Brien, Michael Chabon, and Ruth Ozecki.
Asian American Literature (Fall)
(one section)
This course introduces students to works by American writers of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Asian-Indian, and Southeast-Asian ancestry. We cover various genres, including novels, short stories, essays, and poetry. Our discussion focuses on the nature of Asian and Asian American culture as well as the impact of race, gender, class, and nationality on personal identity and assimilation. Lecture topics include U.S. foreign policy in Asia, U.S immigration policy, bilingual education, globalization, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. Students complete a research paper, essays, and journal entries during the semester.
Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and film by the following authors may be covered: Iris Chang, Maxine Hong Kingston, Zhang Jimou, Ha Jin, Jhumpa Lahiri, Ang Lee, Chang-rae Lee, Anchee Min, Bharati Mukherjee, John Okada, Loung Ung, Amy Tan, and le thi diem thuy
Non-Fiction Writing (Fall)
(one section)
This course, “21st Century Literacies: Non-Fiction Writing in a Digital Age,” focuses on writing in a variety of non-fiction genres. We will concentrate more fully on individual writing style and concerns. Even as the course will build on the academic writing already a part of the English curriculum, we will be able to incorporate more 21st Century Literacies – writing with video, podcasting, blogging, etc. In this way, we will link the traditional with the innovative. We will emphasize developing personal writing habits that take into account a variety of methods and audiences. As in all the English Seminar courses, we will cover research techniques. Assignments will vary in length and cover both formal and informal situations. The exact content of the course will vary depending upon both the teacher and the students
Asian American Literature (Spring)
(one section)
This course introduces students to works by American writers of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Asian-Indian, and Southeast-Asian ancestry. We cover various genres, including novels, short stories, essays, and poetry. Our discussion focuses on the nature of Asian and Asian American culture as well as the impact of race, gender, class, and nationality on personal identity and assimilation. Lecture topics include U.S. foreign policy in Asia, U.S immigration policy, bilingual education, globalization, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. Students complete a research paper, essays, and journal entries during the semester.
Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and film by the following authors may be covered: Iris Chang, Maxine Hong Kingston, Zhang Jimou, Ha Jin, Jhumpa Lahiri, Ang Lee, Chang-rae Lee, Anchee Min, Bharati Mukherjee, John Okada, Loung Ung, Amy Tan, and le thi diem thuy
Poetry (Spring)
(two section)
This course begins by exploring a sample of contemporary poets and considering the current state of poetry, and proceeds by considering the importance of poetry to cultures throughout human history and exploring the role of poetry in the modern English-speaking world. The semester will include a brief survey of British poetry from Shakespeare to the Romantics and a look at the increasing importance of American and Irish voices in English poetry as the twentieth century progresses. As we read, we will examine poetry’s historical context and its cultural importance. In particular, we will explore the central role poetry once played in American life – poetry being published in newspapers and popular magazines, people of all ages learning poetry by heart as a matter of course both in and beyond school – and question why poetry has become less of a central feature of modern American life. To this end, we look closely at recent projects that aim to increase poetry’s visibility and vitality in contemporary American life (specifically Robert Pinsky’s Favorite Poem Project and Billy Collins’s Poetry 180 project), and analyze their respective levels of success. Students end the semester by creating their own multimedia project aimed at publicizing and promoting poetry in their community (either the Uni community or the entire C-U community).
The Coming-of-Age Novel (Spring)
(two sections)
This course will explore variations of the bildungsroman, or coming-of-age novel. Starting with James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man as an archetypal example of this genre in English literature, we will explore the struggles of young protagonists to find a place for themselves within their larger culture and society. The prospective reading list may include J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Richard Wright’s Black Boy, Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, Ernest J. Gaines’s A Lesson before Dying, Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping, and Jonathan Lethem’s Girl in Landscape.
Non-Fiction Writing (Spring)
(one section)
This course, “21st Century Literacies: Non-Fiction Writing in a Digital Age,” focuses on writing in a variety of non-fiction genres. We will concentrate more fully on individual writing style and concerns. Even as the course will build on the academic writing already a part of the English curriculum, we will be able to incorporate more 21st Century Literacies – writing with video, podcasting, blogging, etc. In this way, we will link the traditional with the innovative. We will emphasize developing personal writing habits that take into account a variety of methods and audiences. As in all the English Seminar courses, we will cover research techniques. Assignments will vary in length and cover both formal and informal situations. The exact content of the course will vary depending upon both the teacher and the students
Creative Writing
(10th - 12th grade)(1/2 - 1 unit)
Creative Writing is an elective course, which focuses on the analysis and composition of various literary genres. By offering some class time to engage in directed writing or free writing each day, this course encourages students to develop a daily writing practice. Creative writing also provides opportunities to read works by contemporary and classic authors and to discuss these texts as writing. Throughout the semester, students have the chance to experiment with narrative, poetic, dramatic, and mixed-genre forms in their writing. A workshop approach with regular sessions of peer and instructor review gives students the benefit of multiple perspectives on their writing and allows students to develop their critical capacities by reading other students’ writing. The first semester focuses on prose and poetry. The second semester emphasizes drama and other performance-oriented writing.
Students may enroll in either semester or for the full year. (Enrollment limit: 16 students)
Journalism
(9th - 12th grade)(1 unit)
Students in this class will learn journalism by being journalists. The course is organized around the Online Gargoyle, with all students becoming staff reporters for the OG. Through their own hands-on work, students will develop sound news judgment and the ability to determine what makes a good story. They will become skillful interviewers and researchers. They will learn how to write clearly and compellingly for a worldwide audience. They will also learn how to apply the tools of multimedia storytelling (audio slideshows, video, podcasts, blogs, interactive graphics) to their own projects. They will team up with student editors to refine their work for publication. Through practical experience, students will learn the ethics of fairness, accuracy, and responsibility, the essential components of good journalism. Throughout the course, students will be given as much freedom as possible to pursue their own story ideas. By the end of the year, students will have built an extensive online portfolio that they can show to prospective colleges or employers (when seeking summer jobs and internships).*
Advanced Journalism: Editorship
(10th - 12th grade)(1 unit)
Prerequisite: Journalism
Students are admitted into this course only with special permission of the instructor. It meets concurrently with the Journalism class. Advanced Journalism may be taken multiple years.
This is for students who will be editors of the Online Gargoyle. Each editor is responsible for leading a team of student reporters. Editors work with reporters through all phases of a story: planning, researching, writing, and revising. Editors also determine the overall direction and editorial
stance of the OG. *
No independent studies.
Social Advocacy I: History, Theory, and Practice
(Social Advocacy I is co-sponsored with Social Studies)(12th grade, 11th grade with Instructor Consent)
(1/2 unit)
Social Advocacy I is a semester elective open to seniors and juniors with the permission of the instructor. Students enrolled in Social Advocacy do weekly volunteer work in community social service agencies. Students must be interested in and committed to the volunteer component. Various readings, lectures, guest speakers, and special assignments add to the students' experiences. Group discussion and journal writing play a key role.
(Enrollment limit: 16 students)
Social Advocacy II
(Social Advocacy II is co-sponsored with Social Studies)(12th grade, 11th grade with Instructor Consent)
(1/2 unit)
Prerequisite: Social Advocacy I or consent of department
In Social Advocacy II, students design and complete an in-depth community project. (Enrollment limit: 16 students)
