Upper School Curriculum Guide

Are we moving away from AP classes?

No. This plan focuses on the addition of Honors Seminars in the English Department only. Any changes to our offering of the AP program in general would require significant research and discussion.

Can students in the seminars still take the AP Exams? How will they get the necessary preparation?

Yes. All students will still have the option to take the AP Language & Composition and the AP Literature & Composition Exams. As students read texts and write about them in Honors Seminars, they will be developing (and exceeding) the type of analytical and writing skills required for the respective AP exams.

What happens to the regular students who no longer have a non-AP/non-Honors option? Will teachers be able to differentiate?

English classrooms lend themselves to differentiation. Multiple interpretations  of a text exist, and students can gravitate toward lines of inquiry that are important and meaningful to them and that they have the skills to analyze.  English teachers can augment this natural differentiation with a variety of techniques, from small-group discussions to literature circles to low-stakes writing prompts that prepare students for class-wide discussions. A mixture of analytical, personal, and creative assignments will also provide students the opportunity to find success in a variety of different writing modes. Perhaps most importantly, the relatively small size of RCDS classes allows faculty to know students well, giving faculty the ability to pay close attention to the skills development of each student and to tailor feedback accordingly.

How will we ensure the experience across seminars will be comparable in terms of rigor, feedback, individual attention, etc.?

The English Department Chair will coordinate with teachers of Honors English Seminars to standardize workload and skills development across classes. While content will differ between classes, the Department Chair will develop specific policies with regard to the volume and rigor of work assigned in Seminars. The Dean of Faculty/Employees will offer guidance and support, as well.

What kind of faculty professional development will be offered to prepare for the seminars?

The English Department Chair will compile a packet of research and resources on teaching English elective courses for faculty to review while they begin to develop the curriculum for Honors Seminar this summer, the summer of 2021. During closing and opening faculty meetings, the department will also dedicate time to learning best practices from department members with previous experience teaching semester-long seminars. As always, department members will be encouraged to attend conferences and workshops run by organizations such as NAIS, NYSAIS, and the National Council of the Teachers of English (NCTE).

Overcoming Limitations of the AP English Curricula: The majority of juniors and seniors at RCDS take an Advanced Placement designated course, but participation in the AP English curricula places limitations on the department’s ability to offer students the type of engaged, diverse curriculum that 21st-century students need.  Currently, the department offers six sections of AP Language & Composition, six sections of AP Literature & Composition, two sections of English 11, and one section of English 12. Concentrating so much of the department’s energy on delivering the AP Language & Composition and AP Literature & Composition curricula hinders our ability to expose students to a broader range of voices and texts. In AP classes, having texts and syllabi approved by the College Board and taking class time to prepare students for exams detracts from sustained intellectual exploration. Time is taken preparing students to answer multiple choice questions and to write a very narrow band of analytical essays that could be better spent making dynamic connections to the contemporary world, working collaboratively with other students, or pushing students to take more creative approaches to their writing. Overall, the Honors English Seminars will expand the range of what students can possibly learn in their final two years of English classes while also offering more authentic learning.

In addition to curricular limitations, the department also has concerns about the equity of the AP English classes as they exist. While the racial composition of AP English classes has improved in the last several years, a gender disparity exists in the regular English class. Boys are overrepresented in these classes: for example, in English 11 this year, 16 of the 24 students are boys (66.7%) while in English 12 boys number 10 of the 14 students (71.4%). The new model will allow us to better balance English class enrollments on the basis of gender and help all students build confidence in their reading, writing, and analytical skills as their adolescent brains continue to develop toward adulthood.

Closing Curricular Disparities with Peer Institutions: We reviewed the English curricula and course offerings from 36 mostly co-ed independent day and boarding schools. These schools include neighbors, such as Hackley and Masters; New York City schools, such as Dalton and Horace Mann; Tri-State area schools, such as Hopkins and Pingry; New England Boarding Schools, such as Exeter, Andover, and St. Paul’s; and leading schools in top national markets such as Boston (Buckingham Browne & Nichols), Chicago (Lab School), Dallas (Greenhill School), Los Angeles (Harvard Westlake), Philadelphia (Germantown Friends), Seattle (Lakeside School), and Washington, D.C. (Sidwell Friends). All 36 schools in our research offer elective programs in their upper grade levels, making RCDS an outlier among its peer institutions. Furthermore, four of the 36 (11.1%) offer AP Language & Composition while seven of the 36 (19.4%) offer AP Literature & Language, suggesting that by and large schools of RCDS’s caliber have moved away from and beyond these AP English classes. While not all the schools we researched made information on their AP English exam policies readily available, of the 29 schools that do not offer AP-branded classes at least 15 of them (51.7%) still allow students to sit for the AP Language or AP Literature exam. This data suggests that a seminar or elective program that does not follow a College Board-prescribed curricula can co-exist with the system of AP exams.

