1 semester
open to 10, 11, 12
range of difficulty 1-3
Shakespeare is arguably the greatest author to use the English language. The course is intended to present students with some of the major plays and to help them understand the author's use of language and his presentation of ideas. "Why should we read Shakespeare?" is a question students should be able to answer for themselves, in some way, by the end of the course.
The emphasis on the plays as drama is central. A goal of the course is to discuss and illuminate dramatic issues--structure, dialogue, staging--and to present critical methods for understanding those issues.
In connection with the overall curriculum, in addition to the reading and analytical skills suggested earlier, the course provides intensive study of an individual author who is very important in the cultural heritage of the West and an author whose works illustrate most effectively some of the central conflicts in society.
--Structure of drama.
--Psychological issues: characters' relationships, motivations, changes.
--Use of language and force of language.
--Philosophical issues: political, religious, metaphysical.
Kinds of thinking and kinds of questions asked:
One basic method is close reading of the text. Because the language is, in some ways, unfamiliar and because the poetry is among the richest ever written, students benefit from careful and intensive study--from close examination of uses of language and vocabulary , of complexity of structure, of originality of metaphor.
In addition, class is used to examine the dramatic dimensions of the plays. A central idea to remember when reading or writing about these works is that they are plays, scripts, originally intended for performance. As students read them, they are asked to think of themselves as actors or directors, to picture what is happening on stage. The discussion and some of the assignments require consideration of the following questions: Where are the characters on stage? What are they doing before, as, or after they speak? Where have they just come from? What do they think of the other characters on stage with them and how do they show those feelings? What kinds of stage directions are necessary? What kinds of scenery or props are necessary? When and where does the action take place? What are the characters doing when other characters are speaking? What tone of voice do the characters use?
The plays are vital works to be read, interpreted, and experimented with, and students have a long history of such dramatic treatment on which they can draw.
Also, students should consider what kinds of moral and ethical choices the characters make. What issues of good and evil are presented? What conclusions, if any, can one draw about the nature of human beings in the world from the plays?
Reading
Students are expected to read 4-5 plays in the course. They have rather short nightly reading assignments which they are required to do before the material is examined in class. More than one reading is necessary with such complex language and structure and for the kinds of analysis--dramatic and literary--students are asked to perform.
Writing
Students have a paper on each play and may have other shorter papers, as well. They should also expect frequent quizzes and some in-class essays. There are some informal writing exercises that are usually ungraded and some group writing work.
Speaking and Listening
Students are not necessarily required to "perform" in any formal, dramatic sense. They are expected to ask and respond to questions in class discussion. They should thereby learn something about how questions are formulated. They are also expected to participate in smaller group discussions in class and in group projects.
Students are given background information about Shakespeare, his theater, and his time. They need to bring books to class every day and to pay close attention to the kinds of analysis done and to questions asked. This should serve as a model for later work in the course and for work in Shakespeare II, when less specific analysis is done in class and thus they may be required to be more independent in their analytical work.
Other
There may be some comparative study of video tapes of scenes from several productions of the plays.
Students have conferences with teachers in the process of writing papers.
There is vocabulary study in the very nature of the course.
Hamlet
Macbeth
Othello
Merchant of Venice
Midsummer Night's Dream
As You Like It
Twelfth Night
The reading consists of the first three plays and one or two selected from the other titles. Some students may be required to read secondary source material for papers or projects.
If Shakespeare in Production (see syllabus for Drama in Production) is offered, an effort is made for the other Shakespeare classes to read the play that is being produced. Students are also encouraged to attend any other area productions of Shakespeare's plays.
Other materials: video tapes, filmstrips, films.
There is seemingly endless material on Shakespeare. This is a partial list of some works helpful in teaching.
Shakespeare, Our Contemporary, Jan Kott
The Bottom Translations, Jan Kott
The Theater of Essence, Jan Kott
The Actor's Freedom, Goldman
Shakespearean Tragedy, Bradley
Prefaces to Shakespeare, Granville-Barker
The Shakespearean Revolution, Styan
Representing Shakespeare, ed. Schwatz and Kahn
The Empty Space, Brook
The Shifting Point, Brook
Shakespeare's Bawdy, Partridge
William Shakespeare: A Documentary Life , Schoenbaum
Shakespeare's Holinshed, ed. Hosley
Shakespeare at Work, G.B. Harrison
Shakespeare and the Problem of Meaning, Rabkin
Shakespeare and the Nature of Women, Dusinberre
Shakespeare and the Rival Traditions, Harbage
The Ethic of Time, Sypher
Renaissance Refashioning, Greenblatt
Paper assignments on Hamlet--choose one. Three to four pages--1000 to 1200 words.
1. Describe how you would stage a scene from the play. You may choose any scene or part of a scene; but be sure to consider costumes, props, significant action, and the effect you are trying to create about the characters and the action of the scene. Remember to be conscious of the kind of detail that a director or an actor might use to create an effect and a mood. Consult the course syllabus for specific questions to be considered.
2. Write another scene for the play. You may write one of the scenes that is mentioned but that we do not see--Hamlet in Ophelia's closet, Ophelia at the brook, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern with Hamlet on the high seas, for example. Or, you may choose to add a scene between Claudius and Gertrude before the beginning of the play, the murder of Old Hamlet, a scene between Hamlet and Horatio, Hamlet and the pirates, etc.
3. Write an entry in the journal of Horatio several weeks or months after the end of the play. What might he say about what has happened, about Fortinbras, about his role in what has occurred?
