English

English I (High Honors)

This rigorous freshman course seeks to further develop a strong foundation for the kinds of personal and academic writing students will be required to do throughout their high school and college careers.  The curriculum will focus on how authors use language to explore ideas, develop characters, and tell stories. Writing assignments will challenge students to see themselves as writers as they develop strong personal and academic voices. Students will fashion narratives, analyze complex texts, and synthesize sources. Students will read a variety of classic and contemporary nonfiction, short stories, novels, drama, and poetry. Assignments will guide students through all stages of the writing process and require them to write and revise over time.

English 1 (Honors, College Prep 1, College Prep 2)

The freshman curriculum seeks to establish a strong foundation for the kinds of personal and academic writing students will be required to do throughout their high school career.  The curriculum will focus on how authors use language to explore ideas, develop characters, and tell stories.  Writing assignments will challenge students to see themselves as writers as they develop a strong personal voice through reflective, narrative, and expository writing. Students will read a variety of nonfiction, short stories, novels, drama, and poetry. Students will strengthen their writing skills on the sentence level and be expected to master paragraph and short essay writing. Assignments will guide students through all stages of the writing process and require them to write and revise over time. 

English II American Literature (All Levels)

This course is an examination of American Literature from Native American legends to modern times. A wide selection of American texts will be read and studied closely to provide an understanding of the qualities that make American literature… well, American! Students will also complete narrative, informational, analytical, and persuasive writing assignments to develop and demonstrate their thoughts on American literature. Vocabulary, critical reading skills, and grammar will also be incorporated. In conjunction with American history, students will compose an in-depth research paper using MLA citations and a works cited page.

IB English III & IV (All Levels with Prior Approval)

The literature course aims at exploring the various manifestations of literature as a particularly powerful mode of writing across cultures and throughout history. The course aims at developing an understanding of factors that contribute to the production and reception of literature—the creativity of writers and readers, the nature of their interaction with their respective contexts and with literary tradition, the ways in which language can give rise to meaning and/or effect, and the performative and transformative potential of literary creation and response. 

English III – World Literature (All Levels & SHU ECE for Honors)

This course is a dynamic, inquiry-based exploration of global literature and the multifaceted concept of culture. Through a diverse range of texts from around the world—including novels, epic poems, graphic novels, essays, and speeches—students will investigate how different cultures perceive their place in the world. The course is designed to foster critical thinking about students' own participation in generational, ethnic, national, religious, and world cultures. By reading critically across multiple forms of literacy and composing in a variety of modalities, students will develop a greater self-awareness of their own cultural identity and a capacity to inhabit and respect perspectives beyond their own.

English IV – Humanities (High Honors)

This course is a broad-based study of Western Civilization through a variety of poetry, prose, drama, philosophy, visual arts, architecture, music and dance. Emphasis is placed on some of the early notions and classical contributions in these areas which form the foundations of Western civilization. Units of study include storytelling, mythology and the origins of the species, the ancient world, the Anglo-Saxon world and the Celtic legacy, the influence of the Church and the cultures of the European Middle Ages, Baroque world and Renaissance. These seminal periods and developments inform the historical background for some of the significant thought, aesthetics and revolution of the 20th- and 21st-centuries.

Readings include a wide selection from our texts and many outside readings provided as handouts. What does it mean to be human? Whatever we are reading, discussing or pondering, this question serves as the fundamental touchstone.

English IV - Honors (Seminar in Academic Writing UCONN ECE)

Honors English 4 (Seminar in Academic Writing) seeks to prepare students for college-level reading, writing, and discussion through an exploration of identity.  The acts of writing and reading create spaces for us to consider how identity is constructed and revealed. This is one of the reasons why writing can be so compelling. Childhood experiences, internal conflicts that arise in adolescence and continue through life, choices that we make that signal who we are, and the developing relationship between the individual and society all make for compelling reading and occasions for writing.  As we explore how authors use the language to explore identity through prose, poetry, and drama, students will use the writing process to examine and respond to their texts. Students will write regularly, keep a writing journal, develop a writing portfolio, and produce at least thirty pages of revised writing.. These writing assignments will cover a variety of purposes, including memoir, argument, analysis, research, and reader-response.

Some students may take this as a UConn Early College Experience class for college credit.

English IV (College Prep)

English 4 will explore the theme of identity and employ close reading and rhetorical analysis to engage student writers.   As students explore how authors use language to explore identity through prose, poetry, and drama, they will use the writing process to examine and respond to their texts. Students will write regularly, keep a writing journal, work on all elements of the writing process as they prepare for college-level writing. These writing assignments will cover a variety of purposes, including memoir, argument, analysis, research, and reader-response. 

AP Literature and Composition (High Honors)

This full-year course is designed to be a college-level introduction to the close reading and critical analysis of a wide range of literary works. Students will develop their ability to read carefully and deeply, analyzing how an author's choices in language, structure, and style create meaning and effect. We'll explore various genres, including poetry, prose, and drama, from different periods and cultures. The course emphasizes the close reading of texts, encouraging students to form their own interpretations based on textual evidence.

AP English Language and Composition (Online)

Students will investigate topics such as understanding the rhetorical situation, writing strategically, developing an argument, writing with purpose, creating cohesion, acknowledging viewpoints, and adding sophistication and style. Throughout the course, students will spiral through the four big ideas, deepening their understanding of how individuals write within rhetorical situations and make strategic writing choices based on that situation. Specific topics include the rhetorical situation, claims, evidence, qualification, organization, lines of reasoning, methods of development, style, word choice, comparisons, syntax, grammar, and mechanics.

AP Seminar (Online)

AP® Seminar is an Advanced Placement course that focuses on skills, such as research and collaboration, that are used in all academic disciplines. AP® Seminar is a foundational Advanced Placement® course that engages students in academic and real-world topics. Students will write research-based essays, deliver dynamic presentations, and study a variety of topics and subject-areas. Using an inquiry framework, students practice reading and analyzing articles, research studies, and foundational literary and philosophical texts; listening to and viewing speeches, broadcasts, and personal accounts. Students learn to synthesize information from multiple sources, develop their own perspectives in research-based written essays, and design and deliver oral and visual presentations, both individually and as part of a team. Ultimately, the course aims to equip students with the power to analyze and evaluate information with accuracy and precision in order to craft and communicate evidence-based arguments.

Advanced Placement Exams & International Baccalaureate Assessments

Advanced Placement Exams are offered to students who complete the AP Literature classes. IB Assessments are required for students who take the IB Literature classes.