Our research paints a landscape in which top independent schools have diverged from AP-branded English classes in favor of seminar-style classes that allow for deeper, richer investigation of specific genres or thematic threads. These schools and their English departments are embracing changes in the discipline that make it more contemporary and more engaged with current social and cultural issues. Insofar as RCDS has not embraced this movement, we risk trailing behind our peer institutions and putting our students at a competitive disadvantage, with regard to English, as compared to their independent-school peers.

Increasing Student Engagement: The Honors English Seminars will expose students to the current state of the discipline and demonstrate to them the broad possibilities of studying English in the contemporary moment. Part of this current state is the reframing of the canon, and these seminars will help to make students party to the dynamic conversation around canon formation that is currently ongoing. These seminars will help students have 21st-century conversations about a range of texts—novels, poems, short stories, plays, films, songs, podcasts, etc. 

Better Supporting the School’s Mission: While RCDS English teachers continue to innovate and stay current in their pedagogical approaches to teaching the existing curriculum, that curriculum itself skews heavily toward traditional texts with only a smattering of innovative texts. The curricular range that the Honors English Seminars would allow the department to achieve will bring greater balance between the traditional and the innovative. In updating the conversation about literature and types of texts that we have in our English classrooms, the Honors English Seminars will consequently modernize the conversations students have about society, culture, and the self.  These more updated discussions of human relationships, human behavior, and ethics will create a keener sense of the moral responsibility needed to navigate our 21st-century world. In allowing greater teacher choice in the curriculum, the Honors Seminar Program will allow teachers to model to students this lifelong passion for learning while greater student choice will help them take an increased control of their education that will ideally lead to an investment in learning and ideas that transcends their time at RCDS. Finally, we believe that an English curriculum should offer students both mirrors—insight into their own experiences—and windows—insight into the experience of others. The currently limited course offerings do not leave us enough space to reflect the full diversity of the RCDS student body. Currently, a number of student populations—girls; East Asian and East Asian-American students; South Asian and South Asian-American students; Latinx students; LGBTQ+ students—have few or no mirrors in our curriculum and do not see themselves adequately reflected in the texts we teach.

Supporting the DEI Plan: In its Curriculum & Pedagogy section, the DEI plan stipulates that we “ensure that students see themselves and others reflected in the curriculum” and goes on to specify that the RCDS curriculum should develop “students’ cultural competence.”  In expanding the range of courses offered in the department, the Honors English Seminars address both of these requirements.  Given the proposed seminars, Black, East Asian, South Asian, LGBTQ+, and female students will have the opportunity to see themselves reflected in the English curriculum. In creating this broader representation, the Honors English Seminars will enlarge the pool of voices and experiences all students encounter in the English curriculum, thereby working to build their cultural competencies. The flexibility of the Honors English Seminars will allow teachers to fulfill the cultural and social responsiveness that the plan requires. In any school, we believe that English classes should be the prime ground for engagement with the broader world and with pressing social issues. Moving away from a prescribed AP curriculum will allow teachers to adjust curriculum within a seminar or, with the approval of Academic Affairs, create an entirely new seminar to react to critical social and global issues in ways that will build cultural competencies and make students more engaged with their world.

Realizing the Portrait of a Graduate Vision: From building effective communication skills and developing the ability to think critically to developing a sense of empathy, the English Department plays an important role in helping students become the ideal alumni envisioned in the Portrait of a Graduate. We hope that the four seminars that students take during their final two years at RCDS will work in conjunction with one another to create students who are more aware of our complex world and who are better able to navigate with nuance and respect the ethical, moral, and interpersonal situations they are likely to encounter in their lives.

Better Integration with RCDS Signature Initiatives: As stated above, the breadth of the seminars will lead to an expansion in the voices included in the English curriculum and will include more perspectives that better represent the rich experiences and cultures of our student body. In addition, while seminars may change over time, some of the seminars currently proposed would bolster the Sustainability and Global Studies Initiatives. Again, by offering a broader range of course selections, students will have greater exposure to the ideas and experiences that shape our region, our country, and our world.

Addressing External Review Feedback: The English Department’s 2019-2020 external review by Joel Garza of Greenhill School asked some powerful questions about the type of texts that we assign to Upper School students. In a section of his report focused on the RCDS English curriculum, Garza writes: 

With respect to reading, the most common kind of text is a renowned literary text written originally in English. A true lover of reading might—and should often—read the world, both in a variety of genres and worldviews, both in fiction and nonfiction, both in one’s own language and in translation, both for the beauty of language and the dangers of beautiful language.