4. It has been said that Hamlet changes too much as a character from the time he leaves in Act IV to the time he returns at the beginning of Act V, and that that change gets in the way of the effect of the play. Agree or disagree, discussing Hamlet's personality up to Act V, in Act V, and what you think is the impact of the character at the end of the play.
5. Many critics have suggested that the popularity of the play is based on the fact that all readers and audiences can identify with the character. Do you agree? Why or why not? What elements of the story, if any, do you identify with? Or, why do you think that you cannot identify with him at all?
6. What question or topic would you like to write about? If you have an idea, check it with your teacher and then go ahead.
one semester
open to 10, 11, 12
pre-requisite Shakespeare I or Shakespeare in Production
range of difficulty 1-3
This course is offered as a companion to Shakespeare I for students who want to continue their reading of Shakespeare. The plays chosen are related stylistically and thematically to those in Shakespeare I, and discussion will build on the background offered in that course.
This course focuses on the literary and dramatic issues suggested in the Shakespeare I syllabus and on several additional ideas. Students in Shakespeare II study a history play, and, therefore, some discussion is done of the Wars of the Roses in particular and the issue of political power in general. In relation of Antony and Cleopatra, students look at some aspects of Roman history and excerpts from Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Romans.
Students may be asked to read some Shakespearean criticism in connection with discussion and written analysis of the plays in the course.
Students perform close reading of the text during class. Dramatic considerations are stressed as outlined in the Shakespeare I syllabus. Students also continue to develop a critical vocabulary for discussion of poetry, dramatic poetry, and literature in an historical context.
Reading
Students are expected to read 4-5 plays in the course. They read the plays on their own and there is textual analysis in class. Plays are examined in less detail in class than in Shakespeare I, as students are expected to be more independent in their reading. They will also have supplementary material to read.
Writing
Students will have a paper on each play and may have additional shorter writing assignments on each play. They should also expect quizzes and non-graded writing exercises. They may have a final writing project involving some supplementary reading.
Speaking and Listening
See Shakespeare I syllabus.
Other
Students will see tapes of productions or parts of productions. They will be expected to confer with teachers about their assignments.
King Lear
Antony and Cleopatra
Henry IV, I
Richard III
The Tempest
Julius Caesar
Titus Andronicus
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
The four or five plays will consist of the first three titles and others chosen from the remaining titles.
See Shakespeare I bibliography.
Shakespearean Negotiations, Greenblatt
Lives of the Noble Romans, Plutarch
Women in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Rose
Still Harping on Daughters, Jardine
The Stranger in Shakespeare, Feidler
Paper topics: Antony and Cleopatra
Your paper should be about four pages (1200 words). Choose one of the following topics or make up you own. If you use your own topic, see the teacher before you start writing.
1. It has been said that Antony Cleopatra is a play without villains. Do you agree that there are no villains? If so, what provides the conflict? If you see villains in the play, who are they and why are they villains?
2. Shakespeare has many great warriors in his plays. Compare Antony as a hero to one of the other warrior heroes--Othello or Macbeth.
3. Consider the personality of Cleopatra in the play and particularly her behavior and attitudes in the last act. How has she changed, if at all, from the Cleopatra of the first acts? What is your impression of her at the end of the play?
4. Write a journal entry by either Octavius or Octavia after the end of the play. Consider what conclusions and opinions he or she would have about events, personalities, outcome, and what his or her state of mind would be about what has happened.
5. Discuss possible staging of scene or part of a scene from the play. (You may wish to "produce" this as a film. If so, discuss design and special effects.) Remember, you will describe stage directions, props, general effect of the scene on the audience.
6. It has been said that the play is not really a tragedy--does not have a tragic conclusion--because the characters welcome their deaths. Do you agree? Why or why not? Look particularly at the death scenes of each person and consider how each views his or her death and what meaning each sees in events.
Full-year course
open to 10, 11, 12
range of difficulty 4-5
Students for whom this course is designed are upperclassmen who are not yet able to learn well in an ordinary classroom situation. Typically, they have poor academic records, low academic expectations for themselves, a history of attendance problems and a pattern of non-performance in class and on homework. They usually demonstrate some of these characteristics: poor reading and writing skills, under-developed classroom skills, short attention spans, little interest in literature or the abstract, poor memory and recall, and difficulty drawing generalizations or inferences.
In order to accommodate these learning difficulties, this course is computer based. The computer is used for all writing, as a notebook for literature study, to create a time line, as a glossary of literary terms, as a sample of narrative forms and as a model for expository and creative writing. Students record their ideas and class discussions, take notes on authors, outline their readings and keep a journal of their thoughts, reactions and activities.
These students perform best in small classes which are carefully structured, follow a familiar pattern, foster immediate teacher feedback and force them to be engaged. They are most comfortable and successful approaching literature through interesting people and the conflicts they face, especially when these can be related to their lives and times. They enjoy leaning about actual events and people's reactions to them. For this reason, the interdisciplinary approach to some of the topics, such as the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression are more meaningful because of the involvement of history and science teachers and the librarian. The computer is also a research tool for them and often makes the initial steps of research and the gathering of information more accessible.
Conflicts in decision making
The impact of natural disasters on people
Man against nature
Conflict between generations and social groups
Testing one's own limits
Seeking the new frontier
Reactions to fear
Much of the reading, writing, and viewing is begun as a whole group activity in which everyone participates. For example, before reading a piece of literature, there is a discussion in which students clarify situations, events, or terms vital to understanding what they are reading or viewing. Feelings and circumstances they have experienced which are analogous to those in the literature are explored. Much oral reading is done in class by the students, and vocabulary is developed from this base. After they are involved in the work and understand the mood, characters, setting, and other relevant ideas, then they proceed independently. Generally, reading assignments are previewed or guide questions are provided.
