ENGLISH COURSES ENGLISH COURSES

AP English Literature and Composition: The Good Life

What is a meaningful life? How do we judge whether or not we are living a meaningful life? Writers attempt to address these questions through the stories they tell and the topics they address. In this course students will read and discuss poetry, novels and short stories with a keen eye to the arguments they propose about how to live a meaningful life. Authors will include Tolstoy, Chekhov, Morrison, McCarthy, Sophocles, Hesse, Melville, and Fitzgerald among others. Students will write analytical and personal essays, poetry, and creative pieces as well as engage in robust and dynamic discussions to reach a deeper understanding of their views on what constitutes a meaningful life.

AP English Literature and Composition: Love and Death

The themes of love and death have sparked the creativity of writers and artists across time and space. Some people have argued that we know pleasure because we have felt pain, that we enjoy beauty because we have witnessed destruction, that we can experience happiness only because we have known despair. But is that actually true? Are love and death, creation and destruction, truly opposites? What can we learn from literary texts and other works of art – such as painting, sculpture, film, or music – that draw on both of those ideas? Is the story of Adam and Eve one of love and creation or one of sin and loss? Does a love story need to end with a happily-ever-after? Is death always destructive? In addition to exploring those essential questions, students in this course will learn about and apply various types of literary criticism, and write creative, personal, and analytical pieces about both the literature we’ll read and cultural artifacts of their choice. Authors may include Voltaire, T.S. Eliot, Franz Kafka, Elena Ferrante, Gabrielle Zevin, Haruki Murakami and many others.

Poetry and Creative Writing (10-12)

Poetry and Creative Writing is a workshop developed originally for professional authors to help maintain a steady “flow” of ideas and inspiration. Enhanced here for young writers, the course begins with an introduction to modern poetry, the traditions that shaped it, and the “uses” of poetry both artistic and practical. The latter part of the course examines recent trends in poetry such as slam and performance poetry, neo-formalism, and other hybrids and then moves on to explore the future with an emphasis on discussion and employment of “new” poetic forms. This course also familiarizes students with the basics of fiction: plot, characterization, conflict, dialogue, narrative voice, and point of view. Students will begin writing from day one and will be expected to maintain journals of their work. Special “industrial” projects will be given periodically and much of the overall grade will be determined by responses to these tasks. Students will also be coached on performance and shown techniques for public speaking. The course culminates in an on campus reading given by the class.

Novel Writing (10-12) and Honors Capstone: Novel Writing (Invitation Only)

This course will guide students through the process of writing a novel from the ground up! Topics will include brainstorming fruitful ideas, creating three-dimensional characters, building a propulsive plot, crafting strong dialogue, revising for clarity and fluency, and more. In the process, students will workshop their work with peers, hear from other aspiring and published novelists, and experiment with fun prompts and projects. The course will culminate in a celebration of their complete drafts.