Garza’s comments speak to the heart of the changes that have remade the discipline over the last 25 to 30 years. While RCDS students continue to read certain canonical texts, preferably ones that speak to the current moment, they must also “read the world” and engage with a variety of texts and literary traditions. In expanding the breadth of our curriculum, Honors English Seminars will expand the “variety of genres and worldviews” that students encounter during their final two years at RCDS and will bring them closer to reading the world. Garza also notes the limitations of the traditional, canonical approach to teaching English. Canonical texts may include enduring ideas about the human experience, but often the social and cultural context of these texts seems distant from the contemporary moment and our students. Certainly, to some extent, students benefit from engaging with the culture and ideas of times and places different from their own, and part of being an English teacher is elucidating ideas of different eras and making them accessible to students. To shape engaged, multi-dimensional thinkers, we must also challenge students to contend with the culture and ideas of their own world. By mixing canonical and contemporary texts, Honors English Seminars will better position the Upper School English faculty to make our paths of inquiry more relevant to students’ lives and to insert dynamic “real-world” issues into our daily classes and assignments.

Recruiting Top Teachers: As the department encounters the normal teacher turnover for reasons of family, career, or retirement, in order to attract top candidates and retain the current high caliber of the RCDS English Department, we must position ourselves as a forward-looking department and institution. We must demonstrate that we understand the dynamic current nature of the discipline, that we are using our energy to engage our students, and that we allow teachers room to create innovative courses. In the last two hiring cycles, English candidates have asked specific questions about the ability to teach electives and seminar-style classes, opportunities that we simply cannot offer in the existing curriculum. As is true in many disciplines, English teachers want the freedom to exercise their intellectual creativity and passions in a field that is alive and expanding.  The success of this department in pushing students to write and think with precision and sophistication is dependent on bringing in passionate and engaging teachers at the top of their field. Along with the many benefits of working at RCDS, the curricular freedom and spirit of inquiry built into the Honors English Seminars will help draw dedicated, cutting-edge English teachers to the school.

In this semester-long course, students will study the major women writers of the 20th century. Through close textual readings of poetry, short stories, and novels, students will examine how women at this time boldly and imaginatively expressed their voices and ideas, often despite social expectations and daunting obstacles. Literary analysis will be a major writing focus in the course; in addition, students will have opportunities to express their own voices and creativity, using our mentor texts as inspiration. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Literature & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

This semester-long course traces the development of African American poetry from its enslaved roots to its contemporary flowering, from Phyllis Wheatley to Tyehimba Jess. The course is anchored in Kevin Young’s anthology African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song, but students will also engage with critical essays about the Black American poetic tradition.  In addition to studying poetic terms and forms, students will explore notions of freedom and liberation; the evolving sense of Black identity; the intersection of race, class, and gender; the relationship of art and social justice; and the interplay of the past and the present.  The course will require students to write analytically about the poems they encounter but will also ask students to apply techniques learned from these poems to craft their own creative writing. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Literature & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)
 

In this semester-long course, students will be introduced to the study and the practice of rhetoric. Students will engage in the art of persuasive writing and will practice building arguments and analyzing the arguments of others. Students will study how speakers and writers persuade an audience to adopt their point of view. They will also explore and analyze rhetorical structure and style with the goal of developing their own writing style and voice. Students will read and analyze the works and rhetorical styles of such contemporary and historical thinkers and writers as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, Jr., Jhumpa Lahiri, Anna Quindlen, David Brooks, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Toni Morrison, and others included in the course’s text, The Norton Reader. Current articles and opinion pieces will be used as supplementary texts as well. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Language & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

In this semester-long course, students will read and study short stories of American authors since the mid-19th Century to the contemporary short story authors of today to appreciate this unique form of literature. The course will focus on understanding how to read and interpret the short story as its own genre. We will also look at the development of the short story and its shifting role in the American literary canon and we will consider the historical and literary contexts that shaped short stories over the last two centuries. Students will read the works of such authors as Alexie, Baldwin, Cheever, Chopin, Ellison, Faulkner, Gilman, Hawthorne, Hemingway, Hurston, Irving, London, Morrison, Oates, O’Connor, Poe, and Wharton. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Literature & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

This semester-long course studies LGBTQIA+ literature, with a particular focus on how these writers offer us alternative narratives to dominant, heteronormative concepts of gender and sexuality. In addition to introducing students to poets, essayists, playwrights, cartoonists, and novelists from ancient Greece to today, this course will offer students a foundation in queer theory, gender studies, and feminist theory. The intersectionality of gender and sexuality with other identifiers, including race, religion, and socioeconomic status, and the relationship between queer identity and activism will also be central themes. The course will require students to write analytically about our shared texts and to deepen their understanding of our many topics through research. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Language & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

This semester-long course focuses on Black writers’ use of magical realism as a means of surfacing untold histories and deconstructing accepted historical narratives.  Students will read novels from Gloria Naylor and Toni Morrison, short stories from Randall Kenan, and drama from August Wilson. Alongside discussions of race and history, students will examine the formation of gendered space, the generational toll of injustice, and the construction of “the real.”  In response to the class reading, students will hone their analytical writing and research skills. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Literature & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

