English

EMBEDDED HONORS MODEL: Students in English 9 will have the exciting opportunity to extend their learning and earn an Honors designation. Students will monitor their own growth and level of enriched learning experiences with varied reading and writing options. Furthermore, these assessments offer the opportunity to explore differing depths of complexity, creativity, and skill, while personalized learning offers heightened autonomy. Students will earn honors credit for the year upon demonstration of mastery of a predetermined percentage of MYP assessments.

ENGLISH 9                                                                                                                            1 Credit

The ninth-grade curriculum involves both literature and language arts study. We will examine various literary genres (e.g., short story, novel, poetry, drama, essay, biography) through works by authors such as Alice Walker, Sandra Cisneros, John Steinbeck, Ray Bradbury, Homer, and William Shakespeare. Our language study stresses writing mechanics and vocabulary, with an emphasis on application in extended writing assignments. We will focus on developing and fostering independence in our learning as we strive to become lifelong readers and writers. All students in this class will have the opportunity to extend their learning and earn an Honors designation through the demonstration of mastery in a predetermined number of MYP assessments.

 All students who successfully complete this course will earn credit for both Global History and Geography 9 and English 9. The course explores integral concepts related to the human experience through the blended study of global history, geography, literature, and language arts. This class provides students with an opportunity to study the central themes, historical periods, and texts used in the ninth-grade English and Social Studies courses with a focus on personal inquiry, research, and writing. While engaging in rich coursework, students will be invited, encouraged, and supported to pursue Honors credit; however, this is not required to be successful throughout the year. Students will have the opportunity to monitor their own growth with varied reading and writing options. Furthermore, summative assignments offer the opportunity to explore differing depths of complexity, creativity, and skill. Personalized learning offers heightened autonomy and choice.

SOPHOMORE YEAR ENGLISH

EMBEDDED HONORS MODEL As in 9th grade, all students in English 10 will have the opportunity to extend their learning and earn an Honors designation. While engaging in rich coursework, students will be invited, encouraged, and supported to pursue Honors credit; however, this enrichment opportunity is not required to be successful throughout the year. Students will have the opportunity to monitorap en their own growth and level of enriched learning experiences with varied reading and writing options. Furthermore, these tiered assessments offer the opportunity to explore differing depths of complexity, creativity, and skill, while personalized learning offers heightened autonomy and choice. Students will earn honors credit for the year upon completion of a predetermined percentage of tiered assessments at the honors level.

ENGLISH 10, 1 Credit

The tenth-grade curriculum includes an in-depth examination of American literature accomplished through readings including non-fiction, poetry, and selected works by such authors as Salinger, Miller, and Shakespeare as well as some non-fiction and film. Attention is given to speaking and listening skills through oral reports and class presentations and to writing skills through the study of narrative, expository, persuasive, and descriptive writing. Students will also engage in the research and writing of essays and projects/presentations on free-choice reading. Student success in this course helps to determine readiness for 11th grade English, AP English Language, IB English HL Year 1 in junior year, or IB Literature and Performance.

HUMANITIES - ENGLISH 10, 1 Credit

All students who successfully complete this course will earn credit for both English 10 and Global History and Geography 10. The course builds upon the foundations established in Humanities 9, exploring how the concepts of identity and conflict intertwine in history and literature. This class provides students with an opportunity to study the central themes, historical periods, and texts used in the tenth-grade English and Social Studies courses with a focus on personal inquiry, research, and writing. While engaging in rich coursework, students will be invited, encouraged, and supported to pursue Honors credit; however, this is not required to be successful throughout the year. Students will have the opportunity to monitor their own growth with varied reading and writing options. Furthermore, summative assignments offer the opportunity to explore differing depths of complexity, creativity, and skill.

ENGLISH 11,  1 Credit

The English 11 class emphasizes communication and critical thinking skills that are honed through class discussion, oral reports, literary analysis, and a great deal of writing. Longer fictional texts will be supplemented by independent reading, short stories, essays, poetry, and the summer reading selections. Students produce a major research paper and other smaller research-based writing tasks during the course, and they all take the Next Generation Regents Examination in English Language Arts at the end of the year.

AP ENGLISH LANGUAGE, 1 Credit

This full-year, college-level course is designed for students with an advanced command of language mechanics who seek to engage in higher-level reading, analysis, and discussion. To develop analytical and critical thinking skills, students read both fiction and nonfiction from a wide range of authors and time periods, practicing close reading and considering how elements of the rhetorical situation help to shape a writer’s message. Students study expository, narrative, argumentative, and personal forms. Featured novels include Lord of the Flies, The Great Gatsby, Slaughterhouse-Five, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Among the nonfiction writers studied are John McPhee, Frederick Douglass, Amy Tan, Oliver Sacks, Jessica Mitford, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Zora Neale Hurston, Jamaica Kincaid, David Sedaris, Virginia Woolf, and George Orwell. Students must take both the AP English Language and Composition Exam and the New York State Regents Exam.

