ENGLISH III: Individual as Hero

(REGULAR AND ADVANCED)

Covering classic and contemporary texts in a variety of genres, such as Into the Wild, The Odyssey, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Henry IV, Part 1, the English III curriculum focuses thematically upon essential elements of the hero’s journey at a time when our students are setting forth on their own missions of self-discovery as readers, writers and thinkers.  In English III, third formers receive a thorough grounding in principles of grammar and vocabulary while mastering the structures of various kinds of paragraphs and essays.  Throughout the year, third-form teachers stress fundamental study skills important to all Berkshire classes, including critical reading, detailed note-taking, organization of course materials, and timely completion and submission of work.

 
ENGLISH IV: Individuals in Communities

(REGULAR AND ADVANCED)

In the English IV reading curriculum, students develop critical reading skills through the study of a variety of literary genres—fiction, drama, poetry and personal narrative—in their structural elements; representative works include Oedipus Rex, The Taming of the Shrew, Frankenstein, The Kite Runner as well as numerous short stories, poems, and a memoir. Building on the English III theme of the hero’s journey, fourth formers broaden their focus to the role of the individual in larger communities. Students continue to review grammar and usage, but exclusively in context of strengthening and revising their own writing, and acquire knowledge of Latin and Greek etymology. English IV’s writing curriculum expands on the range of the third-form assignments, focusing on more complex and formally structured expository/analytical essays, but also includes a personal memoir and a poetry portfolio. Students perform a Shakespearean scene as a means to understanding as well as participate in “Poetry Out Loud,” a national recitation project, in order to learn about poetry from a performance perspective.

ENGLISH V: American Identities

(REGULAR AND ADVANCED)

The fifth-form year concentrates on the American identity in literature from the nineteenth century to the present day. Representative authors include Whitman, Dickinson, Thoreau, and Fitzgerald, in addition to more contemporary writers such as Toni Morrison and Tony Kushner. Expanding on the genres studied in earlier years, this course includes screenplay, film, and audio essays. Students continue to build their working vocabularies through careful attention to course texts, especially focusing on words that regularly appear on standardized tests, and improve other skills relevant to the SAT and ACT exams. As with the fourth-form year, critical analysis is a central component of the written work, and fifth formers begin to work more extensively with secondary sources at this level. Written work includes journals and blogs, expository essays, personal reflection, screenwriting, and research papers.  In the second semester, students write and record “This I Believe” essays, in preparation for personal writing critical to the college application process and beyond.

ADVANCED ENGLISH VI: THE CANON

What is “The Canon?”  What causes a work to be categorized as a canonical text? Teachers and scholars every year discuss which texts “ought to be taught” or “simply cannot be removed from the curriculum.” Throughout the year, students read those books that have been placed seemingly permanently on the shelf of the Literary Canon, those that have been pushed off the edge, and those that are contemporary contenders.  Students consider the complex social, cultural, and even political considerations that inform canon discussion and review the intense debate over whether there ought to be a canon at all.  Writers from Aristophanes to James Baldwin are considered, all the time asking what makes a work “classic” and whether such a designation can ever be disentangled from considerations of power.

ENGLISH VI: Electives

English VI consists of two semester-long elective classes that continue to emphasize and hone the foundational skills acquired earlier while simultaneously preparing students for the more narrowly focused, highly specific courses found in college English departments. Though diverse in their literary and stylistic focus, they nevertheless share a number of similarities: all sixth-form English classes work on writing well-crafted and thoughtful college essays in the fall semester; and they all read Hamlet and participate in the School’s annual “Hamlet Night” performance in January before beginning their different curricula. Of course, all classes also include substantial reading, writing, and discussion, but the kinds of texts and assignments will vary. 

First Semester Electives:

Boarding School Literature.  Why is boarding school such a fascinating topic to readers? Why are audiences outside of the boarding school world so drawn to the culture within?  Students begin to answer these questions throughout the semester beginning with the anthropological study of boarding school life with the text Perfectly Prep as well as the collection of essays from Casualties of Privilege. Students use these two texts as a basis for discussions and put them next to their own experiences at Berkshire. After analyzing the culture of boarding school, the class looks at the faculty perspective by reading The Headmaster and The Rector of Justin. Finally, students look at boarding school through the fictional lens of Old School and A Separate Peace. Throughout the reading of these texts, students write about their own experiences “under the mountain” while analyzing the writing styles of the authors they read. The semester culminates in a boarding school memoir.

