An Opportunity for Questioning
Upper School English teacher Shelby Stokes challenges students to take ownership of their learning.
Riverdale English classes aim to promote the habits of thought that are necessary for effective reading and writing. Students follow a common program in grades six through eleven, culminating in Constructing America, the American studies course taught jointly with the history department. Students are encouraged to become active participants in their own learning through close reading and critical discussion of literature, and frequent practice in writing, both formal and informal. The department's sequential writing program aims to help students become increasingly fluent, precise users of language with primary, but not exclusive emphasis upon the development of analytical skills. In literature, students study the principal literary genres and the fundamental themes and concerns of serious literature. The department views the reading and writing that is the heart of the English curriculum as liberal arts, that is, as means of empowering students to live fuller, more complete lives.
Please select below for either required or elective courses.
The course aims to help students acquire the habits of thought that make for effective reading and writing so that they develop as intelligent, critical readers and as competent writers of personal, creative, and analytical pieces. Students work extensively on paragraph structure at the beginning of the year and by mid-year are producing full-length analytical essays. The texts studied include Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre," Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried," Nikolai Gogol's "The Nose" and "The Overcoat," Shakespeare's "Othello," and Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House," as well as a wide selection of poetry drawn from "The Seagull Reader." Short stories and essays are determined by individual teachers.
Vocabulary study draws on words from class discussion, as well as selected from the literature studied. Grammar study begins with a review of parts of speech and moves on to the parts of the sentence, independent and dependent clauses, and the use of modifying phrases and clauses.
“Never again will a single story be told as though it’s the only one.” – John Berger
In English 10 we gather texts that tell striking stories, and we also examine how these stories are told. We explore other ways the "single story" can be told--from a different perspective, in a different genre, mode, or even medium. Thus each text in the curriculum has a "twin text," another work that tells a similar story but in a different way, a different form, with different emphases. We juxtapose these texts with the aim of uncovering untold stories, contemplating the craft of the writer, and opening up discussion of issues relevant to the characters' lives and our own.
An interdisciplinary course, team-taught by teachers from the history and English departments, that introduces juniors to the history of American civilization and culture. The focus is on the ways in which Americans have—from the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to the Gulf War and beyond—asserted the special nature of American society even while they have contested and interrogated the meaning of such "exceptionalism." The course seeks to investigate and understand the various modes through which Americans have explored a sense of American uniqueness by examining a variety of political and literary genres: treatises, essays, letters, speeches, sermons, diaries, fiction, and poetry. It examines political texts—e.g., the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, Letter from a Birmingham Jail—from a literary as well as a historical perspective, with attention to their uses of rhetoric and literary devices. And it likewise examines literary texts—e.g., the poetry of Whitman and William Carlos Williams, the prose of Herman Melville and William Faulkner—from a sociological as well as a rhetorical-aesthetic perspective, with attention to their capacity to illuminate moments in the nation's political, and intellectual transformation.
Crucial questions investigated include: How have Americans defined national identity? How have they contested fixed and stable understandings of "the American" and sought to replace them with plural and shifting identifications? How has the national literature enunciated the evolving relationship between creativity and politics, entertainment and education? How can narrative modes be read as reflections of American experiences? How have Americans imagined and represented the defining differences between American literature, sensibility, landscape, and humor and those of Europe and the rest of the world? How have philosophers and poets, politicians and journalists, elite and dispossessed classes conceived of America as a place of particular opportunity, providence, and oppression? How have the actual experiences of various categories of Americans mirrored and/or contradicted these conceptions
Integrated Liberal Studies (ILS)
