General Education English Courses
ENGLISH 9
Grade 9 1 year 1 credit
Most ninth graders take this comprehensive English course. They will read, discuss and write about short stories, novels, poems, plays, and works of true experience, including To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, Romeo and Juliet, and Speak. Students will write a variety of analytic and research-based papers, focusing on literary analysis and argument writing. In addition, students will have multiple opportunities to improve their vocabulary and their speaking and listening skills.
CORE ENGLISH 9
Grade 9 1 year 1 credit
This course is designed to provide support and remediation in basic reading and writing skills. Using short stories, novels, poems, plays, and works of true experience, students will work on developing proficiency in the NYS Language Arts Standards. Students will do many of the same tasks listed for English 9, but the materials and the sequencing of the tasks may differ.
HONORS ENGLISH 9
Grade 9 1 year 1 credit
Honors English 9 is a 40-week course designed to enhance the common 9th grade curriculum. Students will read To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, Speak, Macbeth, short stories, poetry, and will participate in a literature circle unit. In addition, students will write two mini research papers, memoir, fictional short story, poetry, journals, argument-based essays, and text-based analyses. Students are also required to complete three outside reading assignments.
ENGLISH 10
Grade 10 1 year 1 credit
All tenth graders not recommended for Core or Honors English 10 will take this full-year course. There are two distinct sections of the course: analysis and interpretation of novels, short stories, plays, and poetry; and integration of the writing process into both analytic and creative writing pieces. Students will be challenged as readers, writers and thinkers as they explore some of the greatest literature of the last hundred years and plumb the depths of their own ideas and language. Additionally, students will learn to evaluate their own and other students’ writing by engaging in all facets of the writing process.
CORE ENGLISH 10
Grade 10 1 year 1 credit
This course will provide support and remediation in basic reading and writing skills. Students will work on developing proficiency in the NY State Language Arts Standards. Students will do many of the same tasks listed for English 10, but the materials and the sequencing of the tasks may differ. Prerequisite: Recommendation from previous English teacher
HONORS ENGLISH 10
Grade 10 1 year 1 credit
Honors English 10 provides a challenging course for students seeking World Literature texts to complement the curricula of AP World and Global History. Honors English 10 provides a 40-week full credit of English for sophomore students and integrates thematic coverage in order to bridge historical and literary worlds. Texts are selected and tasks are crafted to supplement the following units: comprehensive insight into identity; technology; peopling; politics and power; America in the world; environment and geography; physical and human ideas; beliefs; and culture. Prerequisite: Recommendation from previous English teacher
English Electives
AMERICAN LITERATURE
Grade 11 ½ year ½ credit
This course is required of all students who have successfully completed English 10. Students will read, discuss, analyze, interpret and write about important American literature and trace main ideas in American literature. Students will choose an elective or an advanced elective to complete their junior English requirement.
CORE AMERICAN LITERATURE
Grade 11 1 year 1 credit
This course is designed for juniors who have successfully completed Core English 10 or English 10. In the first 20 weeks, students will read, discuss, analyze, interpret, and write about important works of American literature. There will be intensive review of the tasks and format of the Regents examination in English Language Arts, which all juniors need to pass for graduation. The second 20 weeks will sample from our rich collection of elective courses. Prerequisite: Recommendation from previous English teacher
HONORS AMERICAN LITERATURE
Grade 11 ½ year ½ credit
This is a 20-week course designed for juniors who have successfully completed Honors English 10. Students will read, discuss, analyze, interpret and write about significant American literature including The Scarlet Letter, The Great Gatsby, The Crucible, and a variety of fiction and poetry that reflects the thematic and stylistic growth of our nation and its written word. Recommendation from previous English teacher is required.
READER’S WORKSHOP
Grades 10-12 ½ year ½ credit
Do you want to read more books by your favorite author? Do you want time and credit for reading what interests you? Reader’s Workshop is a course designed to give students an opportunity to read literature types and subjects that they might not meet in other literature courses. In this course students create self-directed reading projects, make independent choices of reading materials and experiment with different kinds of responses to and evaluations of their reading.