IB ENGLISH LANGUAGE & LITERATURE YEAR 1, 1 Credit

This language and literature course is the first of a two-year study aiming to develop skills of textual analysis and the understanding that texts, both literary and non-literary, can relate to cultural issues. The course also encourages students to question the meaning generated by language and texts. An understanding of the ways in which formal elements are used to create meaning in a text is combined with an exploration of how that meaning is affected by practices that are culturally-defined and by the circumstances of production and reception. The study of literature in translation from other cultures is especially important to IB Diploma Candidate students because it contributes to a global perspective. Texts include: The Things They Carried, Macbeth, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Night as well as numerous other shorter texts (literary and non-literary) chosen from a variety of sources, genres, and media.

SENIOR YEAR REQUIREMENTS :

**All seniors are required to take a full year of English. For seniors who are not enrolled in AP or IB courses, there are two full-year course options (see below).

ENGLISH 12 – SEARCH FOR SELF, 1 Credit

In the first semester of this full-year course, students will have opportunities to develop and strengthen their reading and writing skills, with an emphasis on college readiness tasks such as close reading, planning and organization for essay writing, revision, and formatting. Literary units are based on a variety of themes, using fiction and non-fiction selections to explore ideas concerned with understanding oneself, learning about and developing identity, introspection, and much more. In the second semester, students will explore additional content areas including creative writing, reading beyond the classics, and public speaking. The course will culminate in a student-driven project or internship in May and June.

IB ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE HL YEAR 2, 1 Credit

This course is a continuation of IB English Language and Literature Year One, which is a prerequisite for Year Two. It counts as a Group 1 class for IB Diploma Candidates, or it may be taken as a certificate course. Possible texts include: Purple Hibiscus, Persepolis, and the translated poetry of Wistawa Szymborska as well as numerous other shorter texts chosen from a variety of sources, genres, and media. The course will culminate with submission of all IB English internal and external assessments as well as a student-driven project or internship.

AP ENGLISH LITERATURE, 1 Credit

This full-year, college-level course has been designed for the 12th-grade student who loves literature. The course will emphasize close reading of poetry and prose and writing about literature with clarity and sophistication. A seminar approach emphasizing student participation will focus on the works of such writers as Ernest Hemingway, August Wilson, William Shakespeare and Samuel Beckett. Students will take the AP examination in May, after which they will complete a student-driven project or internship.

IB LITERATURE AND PERFORMANCE SL, Grades 11-12. 1 Credit

This course is an interdisciplinary combination of an English class and a theater class, in which participants will examine both the literary and theatrical elements of 5 works chosen from among novels, plays, short stories, and poetry. Students will study and write about the literary aspects of these works, study the features of bringing drama to life on the stage (dialogue, body language, lighting, direction, sound, costume, acting, etc.), turn an excerpt of a novel or short story or poem into a dramatic work that they direct and/or perform, and reflect on the dramatic choices they make. This potentially college-credit bearing IB course has two formal projects and a culminating examination. It can be taken by any senior as the 12th grade English requirement, by any junior as an elective English course, and by an IB Diploma Programme Candidate as a Group 1 SL course during junior or senior year. To meet the required 150 hours for an IB SL course, it will run for one year with an additional lab.

CREATIVE WRITING, Grades 9-12, ½ Credit

This course is offered to students in all grades. The students in this half-year course will work in many forms, including but not limited to fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Students will study the techniques of exciting contemporary writers while honing their own craft through imaginative exercises and projects. Indeed, both words of the course’s title ring true: the course emphasizes creativity and how it manifests through the writing process.

This half-year journalism course covers the basic elements of news writing, and includes practice in writing straight news, background stories, editorials, and features of various kinds. Techniques of observations, interviewing, research analysis and news evaluation are examined, and the students write regularly. The student has the opportunity, not only to sharpen his writing skills, but also to develop an awareness of the ultimate impact of the events reported in the daily news upon his own life. It is expected that each student will contribute to the school newspaper.

The ability to speak clearly and persuasively can be as vital to success as reading and writing. This half-year course in public speaking is designed to help students acquire improved skills in self-expression. Ease in speaking before a group, the sharpening of organizational skills, and the ability to think "on one's feet" are among its goals. Activities may include impromptu speaking, storytelling, debate, interviews, discussions, and speeches to entertain, persuade, or inform.