The South is popularly known as a mythological place steeped in melancholy, nostalgia, exceptionalisms, and oppressive norms in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and sexuality. Yet, throughout literary and cultural history, authors and artists have told counter-narratives that defy the myths and portray a diverse and complex place. In this course, we will examine how the Southern myth and canon came to be, analyze the power those narratives wielded, and complicate what it means to be “southern.” Students will examine southern cultural identity, recognize the diverse cultures, ethnicities, and global influences that have shaped the South.  Students will consider the region in all its complexity through literature and multi-disciplines including film, art, music and popular culture. The syllabus includes canonical texts by authors such as William, Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, Richard Wright, Flannery O’Connor, Zora Neale Hurston, Carson McCullers, Cormac McCarthy, and Alice Walker. In addition, students will read texts by a slate of contemporary writers such as Jesmyn Ward, Tayari Jones, Jericho Brown, Bryan Washington, Sarah Broom, Monique Truong, Kevin Wilson, Edwidge Danticat, Barbara Kingsolver, Robert Gipe, and Lauren Groff. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Literature & Composition and/or AP Language & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

Who is most hurt by environmental degradation and abuse and who benefits? In this course we’ll examine what contemporary world literature has to say about environmental racism, ecofeminism, and toxic colonialism. We will be attentive to such issues as the social construction of nature, globalization, and urban ecological issues. We will ask: What is the role of art in the struggle for social change? Our study will focus on the intersection of environmental issues and various systems of social injustice, especially racism, sexism, and economic inequity. Materials for this course—novels, poems, stories, films, documentaries, art— come from diverse racial and national locations, including South Africa, multicultural U.S., India, China, Iraq, and Guatemala. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Literature & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

Think of Classical Greek Dramas as plays performed by grizzled old men in togas? Think again! Greek Dramas explore the human condition in enduring ways that have laid the foundation for a wide variety of modern productions.  In this course, we will study plays by ancients such as Sophocles, Aristophanes, and Euripides, becoming versed in classic dramatic structure. These plays will be paired with contemporary takes on the “classics,” such as the recent Amazon Studio’s Blow the Man Down, that use the structure, form, and themes of Greek theater to reflect on life in the 20th and 21st centuries. Students will hone their close reading, analytical writing skills, and research skills. They will explore their inner-playwright, creating an adaptation of a section from an ancient work, making relevant to a modern audience. This class requires parental permission due to the mature content of some films. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Literature & Composition and/or AP Language & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

Shakespeare, that seemingly quintessential British author, has long been an inspiration to writers, thinkers, and filmmakers from social and political contexts vastly different from Early Modern England. In this course we will examine the usefulness of some of Shakespeare’s most famous plays to contexts as widely different as the caste politics of Northern India, the feudal dramas of Japan, and the high school romance of Seattle teenagers. We will read both the original plays and watch the adaptations. Texts may include Taming of the Shrew, Othello, Macbeth, Omkara, Throne of Blood, and Ten Things I Hate About You. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Literature & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

New York City has been called “The Big Apple”, “The City That Never Sleeps”, “Gotham”, and even “The Center of the Universe.” How true is Frank Sinatra’s claim that “If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere”? In this semester long course, students will read literature that captures both the idea and the reality of The City through the ages. We will study poetry, short stories, essays, novels, and films written by luminaries such as James Baldwin, Gwendolyn Brooks, Edwidge Danticat, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Washington Irving, E. B. White, Walt Whitman, and Jacqueline Woodson; and, as it’s only appropriate, songs by The Beastie Boys, Billy Holiday, Lou Reed, Jay-Z, and Alicia Keys.  Students will hone their close reading and analytical writing skills and will explore their creative voice, contributing a unique piece that captures their own version of New York. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Literature & Composition and/or AP Language & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

How does literary art get involved in politics? What is the border between propaganda and art? This course explores how characters and people experience, survive, resist, and thrive in spite of adversity and injustice because of a number of factors—culture, race, gender, sexuality, and religion. Students will compare and contrast how people find ways to live, to speak, to act as human beings in the face of adversity and injustice. Sources include a wide variety of genres—short stories, poems, essays, podcasts, film, photographs—and a range of voices. Students will use the primary sources as inspiration and model text to write and create work of multiple genres—such as personal narratives, analytical essays, creative stories, poetry, podcast, and film—to master the power of the pen and rhetorical strategies. Literary texts may include selections from: "The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin; The Fire This Time edited by Jesmyn Ward; Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison; Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde; Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue; Lot by Bryan Washington; There, There by Tommy Orange; Exit West by Mohsin Hamid. Podcasts may include This American Life, The Moth, Code Switch, and Floodlines. In addition, the syllabus will include poetry by Jericho Brown, Traci K. Smith, Joy Harjo, and Elizabeth Acevedo. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Literature & Composition and/or AP Language & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