ILS, a required course for seniors, is a multidisciplinary examination of questions of fundamental human importance. The primary goal is to develop students’ critical thinking through close reading of primary sources, discussion-based learning, and analytical and personal writing. During the first eighteen weeks of the course, students read works in a variety of disciplines to explore two essential questions that have been central to human civilization since its beginnings and that continue to engage contemporary thinkers. One is an ontological question, “who or what are we as human beings?” and the other a moral and political question, “how ought we to live and conduct our lives?’ These two questions, (“Self” and “Virtue” for short) provide the framework for detailed study and discussion of specific works and are intended to help students to formulate good questions of their own within these fields of discourse. The questions are examined through the lenses of different disciplines, such as Art, Literature, Philosophy, and Psychology to create a multidisciplinary perspective. Students study a set of core texts in common along with choices introduced by individual instructors. Among the core texts are Levi’s "Survival in Auschwitz," Plato’s "Meno," St. Augustine’s Confessions, Book II, Montaigne’s “On Repenting,” selections from the writings of Nietzsche, Freud’s "Civilization and its Discontents," Sartre’s “Is Existentialism a Humanism?” Geertz’s “The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man,” Gopnik’s "The Philosophical Baby," and the film "The Lives of Others." In addition, instructors offer a variety of elective texts including Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave,” Marlowe’s "Dr. Faustus," the paintings of Rembrandt and Vermeer, Dostoevsky’s "Notes from Underground," Rousseau’s "Reveries of a Solitary Walker," Nicol’s “Do Elephants Have Souls?” and Truffaut’s film, "L’Enfant Sauvage." Students then examine two major contemporary topics that they will have to confront in their future careers. In 2018, these topics will be “Social Justice,” and “The Way We Live Now.” The intention is that students should draw upon the theoretical understanding they have developed in “Self” and “Virtue” to explore these topics. These units will allow students to make connections between the theoretical work of the first part of the course and their own questions concerning how we should act in tackling real-world questions. The course ends with a short elective unit in which each of the eight members of the ILS faculty will offer students different choices. The courses offered in 2018 have yet to be determined, but in the past have included a course on the digital age, a study of the relationships between non-human animals and humans, an investigation of the psychology of perception, studies of major literary works, and discussion of readings from The Stone on issues of interest to contemporary philosophers. ILS assessment includes frequent impromptu writing, student-directed discussions and presentations to classmates, and the writing of interdisciplinary analytical papers.
American literature reaches a level of maturity and self-assurance beginning in 1850 that permits us to say we have our "own" national literature, and also that we have examples of great and timeless masterpieces produced in this new country. This course will sample some of the master-works that emerge during a roughly seventy-five year period from 1850 to 1925. This course will likely appeal to students who enjoyed the literature they read in Constructing America and who want to read further, sometimes in the same authors.
The course will range over many genres—romance, realism, local color and humor, poetry both lyric and longer, and some non-fiction prose. Core texts will be Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter," selected chapters from Melville’s "Moby Dick," poetry written by four American poets: Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, and Wallace Stevens, and additional fiction of Edith Wharton, William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, and possibly one more (Sarah Orne Jewett or Ernest Hemingway).
The course is for people who want to read, like to read, and are willing to read. Class will be devoted to discussion and analysis, with a few films to support our reading. Assessment will be traditional: reading quizzes, in-class writing, and longer "take-home" essays.
Black American Literature
The position of African American writing in American society has changed a great deal. It has gone from being a marginalized voice to, in some cases, a canonical one. However, that journey is long and difficult, and it is not over. Nevertheless, even when the country and the world weren't listening, African American literature was an essential component of the American psyche. While not a "complete" survey of works created by and/or about African Americans, this course will endeavor to examine different watershed African American works. We will read The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Toni Morrison's "A Mercy," August Wilson's "Fences" and "The Piano Lesson," and Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man," as well as many poems and short stories by a diverse selection of writers including Phillis Wheatley, John Edgar Wideman, Langston Hughes, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Gwendolyn Brooks. We will also support our discussions of literature with music and a movie, Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing."
Black Feminist Theory
This course seeks to offer an introduction to Black feminist theory and its engagement with the various intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality in the lives of black women in the United States. In what ways does black feminism differ from white feminist ideology, and how has it produced a radical new language to encapsulate the intersectionality of black womanhood? This course will use a variety of texts and media in an exploration of this question, including Alice Walker's "The Color Purple," Audre Lorde's "Sister Outsider,' works by bell hooks, Beyonce's "Lemonade," Paula Giddings, Nikki Giovanni, and others. This course will be run as a discussion based seminar, and we will be producing a mix of analytical and personal writing over the course of the semester. Students will also produce a final creative project that synthesizes all they have learned in the course.
