Prerequisites are a mastery of basic writing skills, some experience with poetry or fiction and a serious attitude about writing as a discipline and an art. This course is designed for students who are interested in an intensive preparation for the AP English examination. This course not only helps foster an understanding of challenging fiction and poetry written in a variety of periods, styles and disciplines, but it also helps students develop their expository writing under a timed essay format. Students learn not only critical vocabulary for discussing poetry, novels, drama and literary criticism, but also various literary theories through which to approach the study of literature. Students learn to develop their own writing styles, using complex sentence structure, paragraph organization, vocabulary and detail.
Students examine mainly British and American literature in a variety of literary genres.
The literature of Africa, India and Latin America. This course would introduce students to the literature, history, and culture of three countries. Cultural presentations would supplement the teaching of literature. Films will be our primary texts, and our goal is to learn to read films as astutely and carefully as we read books. Students' understanding of film is enriched by viewing, discussing and writing in great depth about the art form we often consider little more than entertainment.