English

English Language cultivates the reading and writing skills that students need for college success and for intellectually responsible engagement. The course guides students in becoming curious, critical, and responsive readers of diverse texts, and reflective writers. The reading and writing students do in the course will deepen their understanding of how written language functions rhetorically: to communicate writers’ intentions and elicit readers’ responses in particular situations. The course cultivates the rhetorical understanding and use of written language by directing students’ attention to writer/ reader interactions in their reading and writing.

AP English Literature and Composition is designed to engage “students in the careful reading and critical analysis of imaginative literature” (College Board Course Description) in order to prepare them for college-level communication and analysis. Students will examine works of recognized literary merit from a wide variety of time periods, genres and backgrounds. More importantly, they will get to know a few works well. Students will “read deliberately and thoroughly, taking time to analyze a work’s complexity, to absorb its richness of meaning, and to analyze how that meaning is embodied in literary form” (College Board Course Description). Through a considerable amount of close reading, focused writing and involved discussion, students will learn to identify stylistic elements of prose and poetry such as the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism and tone. Students must take the Advanced Placement Examination in English Literature and Composition in May.

This reading and writing course explores the human experience through literature. Through a close reading of poetry, prose, drama, and non-fiction, students will think critically, speak thoughtfully, and write effectively for a variety of audiences and purposes. Through collaborative examination and analysis of language, students will strengthen their own writing and experience the depth and power of great literature.