Students are asked to respond and react to the literature studied in class. Sometimes they trace plot, analyze personalities, discuss the theme, or relate a personal experience relevant to a character, incident or conflict they are reading about. They compare and contrast, trace development and show cause and effect relationships. They role play, create their own questions, write original endings to replace the author's, or make up characters, scenes or whole stories and situations.
Reading: oral and silent reading in class. Short readings will be assigned for homework. In the second, third and fourth terms students will be responsible for reading one book or doing research on one topic outside of class.
Writing: frequent short writing will be assigned, at least one piece per week and/or per activity. There will be both expository and creative writing, and students may suggest their own topics sometimes. Since students do their writing on word processors, after a particular assignment is discussed and the components analyzed and noted in their documents, they begin work in class. The teacher is a part of the process, monitoring, refocusing with a question or suggestion, answering questions, helping to search notes for information or substantiation. Since their accounts are networked, writing not completed during class time is done as homework. There is frequent brainstorming and other prewriting activities as well as much sharing of ideas and methods of development.
Listening and Speaking: learning to discuss and contribute in class is a major objective. There is considerable discussion each day which ranges from simple factual exchanges and opinions to more complicated responses about reactions to other people's ideas and views.
Library Skills: in the second terms and thereafter, students will be expected to learn to use the library as a resource. The skills will be taught and practiced during class periods with the assistance of the librarians.
Selections include:
Short stories by 20th century American authors
American poems, expecially 20th century poets
Novels such as:
Ethan Frome
The Great Gatsby
The Grapes of Wrath
Of Mice and Men
Films such as:
O! Pioneers
Oklahoma
The Great Gatsby
The Grapes of Wrath
A Soldiers' Story
Biloxi Blues
Films and video sometimes provide an opportunity for comparison and contrast, such as the film of The Great Gatsby. Other times, they will be the focus for a unit. We will use much of the American Experience series to work on the idea of image, character, and spectacle in American society.
After viewing and discussing the television special from The American Experience series on the San Francisco earthquake and fire, students were asked to:
1.. Pretend that you have survived the earthquake and fire. Write a letter to a member of your family. Tell him or her that you have survived. Describe some of the things that happened to you. Ask for some specific help and discuss your future plans.
2. Pretend that you are a reporter for a New York City newspaper. You have been assigned to write an article describing what happened, telling how people are managing to live. Also, explain the effects of the earthquake.
In this writing assignment, students were asked to imitate a theme in either Faulkner's "The Tall Men" or Dorothy Parker's "The Waltz."
1. Identify a situation in which you made a quick judgment which you later realized was wrong and had to revise or change. Explain the reasons you made the original judgment, the factors which showed you that it was incorrect, and then tell your reasons and the consequences of changing your mind.
2. Make up a story in which you find yourself behaving like Dorothy Parker's protagonist in "The Waltz." Use dialogue as she did to express what you or your character says and then what is actually being thought.
Full year course
Open to 10, 11, 12
Range of difficulty 1-3
American Literature provides students with an introduction to and overview of the literature of the United States. There are many possible approaches to the study of American Literature. A teacher may choose a chronological approach starting with Native American and pre-Colonial literature and move through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Or, a teacher may choose texts from different periods using a single theme or set of themes as a common thread. Grouping American Literature by genre is yet another possible approach. While approaches may vary, the course covers works primarily from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; however, there may also be titles from the Native American traditions and the pre-Colonial and Colonial eras. Some core questions for the course are: What does American Literature have to say about the American promises of freedom, equality and independence? What makes “American Literature” American? What distinguishes American Literature from World Literature? Are there transcendent themes in American Literature?
• Democratic Principles: Freedom, Equality, Independence
• The dialectic between American History and American Literature
• Canonical vs. Non-Canonical Works and Who Decides
• The American Dream
• Class and Materialism
• The Individual in Society
• Religion in America
• War and Peace
• Race
• Gender
• Insider vs. Outsider
• American Aesthetics
• Satire
• Family
• Relationships
The primary methods are close critical reading, discussion, brief lectures, formal essays, journaling, and informal “writing to learn” exercises. Connections are made between works, historical contexts and themes.
In addition to the department-wide expectations, students are expected to be capable readers and good writers. Students are expected to come to class prepared with observations, thoughts and questions on the nightly reading. In class, students are expected to participate regularly and to listen carefully to one another. Later in the course, students are expected to draw conclusions, make intertextual connections between, and generalizations from the reading.
Reading: Students have nightly reading that varies with the difficulty level of each text: The Sound and the Fury, 20 pages; One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, 30-35 pages, for example.
Writing: Students have regular formal and informal writing assignments. 4-6 formal essays in the course, plus reading journals, in-class “writing to learn” exercises, and activator questions to stimulate discussion. Students are expected to keep notes on the reading, lectures and class discussions.
Exams: There is a semester examination in January and in June.
