The Academic Program: English

| Grade Nine | Grade Ten | Grade Eleven | Grade Twelve |

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The masterworks of prose and poetry are studied in several literature Main Lesson courses each year. In their study of literature, students examine the questions and themes of human experience. Such studies develop critical thinking, and help students to find direction in their search for self and in their quest for the meaning of life. Students in every grade also receive English instruction in the yearlong courses. In contrast to month-long main lesson or seminar classes, which are offered by department, the yearlong English curriculum is integrated in a four-year sequence of classes. The English classes meets daily throughout the year and build skills in grammar, vocabulary, writing, reading, critical analysis and research.

Grade Nine

English I—9th Grade:Topics include work in: grammer, vocabulary, writing (both expository and creative), and reading comprehension. Monthly book reports are signed from an annotated list. The literature studied addresses the themed of the 9th grade curriculum: the role of observation and deed in practical life.

American Literature Seminar—9th Grade: This four-week seminar focuses on the development of American Literature from Puritan times to the end of the Transcendentalist era. Students trace the development of our national literature by studying the biographies of such writers as Cotton Mather, Benjamin Franklin, Washington Irving, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Melville. Excerpts are read from the early writing of William Bradford, governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Jonathan Edward's fire and brimstone sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," Franklin's, Poor Richard's Almanac, and Irving's Rip Van Winkle. The work of the first American poet, Philippe Freneau, is also examined, as are the background and ideals of various literary movements such as the Connecticut Wits, the Knickerbocker Club, and the Transcendentalists. Students conclude the course with a reading of Herman Melville's masterpiece, Moby Dick. Students also have an opportunity to visit Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut where they are able to climb aboard a whaling ship much like the Pequod and see the masts and decks, captain's and crew's quarters, the try-works, the cutting stage, tiller and wheel, and the whale boats. Oral presentations, daily reading journals in the form of a ship's log, presentations, quizzes and tests are given throughout the course.

History through Drama Seminar—9th Grade: This four week course traces the birth and origin of drama beginning with ancient Greece and follows the development of Roman, Medieval, Elizabethan and French theatres. Students learn about the different types of theatres and festivals unique to period. Biographies of artists such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Moliere are presented. Students explore how theatre reflected social and political changes occurring at the time. The course includes various writing projects, an independent project, and several plays including Oedipus Rex and A Midsummer Night's Dream. An illustrated, hand-written notebook is required.

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Grade Ten

English II—10th Grade: Topics include those mentioned in the 9th grade curriculum; skills are further developed and refined. The use of technology is more carefully addressed in an effort to further develop appropriate skills in research. The literature discussed relates to themes of the 10th grade curriculum and includes:the Experience of analogy (compare, contrast and synthesize), the Ancient World, the role of the arts in development of human consciousness, and multicultural studies.

History Through Poetry Seminar—10th Grade: This four-week course introduces students to poetics. Beginning with a discussion of the capacities of the poet such as wonder, imagination, inspiration, intuition, and love of language, students explore qualities of observation and openness required by the poet, which is then exemplified in many of the poems read together in class. We trace the power of the word and of musical sound through history. Students study the mechanics of poetry including tone color, different meters and feet, assonance, consonance, feminine rhyme, internal rhyme. The course ends with a survey of the development of the three kinds of poetic forms--the lyric, epic and dramatic. A great deal of creative writing is given and a handwritten main lesson book is due at the end of the block. A midterm and final exam are required.

Epic Literature Seminar—10th Grade: This main lesson is designed to familiarize students with Homer's Odyssey and with the mythological stories and characters surrounding it. The main text used is Robert Fagle's 1996-verse translation of The Odyssey, supplemented by excerpts from other renditions that emphasize either prose qualities or the dactylic hexameter of the original work. Parallels are drawn between the world of The Odyssey and the modern world. The main lesson book may contain summaries of the plot, detailed description and illustrated map of Odysseus's journey, the composition of an original Homeric poem in dactylic hexameter and an essay on Odysseus's character. Students will also complete one major essay and two exams.

