The Academy Courses A Coordinated Curriculum English The Academy's English curriculum is designed to promote students' critical thinking, appreciation for and comprehension of literary history, and to refine analytical writing skills. The ninth-grade course emphasizes expository writing and reading.
Students study English literature in the tenth grade, and American literature in the eleventh grade.
They also learn to conduct effective research at the Mugar Memorial Library, a skill that serves them well for all of their Academy and University courses. Composition and Literature Students focus on an assortment of prose models to gain an understanding of rhetorical strategies and choices. They read and write about a diversity of texts including stories, essays, plays, novellas, and novels. Their writing consists of a wide variety of exercises and essays, with the formal essays benefiting from a process of revision that includes rough drafts and group workshops. English Literature and Composition Students read a broad selection of English literature, from Beowulf to Virginia Woolf and frequently practice and review the principles of expository writing.