Freshman Composition and Literature
(E9)
The transition from middle school to high school is a significant and, in many cases, difficult one for young people. They come to us with all sorts of expectations--some outrageous, some legitimate. They are, at once, apprehensive and excited about the coming years at the high school. With respect to academics, ninth grade students come needing more exposure to the literature of their own and other cultures; further instruction in basic and higher writing skills; and development of their ability to think abstractly and critically. The ninth grade program was conceived with these emotional, psychological, and academic factors in mind.
Ninth grade English consists of a semester emphasizing writing, Forms of Writing, followed by a semester emphasizing literature, Themes in Literature. Forms of Writing gives students instruction in important writing skills and trains them in a variety of types of writing. Specific writing assignments are organized under the broad categories of informal, formal and creative writing.
Themes in Literature concentrates on the intensive reading of literary texts organized around a specific theme, such as justice and vengeance, choice and responsibility, prejudice, family relations, love, etc. Literary study emphasizes the analysis of the various aspects of works, such as style, structure, setting, etc. Students respond to the literature with various kinds of writing learned in Forms of Writing.
Successful completion of Forms of Writing and Themes in Literature will prepare students to meet the reading and writing requirements of the upperclass elective program, from which students, as sophomores, juniors, and seniors, will choose specific courses that are appropriate for their individual needs and interests. Clearly, reading and writing are important skills in both semesters.
Rationale and Goals
It is important for students to be able to write in a variety of modes, as a means both of communication and of self-discovery. Writing is a tool students will use throughout the Lincoln-Sudbury curriculum, as well as in college and the work place. Writing researchers have divided writing into three basic categories: informal, formal, and creative. Research also shows that professional writers view writing as a stage-by-stage process and that students should develop writing in this manner.
The goals of Forms of Writing, therefore, are as follows:
--To give students practice in informal, formal, and creative writing
--To teach them, through practice, the value of a process approach to writing (For an outline of the steps of the writing process see Appendix)
--To give them practice in specific writing skills, such as logical organization, diction, figurative language, precise punctuation, parallelism, transitions, conciseness, etc. (For a more complete list of writing skills, see Appendix)
--To make them more at ease with the act of writing
--To make them intelligent editors of their own writing
--To help them appreciate the importance of clear, expressive writing as a means of thinking and communicating
Method
While individual teachers’ approaches to achieving the goals of the course will vary, all teachers use a combination of lecture, discussion, and in-class writing during which students receive individual help with their writing. Specific methods or techniques used commonly by teachers include the following:
--requiring and responding to drafts of compositions
--using writing conferences
--organizing students into peer editing groups
--grading for specific criteria only (A teacher, for example, may announce to the class that for the present assignments s/he will only be grading students on thesis, organization, and development, while ignoring other technical matters.)
--using writing models to teach a specific form of writing
--using literature as a springboard to writing assignments
Specific Types of Writing
Specific types of writing that teachers may require students to do are listed below by broad category (informal, formal, creative).
Informal
journal letter personal narrative personal remembrance satire interview dialogue informal essay free response to art/music
Formal
expository essay persuasive essay description critical (analytical) essay essay test
Creative
poem short story one-act play myth/legend song lyrics new ending to a short story/novel another scene for a play parody rewrite of a story using a different setting or point of view
Rationale and Goals
The virtues of a thematic approach to the study of literature are several: 1. It helps the students grasp the complexity of the subject (theme) and individual works more easily. (No matter what difficulties students may anticipate with the next work to be studied, they know that the work will have something to do with the established theme of the course.) 2. It forces the student to confront and evaluate contradictory interpretations of the same phenomenon. 3. It reveals to the student the essential ambiguity of the subject. 4. It helps the students reconsider their own ideas about the subject (theme). 5. It lends itself to the inclusiveness that is a crucial feature of our curriculum; that is, on a specific theme one may choose works that carry the different perspectives of men and women, racial minorities, or different cultures from around the world, etc.