JOURNALISM
Grades 10-12 ½ year ½ credit
Journalism is an intensive writing course developed around the genres of features, editorials, reviews, columns and news stories. In preparing publication-quality pieces, students will improve their writing and their skills regarding organization, paragraph development, sentence variety and usage. Students must be comfortable gathering information using both interviews and intensive research, and must be able to frame and complete long-term, self-directed assignments.
CREATIVE WRITING/COMPOSITION
Grades 11, 12 ½ year ½ credit
Students may pick a theme or issue to pursue throughout the semester and read related fiction or nonfiction. Both creative writing and college essay writing will be explored. In addition, groups will be formed for editing and evaluation. Students will work in the areas of grammar, usage and vocabulary development. This course provides opportunities to work in the areas covered by the NYS Standards: writing for information and understanding; writing for literary response and expression; writing for critical analysis and evaluation; and writing for social interaction.
SHORT STORY
Grades 11, 12 ½ year ½ credit
Everyone loves a good story! In this course, students will read a wide variety of short stories. In addition, they will be introduced to a number of literary strategies that will help them learn to think critically about the stories and to develop their interpretive skills. Students will also have a chance to try their hand at a variety of writing tasks, including short story writing.
THE NARRATIVE OF SPORTS
Grades 11, 12 ½ year ½ credit
Pop culture, professional athletes, Olympians, student athletes, and even youth-sports participants all live under the same mythology of sport. The common narrative associated with it is powerful, but is also changing. How, why, and in what ways is the story of sports changing? How will alterations in this fabric of larger societal narrative affect the overall story we tell ourselves about our culture? Using contemporary sports-related articles, 30 for 30 documentary films and a variety of fiction and nonfiction texts, students will explore their own world and world view through the lens of competitive athletics.
THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE
Grades 11, 12 ½ year ½ credit
Students will gain an understanding of what it means to grow up in American culture and be part of the largest cultural stew pot of the modern world. Students will read works from a variety of American perspectives and choose units as a class that they wish to study. Texts will vary in style, voice, length, genre and author’s ethnicity, and offer student-driven narratives. Media is integrated in all units through the study of film, podcasts, and music. Assessments include formal writing, projects, film analysis, online writing and presentations. Students will be expected to confront their own preconceived notions of the larger world around them and contribute their own unique American experience.
ENGLISH IN THE 21ST CENTURY
Grades 11, 12 ½ year ½ credit
In this course, we will take in information using a wide variety of sources (articles, podcasts, movies, videos, historical and current events) and apply them to our emerging world view. The unifying thread? We live in a digital world, and most humans consume information from a wider variety of sources than novels, plays and books of poetry. Since we all collect and process information to help us understand ourselves and others, we need to give time and attention to sharpening our ability to navigate this rapidly changing world. To this end, English in the 21st Century is a course designed to develop and sharpen our critical thinking and discussion skills.
LICIT & ILLICIT LITERATURE
Grades 11, 12 ½ year ½ credit
The world around us contains justice and injustice, law and lawlessness, and order and chaos. Students of varied ability levels, interests and viewpoints are encouraged to take the course to learn to be tolerant and receptive to different opinions. The literature will reflect both traditional and contemporary thought.
SCIENCE FICTION: ADVANCING ONE STEP BEYOND
Grades 11, 12 ½ year ½ credit
When does a society become oversaturated with technology? Could technology eventually replace humanity? How will our colonizing spirit and presence on alternate environments in space affect the pre-existing universal balance? This course explores these potential scenarios as well as many others through literature, film and intensive critical analysis and discussion. This course is perfect for any students who have pondered any of the aforementioned and are intrigued by the possibilities of “advancing one step beyond.” A limited number of sections of this course will be offered and seniors are given priority.