Novels/Novellas:
Billy Budd
The Scarlet Letter
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Awakening
The Yellow Wallpaper
Ethan Frome
The House of Mirth
The Great Gatsby
Their Eyes Were Watching God
A Farewell to Arms
The Sun Also Rises
The Sound and the Fury
As I Lay Dying
Light in August
Go Down Moses
The Grapes of Wrath
Invisible Man
Native Son
Catch-22
Slaughterhouse-Five
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
A River Runs Through It
The Color Purple
Song of Solomon
A Prayer for Owen Meany
The Things They Carried
Fool’s Crow
Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
Caucasia
Short Stories:
There are many stories taught. The following are the most commonly taught:
“Rip van Winkle”
“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
“The Tell-Tale Heart”
“Bartleby the Scrivener”
“Young Goodman Brown”
“The Minister’s Black Veil”
“Rappacini’s Daughter”
“The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calavaras County”
“Gift of the Magi”
Short Stories and In Our Time (Hemingway)
The Collected Stories (Flannery O’Connor)
“A Rose for Emily”
“Barn Burning”
“Sonny’s Blues”
“Hunger”
“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”
"Sweat"
"The Gilded Six-Bits"
"The Man Who Killed a Shadow"
"The Man Who Was Almost a Man"
"The Story of an Hour"
"Desiree's Baby"
Sun Songs
Plays:
Long Day’s Journey Into Night
A Streetcar Named Desire
The Crucible
Death of a Salesman
Poets:
There are many poems taught. The following are the most commonly taught poets and/or titles:
Anne Bradstreet
Phyllis Wheatley
Emily Dickinson
Leaves of Grass and Civil War Poetry, Walt Whitman
T.S. Eliot
Robert Frost
e e cummings
Alan Ginsburg
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
William Carlos Williams
Elizabeth Bishop
Maya Angelou
Theodore Roethke
Wallace Stevens
Robert Hayden
Non Fiction:
“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”, Jonathan Edwards
“The American Scholar” and “The Divinity School Address”, Ralph Waldo Emerson
Narrative of the Life of an American Slave, Frederick Douglass
“Civil Disobedience”, “Slavery in Massachusetts” and Walden, Henry David Thoreau
Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, William Faulkner
“Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, Martin Luther King, Jr.
Films:
On the Waterfront, A Streetcar Named Desire, A River Runs Through It, Wag the Dog, Smoke Signals, Ken Burns’ Mark Twain, Faulkner: A Life on Paper, Death of a Salesman, The Color Purple, The Crucible, The Scarlet Letter, The Shawshank Redemption, It’s A Wonderful Life, The Sting, Glory
General Texts Available: American Short Stories, The Mentor Book of American Poetry, The Norton Anthology of Poetry
Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain, Kaplan
Walt Whitman’s America, Reynolds
Faulkner: A Biography, Blotner
The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor, O’Connor (ed. Fitzgerald and Fitzgerald)
God and the American Writer, Kazin
No Place of Grace, Lears
The Great Circle, Yu
The Cycle of American Literature, Spiller
The American Novel and Its Tradition, Chase
Part of Nature, Part of Us, Vendler
Contemporary American Writing, Hoffman
The Book of Concord, Howarth
The Flowering of New England, Brooks
The American Transcendentalists, Miller
The American Renaissance, Matthiessen
Literary Democracy, Ziff
Silences, Olsen
The Portable Faulkner, Cowley
1. In the opening lines of Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck alludes to the “boy book” Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Do you think Huck Finn is also a “kid’s book”? Why or why not?
2. In Arthur Miller's play, "The Crucible," many people - men and women - are accused of witchcraft and are rounded up by the constables. Here, ever-so-briefly, is the situation: confess to being a witch, and you will be whipped, imprisoned, punished ...... but not killed. Do not confess, and it will be assumed that you are, indeed, a witch and you will be killed. If you “turn in” other witches, you will be dealt with less harshly. What a choice.
Your assignment is to write an essay addressing this question:
John Proctor’s Decision - What Would I Have Done ?
In at least 5 paragraphs, please discuss the factors that went into John Proctor’s final decision at the very end of the story. Then talk about what you would have done, and why, if you were faced with the same factors during the same time period.
3. In a multi-paragraph response answer the following question: Is One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest McMurphy’s story or Chief Bromden’s story?
4. Using As I Lay Dying as your model, write a Faulknerian narrative or series of narratives describing an L-S class, event or moment.
2 one-semester courses (students may select one or both semesters in the same or different years)
Open to 10, 11, 12
Range of difficulty 1-3
This course provides students with an overview of British literature with an opportunity to follow the chronology and relationship of literature and life. Students examine the pattern of attitudes, philosophies, and literary forms that emerge, develop, dominate, change and then fade as a reaction to them begins the process anew. Students develop a sense of time, and recognize literature as an expression of the issues, needs and aspirations of society. Students begin to examine the place of British literature in the Western tradition. Early British Literature includes selections from the Anglo-Saxon period through the mid-18th century. Modern British LIterature begins with works from the romantic period (late 18th century) to the present.
Genre development--evolution of forms in the plays, poems and fictions.
Cultural context--how do themes, characters, images reflect the questions and assumptions of an era?
Comparison of these eras with our contemporary vision.
Students are asked to read carefully, question and analyze selections for meaning, form, style, language, and stage of development. Some historical background will be presented in discussion or lecture format or will be the subject of individual outside reading. Class discussion about the literature and writing to interpret, explain, react or imitate the readings will be the primary method of instruction. Films, videos, speakers, student oral presentations and individual reading and research projects will also be used.
Students may be asked to compare or contrast writers’ works, to trace the development of an idea, theme or form, to relate an idea to an historical period, a literary philosophy, a painting or a piece of music. They will be expected to note relationships among the readings and eras studied and to develop a sense of change, progression, and continuity.