Laughter is the best medicine; this is often true for society as well as for individuals. Through the ages, starting with the ancient Greeks (if not earlier), humor and satire have been used as a tool to critique and challenge social norms.  By ridiculing ideas, customs, governments, and more, satirists raise essential ethical questions and play an important role in shaping and reshaping morals. In this course we will examine the function, as well as the limitations, of humor and satire. Topics will include the difference between humor and satire, the role of irony, the ways in which identity and identifiers are used by comedians, and the many ethical questions raised–both in positive and negative ways–by humor and satire. Course material will include works from Jonathan Swift in the 1700s to the present-day SNL episodes; readings include novels, essays, letters, speeches, cartoons, and “comic” performances. Students will hone their close reading, analytical writing skills, and research skills. They will become satirists in their own right, creating a satirical essay critiquing an element of contemporary society. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Literature & Composition and/or AP Language & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

In this semester-long course, students will read and study a variety of genres and texts (articles, short stories, poetry, and a novel) written about sports. Students will learn to understand and appreciate the rhetoric of sports writing, while also exploring the common symbolism, allusions, and metaphors that authors use in literature about sports. We will also explore the role sport has played in the mythos of American (and other countries’) values and beliefs and its role in social change, national character, and cultural reflection. Students will read the texts of such writers as Deford, Dryden, Halberstam, Keillor, Lardner, Malamud, Plimpton, Rhoden, Schaap, Thurber, Updike, and various contemporary sportswriters of the 21st century. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Language & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

In this semester-long course, students will study and practice the craft of memoir writing. The course will be both a study of literature and a writing workshop. As students read in a variety of genres—including books, essays, and poetry—they will explore the techniques writers use to discover and reveal their identities through storytelling. Students will be encouraged to take creative risks as they write extensively, experimenting with voice, tone, meaning, and structure. They will also enhance their literary skills by developing their writing fluency and practicing how to give, receive, and implement constructive writing feedback. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Language & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

In this semester-long course, students will explore the rich and complex literary legacy of Asians in the United States. Spanning the mid-nineteenth-century arrival of Chinese railroad laborers to contemporary Asian American involvement in multiracial movements for racial justice, this course will examine the emergence and diversity of Asian American literary traditions over the past century and a half. As we sharpen our literary analysis and research skills through our exploration of both Asian American fiction and nonfiction, we will take up related issues, such as representations of Asian Americans in popular culture and film; the myth of Asian Americans as the “model minority”; Asian Americans and affirmative action; and the intersectionality of Asian Americanness with gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity, and more. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Language & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

Readings in English 9 provide an introduction to literature, including poetry, drama, the novel, and the short story, with many of the texts addressing the tension between individual and community. Core texts include works such as Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and Yang's American Born Chinese. The writing program in English 9 is designed to improve all basic writing skills, with special attention given to the formation of thesis statements, the organization of ideas and paragraphs, and the clarity of sentences. Students also submit creative pieces of writing and collaborate on various projects with their classmates. Grammar instruction reviews punctuation, standard usage, parts of speech, sentence structure, and phrases and clauses. Vocabulary work consists of Vocabulary Workshop, Level E. (1 unit; Grade 9; required)

Students in this required course use literature and art to explore the formation of contemporary American identity in its multivarious forms. As part of this inquiry, the course requires students to make multidisciplinary connections, particularly to the Humanities curriculum. In addition, alongside an exploration of social identity, students have ample opportunity to reflect on and write about their own identities and experiences. The course begins with a focus on persuasive and personal writing to help students build their composition skills; strengthen their ability to craft cogent, well-supported arguments; develop their beliefs about contemporary social and political issues; hone their ability to approach difficult, nuanced conversations with civility and openness; and navigate the complexities of personal identity. After this beginning, students spend the year engaging with literature, media, and art that examines identity, especially racial and gender identity, at varying points in American history, from enslavement to globalization to contemporary social trends. The readings in the course are multi-genre—comprising novels, plays, poems, short stories, short-form journalism, personal narratives, memoirs, songs, podcasts, paintings, graphic novels, advertisements, lectures, etc.—and help students examine how global political and economic systems affect individuals and form the social constructs in which identity exists. To complement their reading, students write in a variety of modes: literary critical essays, research essays, personal narratives, poems, short fiction, oral histories, etc. Overall, beyond merely producing fluent writers, this course challenges students to become analytical thinkers and cultural critics, who are deeply invested in the world of ideas and, critically, in the impact those ideas have on the world that surrounds them.

