ENGLISH COURSES ENGLISH COURSES

English 8

The Eighth Grade English curriculum emphasizes skills and academic habits that will provide a foundation for students when they transition to the Upper School. The course stresses literature, writing, and discussion skills. Students are exposed to a wide variety of increasingly difficult texts as they refine their close reading and analytical skills. Formal writing is a cornerstone of the course; we emphasize the structure and conventions of academic writing, beginning with individual paragraphs and moving on to full-length essays. In these compositions, as well as some creative pieces, students are encouraged to view writing as a process through which ideas become more refined and language more precise and sophisticated. Vocabulary work focuses on broadening students’ lexicon, helping them understand words’ denotations and connotations while also reinforcing principles of usage in sentence and paragraph construction. As in all Windward English courses, we stress an individualized approach in the classroom, seeking to hone each student’s particular strengths.

Middle School Creative Writing

Workshop participants engage in fun writing projects in a variety of different genres, including poetry, memoir, and creative fiction. Students have the opportunity to explore their own ideas, as well as new genres of writing. Students share work and learn from the ideas of their peers.

English 9

Close and critical reading, writing, speaking, and listening are the emphases of Ninth Grade English. Students will carefully examine fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama, acquiring confidence with the text itself as a means of understanding. Discussion topics range widely, from how to read closely and develop an annotation style, to considerations of character growth, themes, and narrative voice. From discussions spring writing topics through which students exercise and hone their writing skills. Analytical writing assignments, moving from the paragraph to the full critical essay, stress structure, organization, focus, the use of supporting data, and clarity of expression. In fact, students study concepts of grammar and usage with an eye toward their function within formal writing. Yet the course also provides opportunities for writing creatively and reflectively, as students become more aware of their own voices, perspectives, strengths as learners, and processes as writers.

Honors English 10

In Honors English 10, British literature serves as a lens for examining identity on both an individual and a cultural level. We explore the construction of the self, synthesizing our texts with personal reflection; larger constructions, such as community, culture, and society; and the outcomes of cultural collision, anticipating changes to come in our increasingly global and digital society. Students acquire a deeper understanding of their own identities and have ample opportunities to explore the ways in which stories enable us, as humans, to understand ourselves and the world in which we live. Through frequent and varied writing assignments as well as student-led discussions, students acquire new strategies for presenting their ideas both aloud and in writing.

AP English Language and Composition

AP English Language and Composition is a college-level course for eleventh graders focused on reading, thinking, writing, and talking about nonfiction, and advancing students’ abilities to formulate and articulate arguments about rhetoric, the art of persuasion. Students practice close reading and analysis of wide-ranging texts, across subjects and disciplines, including visual texts. Engaging in research and synthesizing ideas across multiple sources, students generate compositions in response to the arguments they study. Becoming more skillful readers at a high level and capable analytical writers, students engage frequently and rigorously in the writing process— drafting, getting feedback on, and revising their compositions to new levels of sophistication and dynamism. Students registered in Advanced Placement classes will be prepared to take the Advanced Placement exam.

Senior Courses

In their Senior year, students are encouraged to pursue individual areas of interest through a choice of specialized topics in AP English Literature. In each option, students will read poetry, fiction, and drama, and advance their abilities to formulate and articulate arguments about literary phenomena and ideas. Students practice close reading and analysis across a range of challenging texts, honing their abilities to decipher language, describe style, and understand nuances and subtleties in literary works. Compositions explore literary elements, examining the relationship between form and content. Becoming more skillful readers at a high level and capable literary writers, students engage frequently and rigorously in the writing process—drafting, getting feedback on, and revising their compositions to new levels of sophistication and dynamism. Students registered in Advanced Placement Literature & Composition will be prepared to take the Advanced Placement exam.

AP English Literature and Composition: The Art of Adaptation

Within five years of its original publication in 1818, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was adapted for the theatre, and easily hundreds of versions for stage, screen, and reading audiences have proliferated since then, including a recent bloom of versions for young adults. Which stories capture the popular imagination and give rise to new art? Why might an author choose adaptation over something wholly new, and what does this choice reveal about the nature of story and the role of literature in general? By examining a varied selection of classics and the works they inspired, students in this course will probe the role of adaptation and the debates it initiates and fuels. What happens when someone makes an existing story their own? What makes an adaptation effective, derivative, inspired, offensive, productive, harmful, artful, necessary, or something in between? How do you know? Course texts may include Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Beowulf and Gardner’s Grendel, August Wilson’s Fences, Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew and 10 Things I Hate About You, and more frequently-reworked greats across genres. Students will alternatingly act as scholar, critic, and creator to explore the art of adaptation from all angles and contribute to the ongoing conversation about the work literature performs in the world.