Reading: assignments will be lengthy; much of the literature is poetry; some of the earlier pieces will be more difficult because of structural differences in the language or unfamiliar vocabulary; some critical and historical materials will be read.
Writing: there will be frequent critical and analytical essays, at least one major paper for each literary work; opportunities to do creative writing are provided for most units and may take the form of pieces imitating an author’s work, a style, or a form; students are encouraged to design their own writing assignments.
Listening/Speaking: class discussion, oral presentations, speakers, films and lectures all provide opportunities for students to speak and listen, and they are expected to participate on a daily basis.
During the second, third, and fourth terms each students will undertake an individual project involving reading some literature on his or her own, researching critical, historical or biographical information by using the library, then organizing the results of the project for both an oral and a written presentation.
Early British Literature
Anglo-Saxon through Elizabethan
Everyman
Beowulf*
Grendel--Gardner
“The Dream of the Rood”
Ballads*
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Murder in the Cathedral--Eliot
Canterbury Tales--Chaucer*
Stories of King Arthur*
The King--Barthelme
Dr. Faustus--Marlowe
Becket--Anouilh
Richard II
Richard III--Shakespeare
The Tempest
Henry V
Elizabethan sonnets*
Cavalier poetry
Metaphysical poetry
The Eighteenth Century
poems--Blake*
poems--Milton*
Tom Jones (film)
Moll Flanders--Defoe
“The Rape of the Lock”--Pope
Pride and Prejudice--Austen
Modern British Literature
The Nineteenth Century
Romantic poetry--Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats*
Wuthering Heights--E. Bronte*
Jane Eyre - C. Bronte
David Copperfield
Hard Times --Dickens*
Jude the Obscure
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
The Mayor of Casterbridge*--Hardy
Silas Marner
Adam Bede--George Eliot
poems--Hopkins
Sonnets from the Portuguese--E. B. Browning
poems--Robert Browning*
poems--Tennyson
stories--Kipling
The Importance of Being Ernest--Wilde
The Twentieth Century
Room with a View
Passage to India--E.M. Forster
Heart of Darkness
The Secret Agent--Conrad
stories--D.H. Lawrence
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes--Doyle
stories and novels-- Christie
“The Fall of Edward Barnard”--Maugham
The Power and the Glory
stories--Greene*
The End of the Affair
A Room of One’s Own
Mrs. Dalloway--Woolf
plays--Shaw
Look Back in Anger--Osborne
Room at the Top--O’Hara
Lucky Jim--Amis
The Loved One--Waugh
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie--Spark
Mrs. Caliban--Ingalls
The Birthday Party--Pinter
The Queen and I--Townsend
poems--Spender, Auden
World War I poets
Hope and Glory (film)
The Remains of the Day - Ishiguro
Arcadia - Tom Stoppard
On the Shore of the Wide World - Simon Stephen
stories--Wm. Trevor*
Into the West (film)
The following general collections will be used: British Short Stories, The Norton Anthology of Poetry
Teachers will do at least two works from each period and works and authors with asterisks will get wide use throughout all sections or the course.
Yeats the Man and the Masks, Ellmann
Fearful Symmetry, Frye
English Romantic Poets, Abrams (ed.)
From Classic to Romantic, Bate
The Elizabethan World Picture, Tillyard
The Mirror and the Lamp, Abrams
1. Create a character who might have accompanied Chaucer's pilgrims on their journey to Canterbury. Describe her or him as Chaucer would have done in his Prologue; then have your pilgrim tell a tale in one of the forms that Chaucer used.
2. Respond to the following statement by substantiating or challenging it, using specific examples and references from The Canterbury Tales as proof:
"It could be said that tricks, trysts and irony create the major conflicts in The Canterbury Tales."
3. Tell a romance or your own making, modeled after the Wife of Bath's Tale. There must be magic, riddles, an offense, an ordeal, a new knowledge or reality in its resolution.
4. Think of "radical" as favoring fundamental change. What radical implications do you find at the root of William Blake's Proverbs of Hell and "Auguries of Innocence"? You must use particular passages that demonstrate these radical notions.
One semester course
Open to 10, 11, 12
Range of difficulty 2-4
1.American Voices may focus on literary works from any of the following cultures: African American, Latin 1. 1. American, Canadian, immigrant, women's literature, and Native American. The goal of this course is to deepen the students' understanding of the various cultures in the Western Hemisphere through a variety of genres.
--seeing the Western Hemisphere as a whole, as a spectrum of cultures, peoples, and ecologies
--examining the heroes and villains engendered here, the choices that confront them, their aspirations and fears
--hearing how voice is established in poetry, drama, and fiction, using word, ime, tone, and rhythm
--hearing how students construct their voices using these same tools each time they speak or write; hearing their own voice as poetic
--recognizing the spirit of place established by terrain, weather, season, architecture, light, and history
--asking, "Is reality fabulous?" when exploring the possibilities of "magic realism" in Latin American fiction and poetry
--comparing the place of poets in Latin and North American cultures
The following list represents several methods that may be used to expose students to various aspects of the different cultures studied as well as to help students find their own voice:
--short stories, novels, plays, poems, etc.
--art
--music
--foods
--individual projects and presentations
--group discussion
--films
--reading aloud in class
--guest speakers who might be immigrants, or Latin American, Native American, Canadian, African American, etc.
Writing will be done both in and out of class. Types of writing assignments will include: journal entries, short reaction pieces, informal papers, mini-research papers, creative pieces, and analytical papers.
