Upper School English

English 9: Change Agents (Year Long)

Open to: Grade 9

Daily reading, discussion, and writing to interpret texts are the heart of English 9. Through individual study, feedback, creativity, and collaboration, this course moves ninth graders into deeper levels of interpretive reading and writing. Students practice writing analytical paragraphs and essays, poetry, personal reflections and narratives, and short fiction. We challenge students to develop flexibility in their writing process and control over structure and mechanics through frequent analytical responses, multimedia projects and presentations. We emphasize active reading of challenging texts and require students to take responsive notes while reading. We begin the year with a short story unit to build foundational skills. Course texts may include Being Heumann; Fahrenheit 451; True Grit; Born a Crime. Students will also study poems, read independently-chosen novels and short fiction, and view films. Through interacting with a diverse body of work, students will seek to understand what it means for individuals and ourselves to search for justice. In addition, students will begin to develop basic research skills that include identifying a problem, formulating research questions, conducting research analysis, and presenting findings to a public audience. Through individual reading and shared inquiry, we push students to make meaning of texts and the world around them. To help them in this process, students practice integrating SAT vocabulary into their working vocabularies and recognizing the grammatical underpinnings of their own powerful sentences.

English 9 Honors: Change Agents (Year Long)

Open to: Grade 9

The honors option is designed for students who possess an intellectual curiosity and a strong desire to engage in perspective-taking around a variety of high level discussions. Students should be excellent collaborators and fluent readers and writers with the ability to make inferences and contribute daily to class discussions. We will grapple with the same themes of becoming change agents. In addition, students may also read additional texts such as The Glass Castle, Antigone, The Crucible, Fahrenheit 451, Long Way Down, Romeo and Juliet and various short stories to complement larger units of study. This fast-paced class is an option for students who possess a passion to read and write and who are looking for the opportunity to discuss key course concepts in high-level seminars. In addition, students will continue to build their vocabularies and expand their knowledge of grammar to create effective written work. Lastly, this course will culminate with a project asking students to synthesize major themes from multiple sources and present their findings in a medium of their choosing.

English 10: The World’s Stories (Year Long) 

Open to: Grade 10

Tenth grade English invites students to explore the richness and complexity of human experience and cultural interaction through global literature. With the goal of seeking differing perspectives and identifying common threads, students read texts such as Things Fall Apart, Persepolis, Brave New World, The Tempest, and a variety of international poetry and short stories. Students are encouraged to participate actively in a seminar classroom, and to develop their thinking, speaking, and writing skills in response to literature. The course concentrates on the writing process as students write analytical and creative pieces as well as personal narratives. Students do extensive work on revision and editing, supported by targeted weekly grammar and vocabulary study. Students will be asked to read closely, to develop meaningful interpretation through cultural and historical connections, comparisons between texts, and personal experience.

English 10 Honors: The World’s Stories (Year Long) 

Open to: Grade 10

The honors option is designed for students who possess an intellectual curiosity and a strong desire to engage in perspective-taking around global views. Students should be excellent collaborators and fluent readers and writers with the ability to make inferences and contribute daily to seminar-style discussions. Through reading and studying world literature, students will grapple with the same themes of culture, independence, and connectedness, and reading selections will mirror some of the same texts that are read in English 10. In addition, students may also read, Caste, 1984, Things Fall Apart, The Lion Women of Tehran and The White Tiger. This fast-paced class is an option for students who are passionate about reading and writing and who are looking for the opportunity to discuss key course concepts in high-level seminars. Writing assignments will include complex analytical essays asking students to explore themes and shared ideas across texts in addition to culminating projects around culture and identity. In addition, students will continue to build their vocabularies and expand their knowledge of grammar to create effective written work. Finally, the year will end with a capstone project.

American Literature and Composition (Honors Option) (Year Long)

Open to: Grade 11

What does it mean to be American and to represent America? What are the social and cultural forces that shape American identity? Who gets access to the American Dream and what does that mean? In this course, students investigate, through critical reading of, engagement with, and discussion of a variety of texts, the ways in which American identity and American culture have been expressed, represented, and evolved since the birth of the republic to the present day. We will consider if and how these texts delineate an idea of a “traditional” or normative American, and then how subsequent texts respond to and challenge this idea of a “traditional American.” Through the representations of a diverse array of American identities in an assortment of texts that progress historically from Frederick Douglass and short fiction and non-fiction essays of the early republic to 19th-century thinkers, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and eventually contemporary texts, students will investigate how an array of social forces have influenced the way these authors and artists have represented America. Together we will question if the very idea of America and American culture creates a counter-traditional American to the normative, often dominant culture initially expressed by texts from the early republic.

Alongside our exploration of the cornerstone texts that have represented America, students will explore and develop their own representation of America through a series of writings. Through studying several different modes of writing, including personal narration, argumentation, analysis, memoir, creative nonfiction, and digital storytelling, students will then have the opportunity to experiment with these forms, writing to discover their writing process, their ideas about American cultural identity, and their own distinct voice. By year’s end, students will have built the skills, confidence, and independence to read and write critically, while also continuing to develop a mastery of vocabulary, grammar, an economy of style, and their own unique writing voices through frequent drafting, revision, and careful editing of their vocabulary. The embedded honors options focuses more deeply on the course essential questions and requires students to complete more challenging work.

