Upper School English Electives

Juniors and seniors may choose one of the following electives which will be taken in addition to, not instead of, the required English course.

Creative Writing Two Identical Semesters
Grades 11-12

In this one semester course offered twice during the year, students will read poems and short stories to be guided in writing their own. Poetry will be the initial focus to make students sensitive to what all good literary writing requires-vivid and precise detail purposefully selected and arranged. After emulating some masters and experimenting in formal verse and freer forms, students clarify and deepen their visions by revising their work. Later, focus will be on the whole task of creating meaningful short fiction, dramatizing characters' conflicts in well-crafted scenes, experimenting in narrative points of view, and fine-tuning language in arduous revisions. Readings will include Mary Oliver's A Poetry Handbook, several poems by writers including William Butler Yeats, Elizabeth Bishop, and Langston Hughes, as well as short stories by authors including Anton Chekov, Katherine Anne Porter, and Raymond Carver. No experience is required, and the class culminates with a final project rather than with a final exam.
Enrollment is limited to 15 students who must sign up with the instructor.

Shakespeare Two Independent Semesters
Grades 11-12

Two independent semesters — Grades 11 and 12
The only prerequisite for this class is curiosity about William Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s contemporary Ben Jonson wrote that Shakespeare was “not of an age, but for all time.” This class will explore the ways in which Shakespeare was both “of his age” as a working actor and writer and “for all time” as the cultural icon he has become. The basis of the course is a close reading of selected plays that mark major developments in the evolution of Shakespeare’s art. The class also examines the contemporary forces that shaped the plays’ form, thought, and language. Writing assignments and projects focus on texts as thought-in-action and on the relationship of language to action. The course is conceived in a two-year cycle: the readings do not duplicate plays previously read at other grade levels, and within each two-year cycle, no play is repeated, so students in their junior and senior years may take more than one semester of Shakespeare, if they so desire. At least one film and excerpts from an audio version of each play are studied in connection with the text.
Prerequisite: Permission of the instructor.
Enrollment is limited to one section each semester.