The Honors sections of this course require additional readings and has more demanding writing and speaking requirements. (1 unit; Grade 10; required)

AP Language and Composition is the regular English course for juniors. The readings in the course survey the major achievements of American literature from its beginnings to the present day; texts are selected for their intrinsic literary merit, as well as for their value in illustrating and extending themes encountered in the junior year American history curriculum, and a research paper is required of all students. The course includes texts such as Douglass’s The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Thoreau's Civil Disobedience, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Wharton's The Age of Innocence, Larsen's Passing, and Capote's In Cold Blood, in addition to works by other poets and writers, including Emerson, Whitman, Dickinson, and Hughes. All students continue to practice analytical, persuasive, personal and creative writing. Grammar review continues, with emphasis on revising and proofreading skills. Students also study vocabulary from Vocabulary Workshop, Level G. In addition, the course requires more focus on non-fiction reading and writing and a focus on rhetorical strategies and styles. The course seeks to prepare all students to take the Advanced Placement Language and Composition examination given at the end of the year, and all students are required to sit for the exam. (1 unit; Grade 11; required) 

AP Literature and Composition is the regular English course for seniors. The course focuses on works by author’s such as Shakespeare, Austen, and Morrison, as well as on classic and contemporary drama and poetry that reflect diverse voices. The analytic writing requirement is intense, and students should expect to complete both reading and writing homework each night. Students produce a research paper and various forms of creative work. The course seeks to prepare all students to take the Advanced Placement Literature and Composition examination given at the end of the year, and all students are required to sit for the exam. (1 unit; Grade 12; required)

In this semester-long course, students will study the major women writers of the 20th century. Through close textual readings of poetry, short stories, and novels, students will examine how women at this time boldly and imaginatively expressed their voices and ideas, often despite social expectations and daunting obstacles. Literary analysis will be a major writing focus in the course; in addition, students will have opportunities to express their own voices and creativity, using our mentor texts as inspiration. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Literature & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

This semester-long course traces the development of African American poetry from its enslaved roots to its contemporary flowering, from Phyllis Wheatley to Tyehimba Jess. The course is anchored in Kevin Young’s anthology African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song, but students will also engage with critical essays about the Black American poetic tradition.  In addition to studying poetic terms and forms, students will explore notions of freedom and liberation; the evolving sense of Black identity; the intersection of race, class, and gender; the relationship of art and social justice; and the interplay of the past and the present.  The course will require students to write analytically about the poems they encounter but will also ask students to apply techniques learned from these poems to craft their own creative writing. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Literature & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)
 

In this semester-long course, students will be introduced to the study and the practice of rhetoric. Students will engage in the art of persuasive writing and will practice building arguments and analyzing the arguments of others. Students will study how speakers and writers persuade an audience to adopt their point of view. They will also explore and analyze rhetorical structure and style with the goal of developing their own writing style and voice. Students will read and analyze the works and rhetorical styles of such contemporary and historical thinkers and writers as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, Jr., Jhumpa Lahiri, Anna Quindlen, David Brooks, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Toni Morrison, and others included in the course’s text, The Norton Reader. Current articles and opinion pieces will be used as supplementary texts as well. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Language & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

In this semester-long course, students will read and study short stories of American authors since the mid-19th Century to the contemporary short story authors of today to appreciate this unique form of literature. The course will focus on understanding how to read and interpret the short story as its own genre. We will also look at the development of the short story and its shifting role in the American literary canon and we will consider the historical and literary contexts that shaped short stories over the last two centuries. Students will read the works of such authors as Alexie, Baldwin, Cheever, Chopin, Ellison, Faulkner, Gilman, Hawthorne, Hemingway, Hurston, Irving, London, Morrison, Oates, O’Connor, Poe, and Wharton. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Literature & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

In this semester-long course, students will explore the rich and complex literary legacy of Asians in the United States. Spanning the mid-nineteenth-century arrival of Chinese railroad laborers to contemporary Asian American involvement in multiracial movements for racial justice, this course will examine the emergence and diversity of Asian American literary traditions over the past century and a half. As we sharpen our literary analysis and research skills through our exploration of both Asian American fiction and nonfiction, we will take up related issues, such as representations of Asian Americans in popular culture and film; the myth of Asian Americans as the “model minority”; Asian Americans and affirmative action; and the intersectionality of Asian Americanness with gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity, and more. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Language & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

This semester-long course studies LGBTQIA+ literature, with a particular focus on how these writers offer us alternative narratives to dominant, heteronormative concepts of gender and sexuality. In addition to introducing students to poets, essayists, playwrights, cartoonists, and novelists from ancient Greece to today, this course will offer students a foundation in queer theory, gender studies, and feminist theory. The intersectionality of gender and sexuality with other identifiers, including race, religion, and socioeconomic status, and the relationship between queer identity and activism will also be central themes. The course will require students to write analytically about our shared texts and to deepen their understanding of our many topics through research. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Language & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