Note: This elective is also offered during second semester.

Introduction to Film. The goal of this class is to reflect on film as a narrative medium, studying formal techniques of film-making and interpretation as well as content issues of humanity, psychology, and philosophy.  Students consider whether film is helpful and relevant to understand our own lives or whether it is just another form of entertainment. Reflections on film, be they historical, critical or personal, take the form of weekly essays, student presentations and class discussions.

Jane Austen and Pop Culture. In this course students focus on Jane Austen’s impact on pop culture and its themes of manners, hierarchy, relationships, and class. This course centers on writing and a culminating pop-cultural multimedia project. Students write argumentative essays and memoir pieces while reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in conjunction with Austen’s original counterpart, Diary of Bridget Jones, Rudyard Kipling’s short story, The Janeites, The Three Weissmanns of Westport, Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.

Mountain and Me. This course is designed to take a literary look at the relationship between the out-of-doors, specifically the local landscape, and the individual.  Students write and read fiction and non-fiction related to the outdoors.  Authors may include John Muir, Annie Dillard, Jack London, Jon Krakauer, Bill Bryson,  Edna St. Vincent Millay and Henry David Thoreau.  Students write about their own interactions with the natural world and responses to texts.  In addition, students spend some time outside of class engaging with the mountain in various ways.

Twentieth Century Journalism. Muckraker Lincoln Steffens, down-and-outers George Orwell and Jack London, war correspondents Martha Gelhorn and Seymour Hirsch, nonfiction-fiction masters John Hersey and Truman Capote, new journalism’s Tom Wolf, Hunter S. Thompson, and Joan Didion, radio and TV icons Edward R. Morrow and Walter Cronkite.  What would these giants have to say about the state of journalism today, where anyone with a cellphone is a journalist and where many think of journalism as The Daily Show and their favorite blogs? The course also discusses photojournalism, “yellow journalism,” and Watergate. Films include Citizen Kane, Shattered Glass, and All the President’s Men.

Second Semester Electives:

Autobiography.  In this course students read Malcolm X; The Diving Bell and the Butterfly; Girl, Interrupted; and Woman Warrior, among others, to look at the genre of memoir/autobiography.  What is it that makes a writer want to share his/her story?  What story does each have to share?  Students will look at style (compare and contrast style) and discuss what is so captivating about the human experience that makes us both want to share our own story as well as read others.  The semester culminates in the writing of students’ own memoir.

Boarding School Literature.  Why is boarding school such a fascinating topic to readers? Why are audiences outside of the boarding school world so drawn to the culture within?  Students begin to answer these questions throughout the semester beginning with the anthropological study of boarding school life with the text Perfectly Prep as well as the collection of essays from Casualties of Privilege. Students use these two texts as a basis for discussions and put them next to their own experiences at Berkshire. After analyzing the culture of boarding school, the class looks at the faculty perspective by reading The Headmaster and The Rector of Justin. Finally, students look at boarding school through the fictional lens of Old School and A Separate Peace. Throughout the reading of these texts, students write about their own experiences “under the mountain” while analyzing the writing styles of the authors they read. The semester culminates in a boarding school memoir.

Greek Mythology.  Greek Mythology is all around. Whether it be advertising, art, architecture, movies, television, video games or literary texts, it permeates modern culture. The focus of this interdisciplinary course is three-fold. First, students study the essential Greek myths and the basics of Greek art. They next examine the representation of these basic myths in subsequent European art and literature. Students have a core text on Greek mythology as the backbone of the course, The Penguin Book of Classical Myths by Jenny March. In addition to this text, students read works such as The Infernal Machine by Jean Cocteau, Theseus by Andre Gide, and The Odyssey by Derek Walcott together with selected poetry. There are regular writing assignments on both myth and art, most of which is based on library research. The semester culminates with a research paper, accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation.

Literary Prize Winners. The Booker, Pulitzer, Nobel, Whitbread (now the Costa Book Award), Neustadt, the Hugo, and the National Book Award – the winners of these prizes are the new classics, the texts that will be taught into the future as the great works of our time. Students in this course read a selection of recent winners, with a focus on identity and the many forms that identity can take. Before choosing the winners, however, students discuss the other works up for the award and how the winners were chosen. In the end, students determine which finalist to read and discuss.  Some possible selections include the following winners: The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson; The City & The City by China Miéville; and The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi.

