The elective program in English offers a wide variety of courses for student selection. These offerings range from thematically organized courses, to special seminars on specific authors, with each course covering relevant short and long works that fit the course’s focus. The typical composition students write at this level continues to build on student’s mastery of the five-paragraph essay. Students are expected to write three such essays each semester. They also study topics such as outlining, introductions and conclusions, transitions, and parallel structure designed to develop specific skills necessary for the writing of effective essays.
Journeys. We all undertake them. To the store, to a ballgame, to a new school. We also undertake more profound journeys through personal struggles and challenges. Throughout human history, stories about “the hero” also have abounded. In this course, we will study some of these stories and how, interestingly enough, how the journeys of these many heroes across time and cultures are very much alike and very much like our own. This course will examine how those journeys have played themselves out in various literary pieces as well as in nonfiction pieces and in film. The course work will include pieces as varied as Siddhartha, Home (Toni Morrison), The River Why (by the author of the Brothers K), Heart of Darkness, and Star Wars. Course work will involve small group assignments, oral presentations, personal reflection, and several expository essays as well as reading and writing assignments.