This semester-long course focuses on Black writers’ use of magical realism as a means of surfacing untold histories and deconstructing accepted historical narratives.  Students will read novels from Gloria Naylor and Toni Morrison, short stories from Randall Kenan, and drama from August Wilson. Alongside discussions of race and history, students will examine the formation of gendered space, the generational toll of injustice, and the construction of “the real.”  In response to the class reading, students will hone their analytical writing and research skills. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Literature & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

The South is popularly known as a mythological place steeped in melancholy, nostalgia, exceptionalisms, and oppressive norms in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and sexuality. Yet, throughout literary and cultural history, authors and artists have told counter-narratives that defy the myths and portray a diverse and complex place. In this course, we will examine how the Southern myth and canon came to be, analyze the power those narratives wielded, and complicate what it means to be “southern.” Students will examine southern cultural identity, recognize the diverse cultures, ethnicities, and global influences that have shaped the South.  Students will consider the region in all its complexity through literature and multi-disciplines including film, art, music and popular culture. The syllabus includes canonical texts by authors such as William, Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, Richard Wright, Flannery O’Connor, Zora Neale Hurston, Carson McCullers, Cormac McCarthy, and Alice Walker. In addition, students will read texts by a slate of contemporary writers such as Jesmyn Ward, Tayari Jones, Jericho Brown, Bryan Washington, Sarah Broom, Monique Truong, Kevin Wilson, Edwidge Danticat, Barbara Kingsolver, Robert Gipe, and Lauren Groff. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Literature & Composition and/or AP Language & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

Who is most hurt by environmental degradation and abuse and who benefits? In this course we’ll examine what contemporary world literature has to say about environmental racism, ecofeminism, and toxic colonialism. We will be attentive to such issues as the social construction of nature, globalization, and urban ecological issues. We will ask: What is the role of art in the struggle for social change? Our study will focus on the intersection of environmental issues and various systems of social injustice, especially racism, sexism, and economic inequity. Materials for this course—novels, poems, stories, films, documentaries, art— come from diverse racial and national locations, including South Africa, multicultural U.S., India, China, Iraq, and Guatemala. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Literature & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

Think of Classical Greek Dramas as plays performed by grizzled old men in togas? Think again! Greek Dramas explore the human condition in enduring ways that have laid the foundation for a wide variety of modern productions.  In this course, we will study plays by ancients such as Sophocles, Aristophanes, and Euripides, becoming versed in classic dramatic structure. These plays will be paired with contemporary takes on the “classics,” such as the recent Amazon Studio’s Blow the Man Down, that use the structure, form, and themes of Greek theater to reflect on life in the 20th and 21st centuries. Students will hone their close reading, analytical writing skills, and research skills. They will explore their inner-playwright, creating an adaptation of a section from an ancient work, making relevant to a modern audience. This class requires parental permission due to the mature content of some films. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Literature & Composition and/or AP Language & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

Shakespeare, that seemingly quintessential British author, has long been an inspiration to writers, thinkers, and filmmakers from social and political contexts vastly different from Early Modern England. In this course we will examine the usefulness of some of Shakespeare’s most famous plays to contexts as widely different as the caste politics of Northern India, the feudal dramas of Japan, and the high school romance of Seattle teenagers. We will read both the original plays and watch the adaptations. Texts may include Taming of the Shrew, Othello, Macbeth, Omkara, Throne of Blood, and Ten Things I Hate About You. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Literature & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

New York City has been called “The Big Apple”, “The City That Never Sleeps”, “Gotham”, and even “The Center of the Universe.” How true is Frank Sinatra’s claim that “If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere”? In this semester long course, students will read literature that captures both the idea and the reality of The City through the ages. We will study poetry, short stories, essays, novels, and films written by luminaries such as James Baldwin, Gwendolyn Brooks, Edwidge Danticat, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Washington Irving, E. B. White, Walt Whitman, and Jacqueline Woodson; and, as it’s only appropriate, songs by The Beastie Boys, Billy Holiday, Lou Reed, Jay-Z, and Alicia Keys.  Students will hone their close reading and analytical writing skills and will explore their creative voice, contributing a unique piece that captures their own version of New York. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Literature & Composition and/or AP Language & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

How does literary art get involved in politics? What is the border between propaganda and art? This course explores how characters and people experience, survive, resist, and thrive in spite of adversity and injustice because of a number of factors—culture, race, gender, sexuality, and religion. Students will compare and contrast how people find ways to live, to speak, to act as human beings in the face of adversity and injustice. Sources include a wide variety of genres—short stories, poems, essays, podcasts, film, photographs—and a range of voices. Students will use the primary sources as inspiration and model text to write and create work of multiple genres—such as personal narratives, analytical essays, creative stories, poetry, podcast, and film—to master the power of the pen and rhetorical strategies. Literary texts may include selections from: "The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin; The Fire This Time edited by Jesmyn Ward; Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison; Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde; Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue; Lot by Bryan Washington; There, There by Tommy Orange; Exit West by Mohsin Hamid. Podcasts may include This American Life, The Moth, Code Switch, and Floodlines. In addition, the syllabus will include poetry by Jericho Brown, Traci K. Smith, Joy Harjo, and Elizabeth Acevedo. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Literature & Composition and/or AP Language & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