Reading assignments will vary on a nightly basis, depending primarily upon the work being studied. approximately 20 pages a night will be assigned when short stories and novels are being studied; less when poetry is being studied. Some assignments will be read in class by the instructor and students.
Students may also be asked to do group projects and presentations. They will be expected to do some research on various topics that deal with the culture, history, and other facts about the people and countries being studied. Students will be expected to present their work in a coherent, intelligent, and entertaining manner.
We expect students to enter into the reading of the literature of various cultures enthusiastically and with open minds. We also expect students to challenge their own assumptions. Reading and writing assignments and other projects will facilitate this process.
Eight Men
No No Boy
The Women of Brewster Place
Bright Lights, Big City
Dutchman and the Slave
Eye of the Heart (collection)
View from the Bridge
Dharma Bums
Sula
The American Experience in Literature
Black Voices
Imagining America
New Worlds of Literature
Crossing the River
The Bluest Eye
Krik? Krak!
Rule of the Bone
The Laramie Project
Sleepers
The Color of Water
Maus I and II
To Kill a Mockingbird
All Flowers Die
In Cold Blood
Stories from the American Mosaic
a variety of current films
1. How do American values enslave people? Students write an essay comparing and contrasting novels from two different time periods.
2. Examine racial self-loathing. Students focus on the imagery, dialogue, and thematic aspects of this topic in Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye.
3. Examine the relationship between Transformation and Place. Students write an essay examining the connection between the Bone’s growth as a character and place in Russell Bank’s The Rule of the Bone.
One semester
Open to 10, 11, 12
Range of difficulty 1-4
W. E. B. DuBois spoke of “the color line” as the problem of the twentieth century. Although we are now in the twenty-first century, the problem is still with us. Some might say that race is a national obsession. Certainly it is a subject that has occupied a number of modern writers. This course allows students to focus on a range of race-related issues through literature.
Some of the themes of the course are as follows:
• the idea that “race” has no biological validity
• the complexity of the issue of racial identity and group allegiance
• the role language plays in race relations (for ex., what terms are accepatable)
• the relationship between issues of race and class
• racism in the media
• integration/segregation
• stereotyping
Discussion is the primary class format. Background is sometimes provided by either short lectures, documentary film, or enrichment readings. Students sometimes make presentations in which they either give interpretations of works or present pertinent information they have researched. These presentations are usually the fruit of group work (i.e., groups of 4-5 students working together on a topic). Writing assignments include analytical essays, imaginative/creative responses and personal essays. Sample assignment(on Indian Killer): Write a persuasive essay that argues for or against the following statement: “Marie is right: Mather’s course is illegitimate from a number of points of view.”
Students should be prepared to discuss openly “touchy” subjects. Students should expect to read approximately twenty pages per night and to write four to six papers.
Reading for each class will be drawn from the following:
Autobiography of Malcolm X, Alex Haley
“In Darkness and Confusion,” Ann Petry
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, James Weldon Johnson
Indian Killer, Sherman Alexie
Amazing Grace, Jonathan Kozol
“On Being Black,” W.E.B. DuBois
“Abusing the Privilege,” Daniel McElrath
The Meeting, Jeff Stetson
Fires in the Mirror, Anna Deavere Smith
“Black-Jewish Relations,” Cornel West
“Who Killed Integration?” Clarence Page
“White Privilege,” Peggy McIntosh
selections from Half and Half, edited by Claudine C. O'Hearn
“The Love of a Good Man,” Chitra Divakaruni
Double Happiness, directed by Mina Shum
Race: The Power of an Illusion (PBS documentary)
Naomi, Junichiro Tanazaki
The Narrows, Ann Petry
Going to the Territory, Ralph Ellison
“Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black Man,” Henry Louis Gates
Blacks and Jews, edited by Paul Berman
Race Matters, Cornel West
Along This Way, James Weldon Johnson
withoutsanctuary.org
One semester course
Open to grades 10, 11, 12
Range of difficulty: 1-4
The purpose of the course is to study the development of the narrative in both literature and film. Because today’s students at Lincoln-Sudbury are often sophisticated viewers who receive much of the information they need through movies and television, we think it is important for students to have an opportunity to think about and discuss the relative merits and differences between film and print media. We also feel that an informed study of redaction - the many lenses through which we view the world - can help our students understand and appreciate the way the media (both print and visual) influence and often manipulate our perceptions of the world around us.
We use movies and works of fiction based on common subject matter and themes. We often read a novel or story and watch the movie derived from that novel or story. We may also read and view several works focused around a similar theme, but with differing settings or viewpoints.
The course reinforces critical thinking about literature and cinema. Students are encouraged to note the differences and similarities inherent in telling a story using verbal imagery and visual imagery. One goal of this course is to make students more aware of what they are being told by the movies they see. For that reason, we are careful in selecting a wide range of authors, directors, and titles, with special attention paid to how works are adapted from literature to movies, and how the narrative can change from one medium to another.
Which medium works best to tell a specific story? Why are some stories best told in print, and others in film? Are there specific formulas used to tell a narrative? In what ways can movies alter a narrative arc? What specific effects (black-and-white/color, music, voice-overs, flashbacks, in medias res) are used effectively in film? What are the narrative limits of movies? What can a novel or story do that a movie cannot? Can all literature be adapted to film?
Some themes addressed in this class:
Power - as seen in government, in relationships, in societal gender issues
Identity - how outside forces influence, shape, contribute to, and alter evolving
identities and individualities
Coming-of-age stories - differences from one decade to another, and from place to
place
The outsider - women/minorities
*Our classes look at the power of film, and work to develop critical thinking and appreciation of cinema as a separate, effective art form.