Advanced Topics English: Exploring Effective Civil Discourse in American Literature and Culture (Year Long)

Open to: Grade 11

In this course, students will explore critical moments in history when the country was polarized over issues such as race, gender and class, in order to define and explore what makes for effective civil discourse. Students will focus, among other topics, on the Civil War and the national conversation on race as well as the emergence of the New Woman and later waves of feminism as lenses into our national debate on freedom. Students will examine moments when an exchange of text, art, and/or action–such as a speech, a protest, a novel, a film, or other media– shifted our understanding, our actions, the law, or even the tide of the culture. Students will ask what is civil discourse and why are some media more effective in a given time than others? In addition to studying historical models, stories, and poems, students will also analyze current events and create their own modes of civil discourse, practicing effective communication that can inform, persuade, illuminate, entertain and transform. Writing in the course will emphasize fine tuning the art of rhetorical analysis, as well as practicing various narrative modes throughout the year. The year will conclude with a student-driven research paper and a final multimedia project.

Literature may include The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (Douglass); The Awakening (Chopin); The Underground Railroad (Whitehead); The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald); Just Mercy (Stevenson); Poverty, by America (Desmond); poetry and contemporary short stories.

Humanities Seminar: Finding Truth (Honors Option) (F)

Open to: Grades 11 & 12

What is real? How do we know what’s true—and what happens when our beliefs turn out to be wrong? This Humanities Seminar takes on these timeless questions by connecting ancient ideas to the world we’re living in right now. We begin by exploring how early civilizations tried to explain a mysterious and unpredictable universe, then jump forward to thinkers like Descartes, Hegel, and Nietzsche—figures who challenged certainty, questioned authority, and reshaped how we understand truth, freedom, and meaning. Rather than treating these ideas as abstract and distant, this interdisciplinary course blends literature, philosophy, and history to make big ideas meaningful for our lives in the here and now. Alongside philosophical readings, we analyze episodes of Netflix’s “Black Mirror” to examine how technology, power, and perception can distort reality—and what’s at stake when individuals or societies mistake illusion for truth. We also read the science-fiction novel The Joymakers, using it to explore artificial happiness, control, and what it really means to live an authentic life in a manufactured world. This is a discussion-driven, creative course. Students debate ideas, work collaboratively, analyze films and stories, and apply big concepts to fictional characters as well as to their own lives. No philosophy background required—just curiosity and an openness to questioning how you see the world. Generally, this course is offered as a second History or English course to juniors.

Humanities Seminar: Ethics of Power (Honors Option) (S)

Open to: Grades 11 & 12

Who should have power—and what does power do to people once they have it? What does it mean to live a good life when moral choices are complicated and the stakes are real? The second semester of this Humanities Seminar explores morality, power, and ethical leadership across cultures and historical moments. We begin by looking at how different cultures have tried to define right and wrong, starting with Confucian traditions in East Asia and the caste system in India. Students learn how ideas about duty, hierarchy, and social order make sense within specific cultural worlds—while also asking hard questions about where respect for tradition ends and the responsibility to challenge injustice begins. The course then turns to thinkers like Plato and Machiavelli, examining how the pursuit of power can come into conflict with morality—and how justice requires ideal principles as well as compels difficult choices. After reading excerpts from Plato’s The Republic and Machiavelli’s The Prince, we connect their ideas to Sashenka by Simon Montefiore, a historical novel that traces how authoritarian systems turn abstract ideas into lived suffering, betrayal, and loss. This is a discussion-driven course where students debate ideas, work collaboratively, and connect ethical questions to real human experiences. Generally, this course is offered as a second History or English course to juniors.

Senior English: The Concept Album as Literature (F)

Open to: Grades 11 & 12

Are you ready to dissect some of music’s most profound works? In this elective, students will spend the first half of the semester collectively examining influential concept albums by artists such as Marvin Gaye, Pink Floyd, or Beyoncé in order to understand how musicians use composition, lyrics, sound, and language to create an album around a central theme or idea. During the second half of the  semester, students will learn the necessary skills to create their own serial podcast that examines an iconic concept album of their choice. For this project, students will deconstruct lyrics and instrumentation, and apply literary elements to a culturally relevant album. Writings will include music reviews, analytical pieces, podcast scripts, and comparison essays while readings will consist of articles on music theory, music criticism, and reviews. Students will come away with an understanding of the narrative, thematic, and resistance concept album and will learn to culturally and historically contextualize their album and “read” it as one would read a book. The course will also include selections from various music memoirs and biographies. Generally, this course is offered as a second English course to juniors.

