HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH

GRADE 9

This course is designed to give students an opportunity to sample literature in its many forms: short stories, poetry, drama, novels and non-fiction. The emphasis on the development of reading, writing, speaking, listening and critical thinking skills will prepare students for higher level courses at high school and university. Expository and creative writing assignments, journal writing, and dramatic and oral presentations are among the activities through which these skills will be developed.

Texts and Materials:

Selected readings from: Adventures in Reading,  Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Inc.
The Odyssey, Homer
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,  Mark Twain;

The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver;

The Old Man and the Sea,  Ernest Hemingway;
The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet,  William Shakespeare.
Various articles from magazines,  Newspapers and the Internet

GRADE 10

Grade 10 English is the threshold to the advanced focus of language and literature, and possibly the early preparation for AP, of the junior and senior years. To ensure success in the final and more focused years of English study, as well as exhibit more mastery of the requirements of English for the academic expectations of college-bound students and for the ability to efficiently and effectively function in an English speaking society, this course reinforces not only the skills for stronger reading and writing, but also develops deeper reasoning and analytical skills needed for both. Tenth Grade English at TAISM offers the student the opportunity to hone necessary English skills through the study of a wide range of literature. Through the exploration of works from different genres, cultures, and time periods, students learn universal truths and begin to recognize connections between literature and life.

Novels: 

Night, Elie Wiesel;

Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger;

Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare;

Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe

Self selected ‘Banned’ novel

GRADE 11 & 12

This course is a survey of literature from the British and American traditions. The broad scope of the course exposes students to a wide range of authors, writing styles and genres. The course spans two years with focus one year on British Literature and the following year on American Literature.

Texts and Materials:

British Literature,  Glencoa Mc Graw-Hill, 2000
Adventures in American Literature,  (Athena Edition), Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. 1996.

Novels:

Selected readings from other texts and sources

AP ENGLISH Language and Composition

An AP course in English Language and Composition engages students in becoming skilled readers of prose written in a variety of periods, disciplines, and rhetorical contexts and in becoming skilled writers who compose for a variety of purposes. Both their writing and their reading should make students aware of the interactions among a writer's purposes, audience expectations, and subjects as well as the way generic conventions and the resources of language contribute to the effectiveness in writing.

The overarching purpose in most first-year college writing courses (on which AP Language is based) is to enable students to write effectively and confidently in their college courses across the curriculum and in their professional and personal lives. Therefore, most composition courses emphasize the expository, analytical, and argumentative writing that forms the basis of academic and professional communication facility in any context. The AP Language and Composition course follows this emphasis. As in the college course, its purpose is to enable students to read complex texts with understanding and to write prose of sufficient richness and complexity to communicate effectively with mature readers.

Readings and Texts:
"Of Plymouth Plantation"   by William Bradford
"The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano"  by Olaudah Equiano
"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"  by Jonathan Edwards
The Crucible  by Arthur Miller
The Declaration of Independence  by Thomas Jefferson
"Speech at the Virginia Convention"  by Patrick Henry
Walden  by H.D. Thoreau
Ethan Frome  by Edith Wharton
Their Eyes Were Watching God  by Zora Neal Hurston
The Great Gatsby  by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Yellow Wallpaper  by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
King Lear  by Shakespeare
The Things They Carried  by Tim O'Brien

AP ENGLISH Literature and Composition

Advanced Placement is an introductory college level course for willing and able high school students. The senior level AP course is designed to prepare the student for the AP Literature and Composition Exam given in May. Successful completion of the exam may earn the student up to 6 hours of college credit. The specific skills needed to pass the AP exam include the following: literary analysis of selected prose and poetry, analytical writing, application of analytical skills to major novels or other major literary works.

Novel and Drama List for course:
The Stranger by Camus,  Matthew Ward trans. (softback)
Heart of Darkness  by Conrad, Dover ed.
Hamlet  by Shakespeare
Macbeth  by Shakespeare
The Canterbury Tales  by Chaucer (on line)
Cry, the Belovèd Country  by Paton
The Inferno of Dante,   Pinsky trans.
The Remains of the Day  by Ishiguro
The Turn of the Screw  by James
The Unbearable Lightness of Being  by Kudera
The Great Gatsby  by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Candide  by Voltaire
The Tempest  by Shakespeare