Students work as a class, in small groups, and individually. There are in-class reading assignments, film screenings, and discussions. Students are responsible for individual note-taking as well as homework assignments (reading, writing, viewing).
We work on developing a critical vocabulary, emphasizing the literary terms and cinematic terminology necessary to explore, understand, and discuss works on the syllabus. We read reviews and commentaries on film to help grow a working vocabulary (beyond “Two thumbs up”) to talk about on films.
Writing assignments, both creative and analytical, are used to improve critical thinking and to hone writing skills. There are objective and subjective writing assignments. Some are relatively short, perhaps extemporaneous in-class responses to a reading or viewing of a scene. Others are longer, assigned in stages, and subject to peer edits, revisions, and final drafts.
Sample writing assignments may include:
Analytic review of a written story or film
Comparison between written and film versions of one story
Character studies; how does the character change over the course of the story?
Discussion of one particular element (voice/viewpoint) in a story
Portraying values in nonverbal ways (fear, suspense, peace, etc.)
Finding “the message” - an author’s/cinematographer’s goal
Ways in which a “message” can be presented/changed by author/director
Non-written assignments may include:
Creating a story board for a scene or a short story
Video collage of similar scenes
Video collage of similar character nuances
Original 5-10 minute narrative film
Use of music/camera angle/other techniques to change the mood of a scene
While many students expect this class to be a lot of fun, it is, nevertheless, an academic course, and there are expectations similar to those in all English classes.
Reading: Students are required to do reading assignments that may comprise 20-30 pages per night. The readings will vary; the range includes some poetry, short stories, articles, and novels. Topics vary, and the range of difficulty may vary as well.
Writing: There will be responsive work, including reading/viewing quizzes, “think pieces” involving a paragraph or two, one-page reflections, and papers based on study units. Students may be asked to keep a (non-graded) reading/viewing journal, too.
Speaking and Listening: The nature of this class leads to frequent discussion, analysis, and, naturally, the ensuing debates that airing of opinions will inspire. Students are expected to participate in and to listen carefully to information and viewpoints brought up in class by their peers as well as by their teacher.
Viewing: Students are expected to view all cinema assignments. After an absence, a student must make arrangements to watch the video/DVD in school at a convenient time, or the student will arrange to rent/borrow a commercial copy of the movie to watch at home. Movies are not considered “extras” in this class; they are a integral part of the syllabus.
The fluid nature of this course dictates the constant updating and revising of our materials. Every section of this course covers a “Coming of Age” unit, including:
The Graduate (author: Webb, director: Nichols)
Goodbye, Columbus (author: Roth)
Other materials include the following:
Spurlock, Supersize Me
Becker, Goodbye, Lenin!
Yimou, Raise the Red Lantern
Anderson, Rushmore
Jeunet, Amelie
Altman, The Player
Sunset Boulevard
Orlean, "The Orchid Thief"; Jonze's adaptation
Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey; Kubrick adaptation
Scott, Blade Runner
Goldman, Marathon Man;
Hitchcock, Rear Window, Vertigo
Singer, The Usual Suspects
Huxley, Brave New World
Gondry, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Moore, Bowling for Columbine
Anderson, The Royal Tenenbaums
Coppola, Lost in Translation
Ellison, “King of the Bingo Game” (story and film)
Bierce, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (story and film)
Levin, Rosemary’s Baby; Polanski adapatation
Mamet, The Spanish Prisoner
Barker, Regeneration; film adaptation, Behind the Lines
Kubrick, Dr. Strangelove
Kramer, On The Beach
Bogdanovich,The Last Picture Show
Tornatore, Cinema Paradiso
Dubus, House of Sand and Fog (novel and Perelman film)
Guterson, Snow Falling on Cedars (novel and Hicks film)
Some possible additions:
Match Point
25th Hour
Hero
Maria Full of Grace
Born Into Brothels
Good Night and Good Luck
Paradise Now
1 semester
open to 10, 11, 12
range of difficulty 1-4
Shorter fictional works give students the opportunity to focus intensely on the basic elements of literature, skills useful to all literary study. In this course, students will read short fiction and poetry drawn from a diverse set of authors, cultures, and life experiences with emphasis on the Americas. In reading these comparatively shorter works, students will examine the ways in which authors and poets successfully conveyessential themes with relative brevity. The goals of the course are threefold: to examine the uniqueness of each literary form and to understand their particularities; to deepen students ’ skills as they think and write critically on matters of style and narrative; to expand students’ knowledge of authors and poets and encourage further reading in each genre. The nature of the course necessitates a diversity of voices; as we read, students will be asked to reflect upon the identities of the characters as well as to explore their own identities.
- Family relationships
-Identity
-Societal conflicts
-Loss
-Humans and Natural World
-Sci fictional worlds
While the readings are considered "short" in comparison to novels, nightly reading expectations are roughly similar to courses dedicated to longer literary works. The class is discussion based with extensive use of such techniques as the Socratic seminar, dramatic readings, student presentations.
Students will be evaluated upon their understanding and appreciation of the reading through all of the following means: participation in discussion, in-class writing, reading quizzes, student presentations, and analytical essays, and tests.
In reading these comparatively shorter works, students will examine the ways in which authors and poets successfully convey essential themes with relative brevity. Students will also be encouraged to appreciate stories and poems whose impact may be subtle. In addition, students will gain a greater ability to discuss matters of style and form, with encouragement to read critically into each text for word choices, motifs, cadences.
