English

The English curriculum at BB&N is intended to teach students to read with pleasure and insight and to write with clarity and confidence. The department aims for its students to learn, with increasing skill, to recognize the differences between the profound and the superficial, the eloquent and the awkward, the sincere and the glib.

The English program reflects a belief in the value of reading widely and deeply in a variety of literary forms, traditional and innovative, and from several periods, ancient and modern. The faculty believes that writing, both expository and creative, improves with practice and constant attention to basic skills. In grades 9 through 12, students are asked to understand, with increasing sophistication, the essential relationship between form and content and to appreciate the power and beauty of language. The study of grammar, punctuation, spelling, syntax and vocabulary is stressed in grades 7 through 10, and reinforced in grades 11 and 12.

Courses

Grade 9: The program in Grade 9 includes three classic works, several poems, and contemporary stories, novels, and plays. Most of the first semester is devoted to a detailed reading of The Odyssey. In the second semester, all students read Romeo and Juliet and a major novel by a 19th-century author. Throughout the year, students write frequently, either in or out of class, on a variety of topics based on personal experience and on the reading material. The department believes that understanding must begin with close attention to detail rather than with a superficial overview.

Grade 10: The literature program in Grade 10 involves a systematic study of several different genres: the Bible, a Shakespearean play (usually Macbeth), other classic and modern plays, essays, short stories, novels (such as Pride and Prejudice, The Great Gatsby, and Sula), and poems. A major focus of the writing program is the essay: students are taught to formulate a thesis and then to develop it in the body of the paper. The spring semester also features a debating program. The oral equivalent of the essay, the debate provides practice in library research as well as valuable experience in public speaking.

Grade 11: All junior English sections remain together for a full year and are offered as a group of electives. Topics for 2007–08 are Literature of the Irish Renaissance, African-American Literature, English Literature, Landscape and Identity, Boston and Beyond, Considering America, Family Matters, Sea Changes, and American Classics. In the first semester, classes focus on the literary topic of the elective. The second semester’s work culminates in the writing of a long profile about a person at work. At the end of the second semester, all juniors prepare for and have the opportunity to take the English AP exam in either the Language or Literature category.

Grade 12: Grade 12 English serves as a transition between secondary school demands and those of college. The emphasis is on training students to exercise initiative and to write long, well-sustained papers. Seniors take two electives during the year. Fall electives for 2007–08 include Sibling Bonds and Rivalries, Shakespeare, Pilgrim Souls, Redeeming the Past, Aliens, Creative Writing, and Greek Drama. In the second semester, students elect a six-week “mini course” in such subjects as utopias, film criticism, Ellison’s Invisible Man, or contemporary short stories.