Mysteries.  What makes the mystery story or novel so compelling that it remains the most popular literary genre? This class traces the development of the mystery, particularly the detective variety. Students investigate how crime is solved by the great sleuths of fiction—among them, Dupin, Holmes, Miss Marple, Lord Peter Wimsey, and Philip Marlowe—and determine how their creators—Poe, Doyle, Christie, Sayers, and Chandler—have held society’s interest for such a long time.  Students also see how the technique translates to film, via The Maltese Falcon, Chinatown, and The Usual Suspects. The semester culminates in teams of students writing original radio mystery dramas, to be broadcast on WBSL, based on the styles of the authors listed above.

ADVANCED PLACEMENT ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION

Advanced Placement English Language and Composition is a yearlong course for qualified fifth formers who wish to become skilled readers of prose written in a variety of rhetorical contexts and to become skilled writers who compose for a variety of purposes. The course emphasizes the expository, analytical, and argumentative writing that forms the basis of academic and professional communication, as well as the personal and reflective writing that fosters the ability to write in any context. In preparation for the AP English Language examination, students become acquainted with a wide variety of prose styles from many disciplines and historical periods, and gain understanding of the connections between writing and interpretive skill in reading.

Prerequisite: Permission of the Department

ADVANCED PLACEMENT ENGLISH LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION

This college-level course is designed for qualified sixth formers who wish to undertake a rigorous and intensive study of British and Postcolonial literature in preparation for the AP English Literature and Composition exam. Students engage in the careful reading and critical analysis of imaginative literature (fiction, poetry, and drama) through the study of each work’s structure, style, and themes, as well as such smaller-scale elements as the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone. Writing is an integral part of the course since the exam is weighted toward student writing about literature. In order to preserve the sense of common experience among the sixth-form students as a class, most aspects of English VI are also included: timed writing in preparation for standardized tests, college application essay practice, and “Hamlet Night.”

Prerequisite: Permission of the Department

CREATIVE WRITING (SEMESTER 1 AND/OR 2)

This course is designed for students who, already experienced with writing poetry, fiction or creative non-fiction on their own, believe they would benefit from the structure and guidance provided by a workshop environment. Drafting, revision, and peer critique are emphasized as students develop a portfolio of their own writing across the entire semester. This elective course may only be taken in addition to the student’s Form-appropriate English course.

Open to Forms IV, V and VI

ADVANCED HUMANITIES RESEARCH

Advanced Humanities Research is a full-year course for talented students who have a desire to pursue guided, but independent, research in the humanities. The first half of the course is a seminar on critical theory introducing students to the theoretical framework that shapes the work of humanities scholars. The first semester also includes an introduction to qualitative research methods to help students master the tools required for advanced research in the humanities. The second half of the course is more student-directed, with each student working on an intensive piece of research, along with an identified expert in their chosen field, with the goal being to submit their research for publication.

Prerequisite: Selection by Department Chairs

English as a Second Language (ESL)

International students at Berkshire represent a great diversity of linguistic and cultural backgrounds. To prepare students for a full course of study, Berkshire offers English as a Second Language (ESL) at the advanced level. Advanced ESL is divided into two separate courses, ESL Advanced Literature and ESL Advanced Writing, and acts as a bridge between the ESL program and the regular English program. It is intended for students who have good oral, aural, reading and writing skills but who need support in doing academic work in English. The emphasis is on developing the advanced reading and writing skills necessary to do the academic work required by Berkshire’s traditional English program. Students must take both courses.

 
ESL ADVANCED LITERATURE
This course introduces students to American and international stories and novels.  The students read short stories and novels written for native speakers that are typical for a high school English class.  Students are required to keep an academic journal in which they respond to their readings.  They also learn to use the literary forms and concepts studied in Berkshire’s English courses.

ESL ADVANCED WRITING
This course is designed to develop the students’ writing skills through the process of prewriting, drafting, response, revising, and editing.  This is done in conjunction with the study of complex grammatical structures.  Students write both personal and academic essays and learn to write a research paper.