About Our English Program

---

 In this course, students will be taught how to think and write like writers as they read and imitate works of short fiction appropriate but challenging for their grade level. Classic short story authors covered in this course will include Isaac Asimov, Gary Soto, Ray Bradbury, Shirley Jackson, and Hernando Tellez. These readings will be provided in the form of digital PDFs by the teacher. If students so choose, they can work on 1 story throughout the course so that by the end of it, they have written an entire story. Otherwise, they can treat each week’s writing exercise as individual writing practice. Workshops will be used to help students practice analyzing and critiquing others’ writing while also hearing constructive feedback on their own.

Each week students are expected to read and/or write based on prompts the teacher provides. The reading or writing techniques will then be reviewed in the following class session to inspire further student creative writing. Students should also upload their writing exercises to the Course’s Google Classroom page, and the teacher will provide individualized edits and feedback for each student.

In this course, students will be taught how to think and write like writers and intellectuals as we broach various topics in social studies, science, and literature through reading and writing. Students will be challenged with various readings provided by the teacher and asked to write various critical responses and analyses of their own. The course will allow students to think deeply and write about a wide range of subjects including history, biography, current events, cutting-edge technologies, modern art, and poetry. The multi-faceted approach is meant to ensure that students can analyze, form opinions of, and argue about any topic that may face them in their academic and professional careers.  

In this course, students will be asked to think about, judge, and produce writing based on 6 crucial criteria: Ideas, Organization, Word Choice, Sentence Fluency, Voice, and Conventions. This approach will encourage students to think more deliberately about how they craft and edit their writing. We will cover all kinds of topics in various fields as we read and write our way through these 6 principles over the course of 20 weeks.  

In this course, students will write and submit 3 pieces of writing for New York Times young writers' contests. The 3 contests that the course will likely spotlight (pending the release of NY Times Spring Contests) are the Profile Contest, the STEM Writing Contest, and the Editorial Contest. As there may be extra time at the end of the semester, the course may also help students to participate in the NY Times Podcast Contest as well. Preparing for and submitting to these contests will not only allow students to compete in and win each competition, but it will also help students to improve in writing, editing, and critical thinking.The course topics will include strong sentences, dynamic paragraphs, argumentation, description, objectivity in writing, and narrative arc. Students will become versatile writers and thinkers as they produce writing in different modes. The teacher will provide editing for students that will help them with their contest submissions.