Reading
Nightly reading
Writing
Analytical essays, in class writings, quizzes and tests
Speaking and Listening
Class discussion, socratic seminars, student presentations and student-lead discussions
Other
Skits
Vocabulary
Short creative projects
material for papers, presentations or projects
Some works read in the course are the following:
An “*” notes poetry!
* “Here Bullet” Brian Turner
“Interpreter of Maladies” Jhumpa Lahiri
“Reunion” John Cheever
* ”My papa’s waltz” Theodore Roethke
“Fiesta 1980” Junot Diaz
“Every Little Hurricane” Sherman Alexie
* ”How do we forgive our fathers?” Dick Lourie
“The Winter Father” Andre Dubus
“Why the Sky Turns Red When the Sun Goes Down” Ryan Harty
* “I take Mastercard” Nicky Giovanni
* ”So much happiness” Naomi Shihab Nye
* ”To have without holding” Marge Piercy
* ”Love after love” Derek Walcott
“The First Day” Edward Jones
“Queen for a Day” Russell Banks
“Woman Hollering Creek”, “La Fabulosa”, “My Lucy Friend...”, “Eleven” Sandra Cisneros
“To Die For (excerpt)” Joyce Maynard
“Two Kinds” Amy Tan
“Where are you going, where have you been?” Joyce Carol Oates
* Persephone poems (Rita Dove, Edna St. Vincent Millay)
“Sarah Cole: a Type of Love Story” Russell Banks
* ugliness and love poems (Whitman, Neruda)
“The Man Who Knew Belle Starr” Richard Bausch
“A Good Man is Hard to Find” Flannery O’Connor
* “Transformations (Snow White, Rumplestiltskin, Hansel and Gretel) Anne Sexton
“Lusus Naturae” Margaret Atwood
“The Child” Roddy Doyle
“The five forty eight” John Cheever
“Preparedness” Judy Budnitz
* William Stafford poems (“Scars”, “Easter Morning”, “You Reading This, Be Ready”)
“Otherwise Pandemonium” Nick Hornby
“Bigfoot Stole my Wife” Ron Carlson
“The Enormous Radio” John Cheever
“The Veldt” Ray Bradbury
“Axolotl” Julio Cortazar
“Fatso” Etgar Keret
* Marge Piercy poems (selections from Big Girls and Collected Poems)
“Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” ZZ Packer
“In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried” Amy Hempel
“Four Calling Birds, Three French Hens” Lorrie Moore
“Brokeback Mountain” Annie Proulx
“The Kind of Light that Shines on Texas” Reginald McKnight
“There’s a man in the habit of hitting me on the head with an umbrella” Fernando Sorrentino
* “Valediction Forbidding Mourning” John Donne
* “A Poison Tree” William Blake
* “The man into whose yard I hit the ball” Thomas Lux
* “Mending Wall” Robert Frost
* school poems (“Where I Was” Dan Brown, “The Hand” Mary Ruefle, “Did I Miss Anything?” Tom Wayman, “Saturday at the Canal” Gary Soto, “The Student Theme” Ronald Wallace
“Silver Water” Amy Bloom
“A Classical Student” Anton Chekov
“Doctor Jack O’Lantern” Richard Yates
“Gryphon” Charles Baxter
* “It’s all I have to bring today” Emily Dickinson
* “Funeral Blues” W.H. Auden
“Your Man” Etgar Keret
“Shooting Tuvia” Etgar Keret
“Why don’t you dance?”,“One more thing” Raymond Carver
“Invisible Cities (excerpts)” Italo Calvino
Sample Assignments:
Short Fic. & Poetry Name:______________________
In the Life by Becky Birtha
Use page numbers and quotations.
1. What might the names signify in In the Life?
Grace
Pearl/Jinx
2. What is the setting of In the Life? Is the setting important? Think about all the settings: garden, church, club and more. Why?
3. Based on In the Life, what does Birtha tell us about the changes we might face in old age? Be thorough, she highlights more than physical changes.
4. Who has entered the house when Pearl is dropped off by Yvonne? How do you know?
5. What happens to Pearl at the story’s end? What is your evidence?
6. What is the significance of the story’s title? Think of several meanings and find a bases in the text.
7. How does the culture we live in influence our lives? To answer this use the culture’s influence on Pearl and Gracie in In the Life? (Think about jobs, age, love, death, “progress,” and more).
.
8. Find two images that you find well written. Why?
Short Fiction and Poetry Name:
Quiz Fatso, by Etgar Keret
Proof read when you finish! Be neat, so I can read your writing.
In a well supported paragraph, or more, defend the following statement:
The relationship between the narrator and his girlfriend in Fatso makes the perfect marriage.
Short Fiction and Poetry
Activity, Richard Bausch’s “The Man Who Knew Belle Starr”
March 2006
With the same partner you had for the Sandra Cisneros close reading, please create the following--you’ll have the block to complete this, so work well and quickly!
THE TABLOID PROJECT!
You’ve been hired by the Boston Herald to write a sensational account of the encounter between McRae and Belle Starr. Write that article, format it to one 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper, and illustrate it, using evidence from the story itself as well as “evidence” you create--in interviews with others who might know something about the case, in investigations you conducted on your own--to fill in the picture and further dramatize the story. Be outrageous and also be savvy--try to get inside the psychology and biography of each character to make this story move into a plausible (if titillating) context!