LITERATURE OF FILM
Grade 12 ½ year ½ credit
In this course, students will explore and analyze critically acclaimed films. They will think about them, read about them and write about them through a variety of lenses. Individually and in peer discussion, students will learn to distinguish between what’s well-made and what isn’t, and discover how films challenge—and even shape—our beliefs. This course is for all students who are interested in analyzing and writing about all components of what makes film culture thrive.
PUBLIC SPEAKING
Grade 12 ½ year ½ credit
3 CHS credits offered through SCCC
The most important skill you can learn as a young adult is the ability to think and speak in front of others. In this course students will learn to see themselves as others see them and to make the most of who they are and what they have. Students who are reluctant speakers will gain confidence. Students who are accomplished speakers will polish their skills. Students will learn communication theory, speech, writing skills, audience assessment techniques and personal evaluation tools. Students can earn college credit while evolving as speakers, writers, and human beings.
Advanced English Electives
LITERATURE & POLITICS
Grades 10-12 ½ year ½ credit
A “must” course for college-bound juniors and seniors. The readings, papers, lectures and discussions will examine relationships between individuals, an individual and a group, as well as between groups. In addition to assigned novels, short stories and essays, periodical reading will present contemporary issues for comparison. Prerequisite: Recommendation from previous English teacher
PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE
Grades 10-12 ½ year ½ credit
This class will consider the challenges and questions that arise at the intersection of literature and philosophy. Texts and coursework include literature and activities that unpack the great existential concerns of the modern human experience. We will read literature that has philosophical qualities and philosophies with literary qualities, and both will force us to question the nature of the world and our place in it. This course will be run with the expectations and the freedoms of a college course, so students who register will need to be self-motivated contributors to our collective understanding of the challenging texts and questions that comprise the curriculum. Prerequisite: Recommendation from previous English teacher
BRITISH LITERATURE
Grades 10, 11, 12 ½ year ½ credit
In this course students will read some of the most studied literature of our language and investigate some of our deepest fears by examining the monster in Beowulf; the anguish of Dr. Faustus; the torment of Frankenstein and the timely warning from Orwell. Students will also celebrate the human condition through the courage and honor in the Arthurian legends, the human foibles in Chaucer’s tales and the deepest thoughts of the Romantics. Prerequisite: Recommendation from previous English teacher
SHAKESPEARE: TO SEE OR NOT TO SEE
Grades 10-12 ½ year ½ credit
While Shakespeare is credited as the greatest writer in the history of the stage, his work is full of material that some find questionable or even objectionable. Is his work inherently misogynistic (Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing), anti-Semitic (The Merchant of Venice), or racist (Othello)? Does his perpetual use of the supernatural (Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, et al.) unburden his characters from owning their own actions or inaction? People have been studying his work for 400 years, and yet there is more room for debate now than ever before. Students will read and discuss plays and sonnets, and how these works are a portal to understanding contemporary human interactions. Students will become proficient in Shakespeare’s written word through reading, analytical and creative writing, and performance. Prerequisite: Recommendation from previous English teacher
COLLEGE COMPOSITION
Grade 12 ½ year ½ credit
3 CHS credits offered through SCCC
This course challenges students in a workshop environment to focus on audience, voice, diction and purpose in their writing. It includes conferencing, revision and editing to improve writing, as well as collaboration and cooperation among class members. In this course, a process approach is taken and writing is read, responded to and evaluated throughout the process. Students are responsible for selecting topics, establishing criteria for assignments and evaluation, selecting pieces for evaluation, seeking strategies for editing, setting goals for writing, etc. Prerequisite: Recommendation from previous English teacher
AP ENGLISH: LITERATURE & COMPOSITION
Grade 12 ½ year ½ credit
This course for second semester seniors gives qualified students an opportunity to complete college-level English in high school. Students will read, analyze and interpret significant literature from a number of time periods and genres. Students qualify if they have received 90’s on the Common Core ELA exam and previous English courses, and have completed at least two of the following courses: British Literature, Philosophy and Literature, Shakespeare, College Composition and/or Literature & Politics. Students are required to take the AP Exam (fee charged) in May. Prerequisite: Recommendation from previous English teacher