The broad goals of the Themes course are as follows:
--To introduce students to the study and close analysis of significant fiction in several of the following genres--novel, short story, poetry, drama, and essays of their own and other cultures
--To expose students to a multiplicity of perspectives on the social, ethical, and metaphysical issues with which literature deals
--To help students clarify their own thinking about such issues
--To make students more proficient at abstract and critical thinking
--To acquaint students with the formal elements of literature and to help them understand how these elements combine to produce a work of imagination which is moving and meaningful
--To continue students’ development as writers
Method
While individual teacher’s approaches to achieving the goals of the course will vary, all teachers use some combination of discussion, lecture, and student presentation or group activity. Discussion is generally the primary means of instruction. The discussion questions range from the specific and technical to the broad issues raised by a piece of literature. Students may work in groups to analyze together a specific aspect of a work or a single, short work, subsequently presenting their interpretation to the class. Student groups may have a longer term project, such as performing a scene or act of a play, writing their own short play, making a video that draws on material of the course, etc.
Students use some of the various forms of writing learned in the first semester to respond to the literature. Teachers evaluate students’ grasp of the reading through these writing assignments and through their participation in class discussion.
Expectations
Students are expected to participate actively in all classroom activities. Students will be required to read nightly. There will be a minimum of four to six major writing assignments per semester to which the teacher will respond seriously and critically.
Readings
Readings for Ninth Grade Composition and Literature are drawn from the following list.
African Myths
All Quiet on the Western Front, Remarque
Animal Farm, Orwell
Antigone
Assistant, The Malamud
Au Revoir Les Enfants, Malle
Bean Trees, The, Kingsolver
Catcher in the Rye, Salinger
Children’s Hour, The Hellman
Children’s Story, Clavell
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, Haddon
Dawn, Wiesel
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson
Ellen Foster, Gibbons
Epic of Gilgamesh
Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury
Feed, M.T. Anderson
Great Expectations, Dickens
Gulliver’s Travels, Swift
House on Mango Street, The Cisneros
Inherit the Wind,Lawrence and Lee
Into the Wild, Krakauer
Iron and Silk, Salzman
Julius Caesar, Shakespeare
A Gathering of Old Men, Gaines
Lesson Before Dying, Gaines
Lord of the Flies, Golding
Lost in Place, Salzman
Metamorphosis, Kafka
Night, Wiesel
Nine Stories, Salinger
Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck
Old Man and the Sea, The Hemingway (Summer Reading)
Our Town, Wilder
Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry
Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare
The Secret Lives of Bees, Kidd
Separate Peace , Knowles
Stepping Stones (anthology)
Sudden Fiction International (anthology)
The Tale of the Unknown Island, Saramago
The Tale of Two Cities, Dickens
Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare
Things Fall Apart, Achebe
To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee
Twelve Angry Men, Rose
Wait Till Next Year, Goodwin
Walkabout, Marshall
Suggested Films
Zebrahead
Inherit the Wind
Julius Caesar
A Thousand Clowns
AuRevoir Les Enfants
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Snow Goose
A Separate Peace
A Raisin in the Sun
Awakenings
Larry
All My Sons
Old Man and the Sea
selected documentaries,
Hope and Glory
Cinema Paradiso
Examples of Readings for Specific Theme
The following is a list of works from which a teacher might create a syllabus on the theme of Prejudice and Race Relations.
Novels
To Kill a Mockingbird
Things Fall Apart
Walkabout
The Snow Goose
Fragments of Isabella
Black Boy
Drama
A Raisin in the Sun
The Glass Menagerie
Poetry
The Black Poets
Daniel Berrigan and Contemporary Protest Poetry
Death March: Nagasaki to Hiroshima
The First Wave: Women Poets in America
I Am a Black Woman
Poems About People Crazy to Be Alive in Such a Strange World
Voices of the Rainbow: Contemporary Poetry by American Indians
Short Stories
"The Somebody," Santiago
"Muzza," Horgan
"Chee's Daughter," Platero
"Marigolds,"Collier
"Community Welfare Service," Konopnicks
"Everybody Knows Tobie," Garza
Non-Fiction
Farewell to Manzanar
"On the Edge of the Barrio," Galarza
"My Furthest Back Person," Haley
current news and magazine articles
Film
Zebrahead