The English curriculum is a literature-based program, serving as the foundation for intensive reading, writing, speaking, listening, and critical thinking. Students read from a wide range of fiction and nonfiction, including works of literary integrity that reflect historical dimensions as well as diverse cultures. Continuing emphasis is placed on the student's ability to express himself or herself in a variety of presentation forms.

Required Course

American Literature
This course focuses on the roots and evolution of American literature. Students will explore the idea of America through novels, poetry, and drama from different eras and by authors from a variety of backgrounds. The themes of immigration, race, gender, and class—all in relation to power—will guide the course, and the works we read will often deal with more than one theme. Students will revisit the definition of America throughout the course as they ask the following: Who has power? What is the role of money in attaining power? How did we get here? How do we identify/define ourselves? How do others identify us? As students read works of literature that address these questions, they will respond in thought pieces and formal analytical essays. Major projects will include literary analyses (including comparison and contrast essays), poetry explication, and imaginative writing and/or performance synthesizing course themes. Required of all juniors.

Elective Courses

Advanced Composition
This course focuses on the genres of short fiction, memoir, and literary criticism. During the term, students will both read samples of these genres, and applying what they have learned, compose works of their own. Students also will learn how to use grammar as style so they are able to hone their writing voices in different genres. By the end of the term, students will have composed three to four major pieces of writing. Possible authors include James McBride, Anne Lamott, Annie Dillard, David Sedaris, Jonathan Safran Foer, Alice Walker, Joyce Carol Oates, Nick Hornby.

African American Women's Literature
In this course students will receive a historical and multi-genre overview of African American Women’s writing in the United States. Beginning with slave narratives in the 19th century through the poetry, novels, and television/film of the 20th century, students will explore the historical, political, social, and artistic forces that shape these women’s works while also examining texts through the lenses of race and gender. Students also will engage in independent study of an author of their choice in order to understand one writer’s work more deeply. Possible authors include Phillis Wheatley, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Jacobs, Pauline Hopkins, Zora Neale Hurston, Ann Petry, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Gloria Naylor, Nikki Giovanni, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Toni Cade Bambara, Ntozake Shange, and Rita Dove.

Drama of Math and Science
In this course students study dilemmas and problems that arise when people work with math and science. Through an in-depth study of plays including Faust (Marlowe), Proof, Copenhagen and Breaking the Code, the class explores the nature of the genre of dramatic literature. The course involves thought-provoking reading, lively discussion, acting out sections of the plays, and regular writing.

Existentialism
This course will study existentialist philosophy via multiple disciplines, including literature, psychology, religion and film. Students will grapple with basic existential themes such as the meaning of human existence, freedom and responsibility, the limits of reason, the significance of death, the individual versus society, and the role of suffering. Students will be asked to consider questions of freedom and authenticity, and to what extent they have the power to make a mark on the world through their actions and choices. Potential readings include Tolstoy, Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Camus, Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Martin Buber and Victor Frankl. Films TBD. NOTE: This course may count either as a Literature course or a Religion/Philosophy course, but not both.

Myth and Literature in Ancient Greece
The mythic narratives of the ancient Greeks retain extraordinary richness, power, and relevance. This course will pursue two objectives: 1) familiarity with the fundamentals of Greek mythology (cosmology, pantheon, world view) and 2) understanding of how this mythic vision is revealed and explored in works of enduring literary value. These works will include selections from the great dramatic trilogies of Sophocles (Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone) and/or Aeschylus Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides) and The Odyssey of Homer.

Poetry
This course introduces and explores the playfulness, the fun, the challenges and the fundamental features of poetry. Through reading poems from different eras and cultures, students will gain a sense of the power of poetry across the centuries. Expect to write about poetry as well as to write your own poetry.

Shakespeare
In this course, we will begin with sonnets, and then read some of Shakespeare's best-known and most complex plays--plays whose concerns make them seem as if they were written yesterday. Othello deals with issues of race and jealousy that seem to make a tragic end inevitable. Much Ado About Nothing pokes fun, sometimes uncomfortably, at the differences between the sexes. In Twelfth Night, we will discover ourselves (in spite of Bay School values!) laughing at the misfortunes of others. Whenever possible, we will examine, through live and video performance, how different productions and casting (for example, whether a White or Black actor plays Othello) affect our interpretations of the plays. Students should expect daily reading assignments and a variety of writing opportunities.

Short Fiction
In this course, we will share the pleasure of reading short stories and short novels from different eras and locations, stories that range from those already deemed great to those which may well be on their way into that category. Beginning with some of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, we may read Franz Kafka’s novella Metamorphosis and/or Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. We will also read contemporary “flash fiction.” Students should expect daily reading assignments and a variety of writing opportunities, including writing a short story.

Utopia/Dystopia
During this term, we will explore both utopias: ideal societies, real or imagined, meant to be seen as better than the society in which readers live and dystopias: negative utopias—societies that were meant to be seen as worse than the society in which readers live. As we read and discuss, we will discover that philosophers, literary authors, authors of political documents like constitutions, among others, all grapple with notions of what would make the most ideal society or, by contrast, the least ideal society. We will also discover that, as your text The Utopia Reader notes, fashions in utopias have changed over the millennia, centuries, even decades. The texts we will read will include: The Utopia Reader (containing excerpts from many works) and several novels, possibly including 1984 by George Orwell, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, and Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach. NOTE: This course may count either as a Literature course or a Religion/Philosophy course, but not both.

Vietnam: Changing Perspectives
America's experience in Vietnam remains a touchstone in our national discourse. This course will examine Vietnam--both the war and the country--through poems, novels, memoirs, stories and letters from the US and Vietnam and through stories and poems by Vietnamese-Americans. We will also view documentaries and several films, possibly including Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Regret to Inform, The Fog of War, and Daughter from Danang. As part of the course, students should expect daily reading assignments, guest speakers and independent work. Texts we will read as a class might include
The Quiet American by Graham Greene; The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien; In Pharaoh’s Army: Memories of the Lost War by Tobias Wolff; The Stars, The Earth, the River by contemporary Vietnamese author Le Minh Khue; and The Gangster We Are All Looking For by Vietnamese-American author Le Thi Diem Thuy.