Senior English: Don’t Judge a Book by its Movie (S)

Open to: Grades 11 & 12

The author Stephen King said, “Books and movies are like apples and oranges. They are both fruits, but taste completely different.” In this semester-long course, students will investigate the relationship between literature and film in an attempt to answer the following questions: What can film achieve that a novel or play cannot, and vice versa? What is lost in the translation of literature into film, and what makes a “good” adaptation? In the first half of the semester, students will read and critically examine a class text to explore not only its literary elements, but also its cultural relevance and context. Possible texts could include Frankenstein, Jaws, or The Color Purple. Once complete, students will watch the film adaptation and critically examine and compare the strategies used to visually adapt the story to the screen to determine which form is most successful at telling the story, the written or the visual one. During the second half of the semester, students will have the opportunity to choose a piece of literature to read and analyze and watch its visual interpretation to determine which form most successfully tells the story. Students will explore the art of review writing, both book and film, as well as gain practice analyzing literary and cinematic elements of storytelling. This course will culminate with a mini-unit on Creative Writing, where students will have the opportunity to design their own screenplay or original project. Generally, this course is offered as a second English course to juniors.

Advanced Topics English: Literature through Critical Lenses (Year Long)

Open to: Grade 12

Literature through Critical Lenses invites students to take a deep dive into the exploration of literature, ranging from the ancient Greek tragedy to the twenty-first century. This course will offer students the opportunity to spend the year reading novels, plays, poems, and short stories from a broad range of authors, genres, and cultural settings. Potential texts may include Medea (Euripides); A Doll’s House (Ibsen); Beloved (Morrison); Mrs. Dalloway (Woolf); As I Lay Dying (Faulkner); and All the Pretty Horses (McCarthy). Each term, students will explore thematic ideas along with the zeitgeist of an age. Through additional readings in philosophy and psychology, students will develop familiarity with theoretical terms and concepts and employ them to understand the tension reflected in the works studied. Students will examine how a diverse array of thinkers have attempted to answer questions around gender, race, family, loyalty, and ultimately, the self, and we will consider how the specifics of geography, politics, ethnicity, language, gender, economics, and other factors combine to create compelling stories.

The essential questions that will guide the scope of the course are: How does literary form create meaning? How are the social and historical values of a time period reflected in a work? How can students create a personal writing style through effective use of rhetoric? And what diverse ideas exist around texts with regard to literary criticism? This course will emphasize sophisticated analytical writing and speaking skills, and students will focus on understanding and presenting on authorial craft and technique. Guided by our coursework and following their own intellectual pull, students will engage in a project investigating a writer or thematic concept; students will take a deep dive into this exploratory element, eventually creating a project that includes art, music, their own critical writing, and scholarly interpretation.

Public Speaking (F, S) 

Open to: Grades 9-12

At some point or another, we are all called upon to speak in public, be it a commencement speech, an assembly, a business presentation, or a toast at a wedding. This course is designed to help those students seeking to improve their skill at speaking before a live audience by focusing on the techniques of voice and body control (breathing, intonation, volume, articulation, gesture, posture) that will give them the self confidence to deliver a successful speech. Students will learn the various forms of public speaking: informative, demonstrative, persuasive, and extemporaneous speeches, as well as learning the necessary skills for one-on-one and team debating. They will examine famous historical speeches and TED talks to decipher what makes a speech successful. Students will experience writing original speeches and presenting them in a public forum. This course may be applied to English departmental graduation requirements in grade 12.

The Composition of Film (S) 

Open to: Grades 9-12

Storytelling has been the lifeblood of civilization. The rules for telling those stories, however, changed forever with the advent of moving pictures. Students will look at the advancement in American filmmaking by viewing, analyzing, and critiquing some of the most important films that changed the techniques of how movies are made from such esteemed directors as Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese to the present day directors such as Kathryn Bigelow, Greta Gerwig, Spike Lee, and Jordan Peele. They will analyze how film narratives have changed as people of color and women have become major voices in Hollywood. This course may be applied to English departmental graduation requirements in grade 12.

War in Film (F)

Open to: Grades 9-12

How is war depicted in movies? Is it glamorized, criticized, or satirized? When are movies used as propaganda and when are they used as a tool for soul searching? Do films influence the decision makers in Washington D.C.? Each generation tackles these and many other pertinent questions of what it means for their country to go to war. In the course “War in Film,” students will study Hollywood’s depiction of war by viewing essential and groundbreaking films from Hollywood’s greatest directors including Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, and Kathryn Bigelow. This course may be applied to English departmental graduation requirements in grade 12.

American Comedy (S)

Open to: Grades 9-12

Ever wonder why The Office makes you laugh? Will it still be funny to you in twenty years? Is comedy universal or is it generational? Are the Marx Brothers still funny? Would Stephen Colbert make people laugh in the 1950s? In this course, we will examine and analyze the progression of comedy in American entertainment for the last 100 years from vaudeville to Tik Tok. Students will explore in detail how and why certain comedy was considered funny to audiences by putting it into its historical contexts. We will examine the politically and socially groundbreaking work of Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, George Carlin, and Richard Pryor and how comedy challenged censorship and our First Amendment rights, going all the way to the Supreme Court. At the end of the term, students will be able to clearly understand the role comedy has played in shaping American culture. This course may be applied to English departmental graduation requirements in grade 12.