Courses

Survey of Literary Genres - Year

This course, the first in the St. Mark’s English sequence, seeks to create more acute, perceptive readers and more powerful,controlled writers. The literature and writing curricula for this class, though taught together and fundamentally intertwined, may be distinguished on the basis of objectives: 1) to introduce students to a wide array of voices through substantial studyof the short story, the poem, the novel, an epic, and one of Shakespeare’s plays; 2) to familiarize students with the different narrative perspectives open to a writer and hence also open to them; and 3) to help students become more sensitive to theconnotations of individual words.The writing dimension of the course helps students to become more aware of the choices that they make as writers and to develop a prose style that flows with grace and pleasing variety. In addition, particular insistence is placed on the preference for concrete over abstract language. Crucial to the act of writing is the command of a fertile vocabulary. This course, which teaches vocabulary in the spirit of the belief that words precede thoughts, stresses stems and roots as well as etymologies.

Writing Workshop - Year

Writing Workshop occupies a distinct place within the Englishcurriculum. As the title suggests, the class places the writing process at the center of the course. In the first semester, students write nearly every night in response to short stories, poems, and essays. Early assignments often include autobiography, description, and narrative; later pieces concentrate on analysis and argument. These assignments help students to improve their clarity, organization, word choice, style, and grammar. Through class workshops, conferences with their teachers, and frequent revision, students also learn to evaluate their thinking and to become more rigorous critics of their own writing.

In the winter and spring, students tackle longer literary works — Oedipus Rex, The Merchant of Venice, Frankenstein, and A River Runs Through It are examples of recent choices — and focus on the critical literary essay. Study of these texts builds upon the reading and writing skills developed in the fall, as students learn how to develop a good thesis and how to structure and support their ideas on paper. In the spring, students write a major research paper; they learn to move from a topic to an argument, gather and incorporate effective evidence, and cite sources properly.Each semester culminates with a writing portfolio rather than an exam; the portfolio offers students the chance to revise and present their best work and to reflect on their progress as writers.

American Literature - Year

This course, a yearlong study of the American literary tradition, introduces students to works dating from the Puritan era through to the present. While students will consider the individual merits of each work they read, they will also analyze poems, stories, essays, plays, and novels as part of a continuing stream of cultural discussion. Each text is addressed within the cultural and literary contexts of the period in which it was written with reference to preceding authors who might have influenced its writing.

This curriculum also challenges students to develop and utilize their ability to read and respond to literature formally. While requiring students to communicate their responses to materialin a number of ways (through participation in class discussion, through group exploration, and through creative writing), American Literature follows up the writing skills developed inthe previous year with a strong emphasis on analytical argument. Teachers address the various aspects of essay construction: paying careful attention to the text, formulating interpretive responsesto material, constructing an outline, substantiating perceptions, using textual evidence, writing, and rewriting. Through suchcareful attention to the process of critical writing, this courseseeks to give students mastery of the vocabulary of critical analysis, the skills of critical interpretation, and the presentation ofcritical argument.

Authors commonly taught in American Literature include Jonathan Edwards, Anne Bradstreet, Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Frederick Douglass,Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Kate Chopin, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Toni Morrison.

Shakespeare - Fall

Built around a teacher’s area of expertise and interest, the Shakespeare elective may give students the opportunity to focus on a particular theme in the plays or it may introduce them to a range of Shakespeare’s dramatic works–tragedy, comedy, history, romance. Students in this class continue to develop critical writing skills as well as aural, oral, and dramatic skills. The classroom environment challenges them to master the skills of literary discussion in a group seminar setting. Students present interpretive readings of texts (both academic and dramatic) to the class and learn critical terminology for reviewing live performances of Shakespeare’s plays.

Sixth Form Writing Seminar - Fall

This is a course for VI Form students who wish to sharpen their writing skills in preparation for the demands of college. Students who enroll in this class can expect to write a lot, but the rewards will be many. In the first half of the semester, we will practice many different modes of writing (e.g., narrative, description, comparison/contrast, and argument). The second half of the semester will be entirely devoted to critical reading and writing. This class will give students a chance to breathe and stretch as writers, to tap into creative powers even as we work on essential skills. The objectives of the course are manifold: developing a voice, writing with precision, and expressing oneself with greater control and mastery of the English language.

Getting Lost- Fall

The use of an island for setting establishes the critical element of place. In some works, the island itself becomes a character. This course will focus on the ramifications of living on or being stranded upon an island. We will examine the motives, actions, and purpose of individuals in isolation and how the human condition is affected by living on an island. Also, we will study how societies form while being, essentially, separated from “society.” The students will grapple with issues including survival, power struggles, individual and group motivation, group contagion, and paranormal conditions. Major texts may include The Tempest and Othello by Shakespeare, Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells, Island by Aldous Huxley, and short story selections from Island by Alistair MacLeod.

The Big Book Seminar - Fall

Offered Fall term, the Big Book Seminar provides students the opportunity to master the art of slow, deep reading by spending an entire semester on a single literary masterwork. Students typically read about a dozen pages per day and write daily assignments or journals, as well as longer essays. The text will change from year to year, but is typically a work that raises key literary questions, as well as social, historical, religious and moral questions important to us all. The big book for Fall 2010 is the novel that Sigmund Freud, Virginia Woolf, and Albert Einstein considered the greatest ever written, Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov.

Utopia and Travel Literature - Fall

This is a course concerning literature about “place.” We will be reading all sorts of writings about fictional and nonfictional places, and even utopias (criticisms on actual places by creating impossible places). We will be reading utopian literature from the inventor of the word utopia, Sir Thomas Moore, and Erewhon (nowhere backwards!) by Samuel Butler. We will also engage with travel guides, travel writing about Africa, South America, and the U.S. by Stuart Stevens, Bruce Chatwin, and Bill Bryson.

