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EnglishThe curriculum of the English Department is designed to help students read literary texts (including film) very closely in order to discover what the text says, what the text means, how the text affects them, and how the text achieves its effect. We study texts by a variety of authors from various countries (concentrating especially, though by no means exclusively, on literature originally written in English) and from various periods. Although we explore backgrounds to the texts we read, our courses do not survey literature chronologically. Through class discussions and activities, study guides, written homework grounded in the text, and analytical essays, we help our students to understand figurative language, imagery, and patterns of language and to draw progressively more sophisticated inferences. Through their work, students engage in a dialogue with the text at hand, letting it speak directly and personally to them, and, in their turn, speaking their insights to it and asking their questions of it. Our writing program focuses on analytical writing. We help our students learn how to find a valid thesis; how to research a text to find support for the thesis; how to narrow or expand the thesis to fit the assignment; how to organize according to what the thesis says and to its logic. Students use rough drafts to develop appropriate rhetorical strategies; to check for errors in grammar, usage, and mechanics; and to come to logical conclusions. As in our class discussions, we teach our students to support their ideas by quoting directly from the text or texts under consideration. Our students also explore literature by writing personal essays, short stories, and poems. Students must be enrolled and earn credit in an English class during each quarter they are enrolled at University High School. Freshmen and sophomores take year-long courses. Juniors and seniors may elect to take Analysis and Composition, a year-long course, during either their third or fourth year at University High School. Juniors and seniors not taking Analysis and Composition elect one of at least three courses offered each quarter.
English 1 English 1 is a year-long course that introduces its students to the analysis of literature and the fundamentals of writing. In the past few years, all students have studied several core texts: parts of Genesis, a Shakespearean play, either Macbeth or Julius Caesar; J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, and John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. Students have also studied a range of short stories and poems as well as additional texts selected from among several possible options, including Harvey, Ellen Foster, or West with the Night. Students are taught how to write short essays through instruction that emphasizes the use of evidence from the text to support their ideas. Students also receive both the opportunity to develop, and instruction in developing, discussion skills in full class and small group situations. These skills include those involved with the study of English (for example, how to ask significant questions) and those involved with humane behavior. In addition, students work on grammar, mechanics, and vocabulary in this course. Teachers report an advisory grade for each student each quarter and assign a final grade earned at the end of the academic year.
English 2 English 2 is a year-long course that builds upon and reinforces the reading and writing skills students learned in English 1 and introduces new reading and writing skills to them. Students read short short stories and a novel, novella or play in the first quarter, a Shakespearean play (almost always Romeo and Juliet) in the second quarter, and longer fiction (a novel and/or a novella) in the third quarter, and in any quarter may study other forms of literature, such as poetry. In their reading, students work on thematic development, figurative language (especially metaphor and irony), inferential reading, and identification of various patterns. In their writing, students focus especially on exposition but may also write personal essays, poetry, interviews, or short stories. Through participation in class discussions, students learn to listen to others, to respond intelligently, and to ask significant questions about literature. Teachers report an advisory grade for each student each quarter and assign a final grade earned at the end of the academic year.
Analysis and Composition Analysis and Composition is a year-long course for students who want to strengthen their background and foundation in several English skill areas. Students develop writing skills especially through analytical writing but may also do some imaginative writing. They learn to write clear and concise prose and to organize and develop their ideas according to the logic of their thesis. The reading goals include developing the ability to draw inferences, identify patterns, and trace images in literature. The course includes work on grammar, mechanics, and vocabulary. The English Department is committed to keeping the size of Analysis and Composition classes at a maximum of fifteen students, so students can have more individual attention and instruction in class and more conference time available outside of class. Teachers report an advisory grade for each student each quarter and assign a final grade earned at the end of the academic year.
English 3-4 English 3-4 consists of three quarter-long courses each year for juniors and seniors who are not taking Analysis and Composition. The teachers of English 3-4 expect students who choose to take electives rather than Analysis and Composition to be highly competent in their analytical reading and writing; as a result, teachers develop their various curricula with this expectation in mind. Students in English 3-4 choose their classes at the end of each quarter. Elective courses emphasize analytical writing in response to literature, usually novels, novellas, short stories, essays, poems, drama, or film. The basis for both discussion and written work is a close reading of the course's texts. The works are typically chosen around a theme, an author, a genre, or a combination of any of these. In addition to literature courses, at least one elective each year emphasizes story and/or poem writing. At the end of each quarter, a student receives a final grade for the elective in which he or she was enrolled. We offer an elective program to juniors and seniors because we believe it is important for upperclassmen to begin to take responsibility for determining the content and direction of their education. Each quarter students enrolled in the elective program will receive full descriptions of the courses we will be offering the following quarter. Students will then indicate their first, second, and third choices. Although we will make every attempt to assign students to their first choices, in order for us to achieve a numerical balance among the classes and thereby give all students the same opportunities within their English classes, students will sometimes get their second or third choices. To ensure that no student is burdened by an inordinate number of second and third choices, we keep careful records of choices and promise that at least half of each student's courses will be his/her first choice. Some of the possible course offerings for next year include:
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