ENGLISH

7GRADE 7

- English 7 - Middle School Creative Writing

8GRADE 8

- English 8 - Middle School Creative Writing

9GRADE 9

- English 9 - Creative Writing: Novel Lab

10 GRADE 10 - Honors English 10 11 12 - Poetry and Creative Writing - Creative Writing: Novel Lab

GRADE 11

- AP English Language and Composition - Poetry and Creative Writing - Creative Writing: Novel Lab

GRADE 12

AP English Literature and Composition: - Around the World - The Art of Adaptation - The Good Life - Poetry and Creative Writing - Creative Writing: Novel Lab

PHILOSOPHY AND PLACEMENT

The English Department endeavors to foster confidence and fluency in writing, skillful close reading, and critical thinking in every student. We study a wide variety of texts across literary traditions, including poems, short stories, essays, plays, and novels, in a diversity of voices and perspectives. In our classrooms, large and small group discussions offer opportunities to deepen understanding and develop communication skills. Interactive approaches, involving techniques ranging from Harkness discussions to Socratic seminars, challenge our students to engage actively and authentically with ideas, language, and one another. While analytical, argument-driven writing is an emphasis of our six-year program, students write in a range of genres, including creative, informational, and reflective modes. We teach mechanics and principles of usage in the context of teaching writing, working together to understand errors of convention and issues of fluency. In the service of information literacy, we employ many forms of technology, from pencil and paper to the latest digital tools for language arts. Thinking critically and engaging dynamically in our coursework, students become more skillful, articulate, and self-aware as readers, communicators, and citizens.

Our courses are differentiated according to the interests and readiness of individual students, providing challenge and support to all. Learning experiences and assessments in reading, writing, speaking, and listening operate at various degrees of difficulty and sophistication, making it possible for every student to thrive at every level. Personalized feedback on individual growth and progress in these areas encourages risk-taking, revision, resilience, and a growth mindset.

Highly valuing student voice and choice, we encourage students, over the years, to take advantage of our intra- and extracurricular offerings, including electives like Creative Writing, peer consulting in our Studio for Writing and Rhetoric, and writing and/or performing for events like the One Act Play Festival and Founders’ Day.

REQUIREMENTS

Windward students are required to take English in Grades 7-12. The University of California requires four years of college preparatory English that integrates reading of classic and modern literature, frequent and regular writing, and practice in listening and speaking.