To help with our study of “place,” our guide will be Alain de Botton’s text The Art of Travel. We will explore why people persist in writing and reading about traveling, about being in different places. What does it mean, psychologically? Students will work on a semester-long writing project, either fiction or nonfiction, but an account of travel or of a different place. Research will be involved. A final presentation of the project will include the writing as well as photographs (even if the student chose to write a fictional account).

Tell Me Something About Yourself: Reading and Writing Memoir - Fall

Everyone has a story to tell. This class looks at how we recount the events, places and people that shape our lives, through the reading and writing of memoir. We will explore a range of styles and look at the choices authors make as they tell their stories, as well as the ways memoir differs from autobiography. Close study of the following works will inspire our discussions and serve as the model for our own writing. Texts may include: A Moveable Feast (Hemingway); Naked (Sedaris); Persepolis (Satrapi); The Glass Castle (Walls); Dry (Burroughs).

Reading and Writing Poetry - Spring

In this class, students will write poetry and write about poetry. We will study poems not as texts, but as living forms that come to life when we read them actively. Especially in poetry, the reader must be as much a participant as the writer. Also, students will practice writing poetry in both free and fixed forms in a workshop setting. Whenever possible, we will attend poetry readings as a class. We will also organize a week celebrating poetry during April (national poetry month) at St. Mark’s.

Global/Local: New Directions in World Literature and Film - Spring

This course focuses on the convergence of local literary traditions with modern experiments in style, theme, and genre in a specific part of the world. We’ll see how increased intercultural contact in a newly globalized world gave rise to contradictory results, fostering innovation, dialogue and new cultural self-reflection. As part of their coursework, students will view and write about films from some of the world’s greatest directors. In 2011 the course will focus on the literature and film of West Africa.

Writing about Film - Spring

This class will introduce students to the concepts, technical knowledge, and history they will need to analyze and write about films. In the course, a film will be examined as both a literary and visual “text,” lending itself to “reading,” interpretation and analysis similar to that in literature. It is hoped that the class will provide students with the technical, critical and historical contexts necessary to understand, analyze and enjoy films from all parts of the world and all periods of cinematic history more completely. On average, we will screen one full-length film per week in class, with another to be checked out by each student to view individually outside class. Additionally, there will be a weekly voluntary evening screening of another film. There will be an extensive “visual vocabulary” to learn and a weekly writing assignment.A term paper will be due at the end of the course.

The Short Story: A Course in Good Prose - Spring

With quick, condensed assaults of human experience, short stories cramp us into narrow, particular, often disturbing and crooked circumstances. These very constraints upon time and emotion replicate the most important, revealing parts our lives, exactly why the impact of a good short story can strike us as expansive, universal, encouraging and true.

The class will discuss a great range of stories by dozens of authors, from the “classic” lineage of Chekhov, Hemingway, and Carver to more modern, irreverent work by Thom Jones, T.C Boyle, and Lorrie Moore. Additionally, the longer class periods and some designated stretches of class time will be dedicated to a workshop to discuss scenes and, ultimately, a complete story we’ll each render on our own.

Post-Apocalyptic Literature - Spring

The Apocalypse has long been a literary device that comments on the natures of civilization and history through examining their demise. This class will look at the way writers portray life after the Apocalypse: what survives, and why? Historical context will also play an important role, as these writers use the trope of the post-apocalypse to examine the forces that shape the age in which they live, such as industrialization, colonization, the atomic age, globalization, and the information age. Representations of the Apocalypse from the 19th to 21st centuries touch on literary naturalism, modernism, and post-modernism. Last, as Hollywood has always been fascinated with the end of days, we will supplement our study with films, such as On The Beach, The Road Warrior, Delicatessen, WALL-E, The Postman, Dawn of the Dead, 12 Monkeys, and The Road.

Rebels With a Cause - Spring

In this course, we will study the rebellious actions of characters and probe to understand the motives and reasoning behind their actions. What is it that suppresses them? Is it government, society’s laws, or a personal grudge? Perhaps a moral stand? We will examine what they stand for and how they rationalize their rebellion. Students must bring an open mind to the readings and be able to defend against or argue for the protagonists, using the text for support in each case.

Major texts may include In the Time of Butterflies by Julia Alvarez, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk, Wicked by Gregory Maguire, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey, The Awakening by Kate Chopin, and The Crucible by Arthur Miller.

Native American Fiction and Folklore - Spring

In order for us to make sense of where we are going, it is vital to look not only to the past, but to the original inhabitants of a place. Native American stories are often overlooked or marginalized by what’s considered new, better, or more industrious. This course will pause to listen to the voices of indigenous people from the past (Cherokee creation stories, James Fenimore Cooper, and Trickster myths) and to hear their voices as they steadily speak today. We will address the costs and benefits of an oral tradition as a form of literature. And, we will address questions of authenticity, the Noble Savage, the Urban Indian, and representations and objectification of indigenous people and culture in our nation’s consciousness. Questions we will address include: How are the traditional voices different from the newcomers’ voices? How have these voices adapted to the modernization brought by sensibilities rooted in European and mainstream American culture? What can these indigenous people teach us as we move forward in a global society? How are contemporary attitudes of land stewardship rooted in Native American literature?

Advanced Placement Literature - Year

A yearlong seminar-style course, the Advanced Placement Literature course engages qualified VI Formers in the careful reading and critical analysis of selected texts to prepare them for the national Advanced Placement exam in May. The course emphasizes a work’s structure, style, and themes, as well as such elements as the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone. The course includes intensive study of representative works from various genres and periods, concentrating on works of recognized literary merit.