Laughter is the best medicine; this is often true for society as well as for individuals. Through the ages, starting with the ancient Greeks (if not earlier), humor and satire have been used as a tool to critique and challenge social norms.  By ridiculing ideas, customs, governments, and more, satirists raise essential ethical questions and play an important role in shaping and reshaping morals. In this course we will examine the function, as well as the limitations, of humor and satire. Topics will include the difference between humor and satire, the role of irony, the ways in which identity and identifiers are used by comedians, and the many ethical questions raised–both in positive and negative ways–by humor and satire. Course material will include works from Jonathan Swift in the 1700s to the present-day SNL episodes; readings include novels, essays, letters, speeches, cartoons, and “comic” performances. Students will hone their close reading, analytical writing skills, and research skills. They will become satirists in their own right, creating a satirical essay critiquing an element of contemporary society. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Literature & Composition and/or AP Language & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

In this semester-long course, students will read and study a variety of genres and texts (articles, short stories, poetry, and a novel) written about sports. Students will learn to understand and appreciate the rhetoric of sports writing, while also exploring the common symbolism, allusions, and metaphors that authors use in literature about sports. We will also explore the role sport has played in the mythos of American (and other countries’) values and beliefs and its role in social change, national character, and cultural reflection. Students will read the texts of such writers as Deford, Dryden, Halberstam, Keillor, Lardner, Malamud, Plimpton, Rhoden, Schaap, Thurber, Updike, and various contemporary sportswriters of the 21st century. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Language & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

In this semester-long course, students will study and practice the craft of memoir writing. The course will be both a study of literature and a writing workshop. As students read in a variety of genres—including books, essays, and poetry—they will explore the techniques writers use to discover and reveal their identities through storytelling. Students will be encouraged to take creative risks as they write extensively, experimenting with voice, tone, meaning, and structure. They will also enhance their literary skills by developing their writing fluency and practicing how to give, receive, and implement constructive writing feedback. In conjunction with other seminar courses in the department, this course will help prepare students for the AP Language & Composition exam. (1/2 Credit)

Creative Writing provides an opportunity for working creatively on several planes: in word play, genre experimentation, and the cultivation of writerly habits and sensibilities. Students are invited to test the limits of the relationship between word and idea, form and pure content. In tandem with reflective study of important pieces by literary masters and new voices alike, students will develop their own craft through projects in fiction, nonfiction, and a range of poetic forms, including spoken word. Class time is largely dedicated to workshopping. (1/2 unit; Grade 10, 11, 12)

Creative Writing 2 builds on students' fundamental understanding of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Structured in terms of advanced technique and approaches to process, the course seeks to deepen students' craft across the genres. It also offers exposure to humor writing (parody and satire) and screenwriting and, to stimulate further experimentation with the versatility of language, opportunities to collaborate on interdisciplinary projects with peers in the concurrent visual arts and filmmaking electives. Class time is largely devoted to creating, workshopping, and revising. (1/2 unit; Grade 10, 11, 12)

Expository Writing is a semester course whose purpose is to bolster specific writing skills that are important for an individual’s success – not only in academics, but also in the world at large. Students review the basic “building blocks” of sentence, paragraph, and essay construction, with an eye towards both form and style. Class time is spent studying model essays, practicing composition, and engaging in peer review, and students ultimately build a portfolio of work from which they select pieces for formal assessment. In addition to sharing their work with an audience of their peers in class, students are encouraged to submit to a range of publications, from RCDS’s Crop to local and national newspapers and magazines. This is a non-homework bearing course. (1/2 unit; Grades 9, 10, 11, 12)

Journalism is a semester course that is offered to all students in the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. More than simply writing for a publication, students will learn a combination of highly developed skills in a number of areas: brainstorming, establishing contacts, interviewing, writing, and editing. Each student will have his/her own beat to cover and will submit multiple articles during each cycle; these articles will serve as the central form of assessment. Also, student submissions may be published in Crop, the RCDS online student newspaper. Daily reading of news is a requirement, as is the use of a stylebook and a journalism text. (1/2 unit; Grades 9, 10, 11, 12)

Broadcast journalism is a semester course that is offered to all students in the 9^th, 10^th, 11^th, and 12^th grades, who will help to create the Upper School news broadcast, Wildcat World. ~Students in all grade levels can sign up to learn all aspects of broadcast production, including how to pitch story ideas, conduct interviews, and edit their news stories. In addition to learning journalism skills, such as crafting interesting and informative stories and conducting professional interviews, students will learn filmmaking techniques, in order to turn out quality content in a short amount of time. (1/2 unit; Grades 9, 10, 11, 12)