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Grade Eleven

English III—11th Grade: Grammer studies are thoroughly reviewed with an eye to what is needed to successfully meet the writing portion of the new SAT. The literature of the 11th grade year relates to themes of individualism and the journey of self-transformation. Works are read that reflect the transition between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The ideals of the Age of Enlightenment and the Age of Romantisism are studied and compared. A year-long research paper on an author of the student's choice allows for the refinement of research and notation skills.

British Romantic Literature Seminar—11th Grade: This course focuses on the English Romantic writers from 1789-1832: Robert Burns William Blake, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats. Students study the origins of Romanticism in the context of the American, French and Industrial Revolutions, the values and philosophies reflected in Romantic poetry, and the lives of these poets. The main lesson book project is an anthology of the students' own poetry as well as selections of their favorite poems studied in the course. An independent creative project is also required; these have included such things as paintings, original film, and an original composition of music. A midterm and final exam are given.

Shakespeare Seminar—11th Grade: In this course, students are introduced to the history of the Elizabethan Age as an environment into which the great playwright was born. The biography of William Shakespeare is studied. The class spends the first few weeks of the course reading and discussing Hamlet as an archetype of Shakespearean tragedy as well as depicting a character that exemplifies the dilemma of modern consciousness. Students will be given Shakespearean sonnets to read and summarize as an exercise in précis and paraphrase. Course evaluation is based on weekly writing assignments, daily notes, quizzes and a final exam.

Medieval Literature: Parzival Seminar—11th Grade: In the Parzival main lesson students will follow Parzival's journey from innocence to experience in the Romance by Wolfram van Eschenbach. By preparing narratives in the style of Eschenbach, students will hone their capacities to recreate the course of events in the lives of Parzival and Gawain. At the beginning of each lesson the class will discuss themes from the epics, draw comparisons between characters, analyze the literary techniques of the author, and learn about oral traditions. A journal is kept in which students write weekly. A final paper and exam will be required.

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Grade Twelve

English IV—12th Grade: This course focuses exclusively on literature. Beginning with the work of the American Trancendentalists, students refine their own essay writing and then move on to modern world literature, covering such topics as existentialism, surrealism and expressionism.

Russian Literature Seminar—12th Grade This seminar focuses on the development of Russian literature in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The central themes will ask students to consider the following questions: What was unique about the history of Russia, dominated as it was for so long by the Orthodox Church? How was Russia continually torn between the influences of the East and West? How did Russian writers explore the duality of the Russian soul? What was and is the role of literature for the Russian people and for the modern world? In examining these issues, students will study the lives and works of Russian authors beginning with Pushkin and continuing through to Solzhenitsyn. Other authors such as Turgenev, Gogol, Dostoevsky and Chekhov will also be read. Students will choose a novel or group of plays as part of an independent project and give oral presentations on these works. Additional essays and short story writing will also be required.

Goethe’s Faust Seminar—12th Grade In this course students will examine Goethe's biography, and then plunge into discussions of the themes as they arise from the play: the polar opposite faces of evil and our responsibility to them; the role of science in human evolution; the forces which can drive us to destruction and yet, in the end, may save us. Students will read Goethe's Faust Part I, and sections of Part II, and will be asked to memorize a passage for recitation, give oral reports and complete written assignments.

Creative Writing Elective—12th Grade: This course addresses the genres of poetry, playwriting, short story and journalism through a workshop format in which students read their work aloud and learn from one another.

Philosophy Elective—12th Grade: This twelfth grade elective is a full-year course. Its spiritual aim is to cultivate an appreciation for the necessity of reflective activity, and its practical intent is to develop precision skills in reading and writing. Principal topics segregate into three rough groups (psychology and epistemology, ontology and metaphysics, ethics and asthetics) which correspond to three fundamental questions: What is the human being? What is the world? and What is the human-being-in-the-world? These questions overshadow (or enlighten) all writing assignments and discussion themes, sometimes as direct requests and sometimes as gentle reminders, and they are always posed in connection with specific texts. The readings change from year to year but always include both ancients and mderns, such as Aristotle, Aquinas, and Kant with less read but no less deserving thinkers such as Plotinus, Spinoza, Fichte, Croce, and Merleau-Ponty. Throughout the course the main work is book work; nevertheless, the abiding purpose is to help students provide their own foundations for their own thinking across all strata of experience in life.

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