Coeducation at Berkshire

The following books have been incorporated in this year's English curriculum to celebrate 50 years of coeducation at Berkshire:

Form III 
Tara Westover's memoir is about growing up in a family that deeply mistrusts education and other societal norms we take for granted. Moreover, Westover's struggle with, and ultimate triumph over, how her community and family define her is a powerful link to the Third Form theme: Who am I under the Mountain?

Form IV
In the spring, sophomores will participate in the SEAVER project. For this, students can choose books that are international and there will be opportunities to read and discuss books that have to do with education around the world. The students will use these books to spearhead an activity where they try to think of ways to help improve this issue in the world. Hopefully, some of these projects will center around education, particularly women’s education. Possible texts are: Sold by Patricia McCormick,  Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and When I was a Soldier by Valerie Zenatti.

Form V
Set in 1930s Florida, Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, tells the story of Janie, a young woman who desperately wants to be independent. As she grows up, Janie navigates what it means to love a man, but still belong to herself. Advanced Fifth Form students will read The Eyes Were Watching God during the second quarter and discuss issues of race, gender, and what it means to grow up independantly. 

The Color Purple documents the traumas and gradual triumph of Celie, an African American teenager raised in rural isolation in Georgia It's an epistolary novel in which Celie writes letters to God in an attempt to find strength and self-knowledge. In spite of a series of traumatic events, Celie does find strength and matures into a powerful woman.

Form VI
In Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie, students will explore the experiences of two sisters and their brother who grapple with identity and responsibility within the family and the broader world. Each character must decide what responsibility they have in relation to their gender, religion, country, and each other. (Lissa McGovern)

Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Condition, a postcolonial story about a young girl's experience living under patriarchy and colonialism, was the first novel published by a black woman from Zimbabwe in English. It won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize in 1989, and in 2018 the BBC named it one of the top 100 books that have shaped the world.  (John Hyland)

Orlando: A Biography reveals Virginia Woolf at her most imaginative. The Modernist icon traces her gender-fluid protagonist across multiple centuries of English life, posing questions about the very nature of sex & gender and the ways in which societal assumptions inform or restrict an individual's understanding of her / his position within that larger community. (A.J. Kohlhepp)