Borders and Power
In this semester long course, students will explore cross-cultural encounters as represented in literature and film and will come to understand the unique dynamics of domination, greed, love, curiosity, and desire that have characterized these experiences throughout history. Humans have always been driven to make contact with other human groups, and we will experience some of the many genres of literature through which writers and filmmakers have documented and reflected on these cross-cultural experiences, including the literature of exploration, novels and films about colonization and immigration, travel literature, and ethnography. Readings will be chosen with a particular emphasis on colonial and post-colonial systems of power and the way colonization and globalization have altered peoples' experience of themselves and their place in the world, creating a new sense of "otherness" while also engendering a uniquely modern, cosmopolitan openness to diverse cultural experiences. We will consider the personal and political effects of crossing cultural boundaries, and students will be given the opportunity to reflect on their own boundary-crossing experiences.
A semester long course focusing entirely on writing our own poetry and short stories. We will both read and write, using mostly contemporary writers for inspiration and modeling. Many classes will mimic the typical workshop that serious writers will encounter in undergraduate and graduate studies. Class time will be devoted to discussing the various elements of craft involved in writing. If you take this class, be prepared to work hard and to listen to constructive criticism from both the teacher and your peers.
English and American Poetry 1600–2000
In this course we will examine some of the greatest short poems written in the English language. Beginning with the Renaissance poetry of William Shakespeare and John Donne and concluding with the late 20th Century works of Robert Lowell, we will see how poets of different periods have meditated on the meaning of life, the beauty and terror of nature, the process of growing up and old. We will think about how poets use verse to reflect on the challenges of the historical period in which they live and as a means of talking to other poets, both living and dead. Throughout the course, we will also have the opportunity to read and discuss new poems that have only recently been published. In addition to writing essays (in-class and take home) each student will be responsible for leading class discussion once during the semester.
Gender, Sexuality, and the Novel
Using feminist and literary theory from thinkers like Gayatri Spivak and Judith Butler, we’ll track a few key novelists who shaped our understanding of both the modern novel and of femininity and masculinity from the early nineteenth century to well into the twentieth. In this class, we’ll read Jane Austen for a look at her response to the changing class structure and the shift in expectations for domestic life in nineteenth century England. While studying Virginia Woolf, we’ll look at how a loss of meaning and certainty after the First World War affected her understanding of gender and sexuality. We’ll also read selections from Jean Rhys and other modernist writers in order to see how post colonialism affected and was affected by the shift in gender expectations in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Active participation is key to any successful course, so please come prepared to do quite a bit of reading. Assessments will take the form of oral presentations, in-class writing responses, and a longer, “take-home” essay we will workshop as a class.
This course is a study of the novel, in the realist tradition of Austen's "Pride and Prejudice," from the modernist perspectives of Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," and Woolf's "To The Lighthouse," and finally as postmodernist achievement of Ian McEwan's "Atonement." The course asks such questions as: How has the writer used the novel to approach the question of "What is reality?" How does the novelist use formal means to go about representing reality? What is human consciousness and how does it work? What can be known about oneself and about others? How can one create oneself and create representation—as a writer, as a painter, as a storyteller? How do the familiar constituents of character, point of view, and development change from realist to modernist to postmodernist novel? What is the interaction of each novelist within the cultural context, whether Enlightenment, British imperialism, Irish nationalism, modernism, or post-modernism? Short essays, reading quizzes, creative writing, and a class presentation constitute the course assessments.
Masterpieces of Western Literature
This course offers students the opportunity to study major works in the principal literary genres from the time of Homer to the twenty-first century, including epic, drama, poetry, the novella, and the novel. Works studied will include Homer's "Iliad," Virgil's Eclogues I & IX, selections from Boccaccio's "Decameron," Shakespeare's "As You Like It," Shakespeare's "King Lear," Milton’s "Lycidas," Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard," Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," Eliot's "The Waste Land," and Sebald's "Austerlitz."
It would not be an exaggeration to say that the last one hundred years have produced some of the best pieces of dramatic literature—commonly known as plays—in human history. In a century that has been rocked by dramatic political upheavals, immense technological growth, devastating wars, and the consequences of extreme utopian and dystopian thought, drama has served as one of the most prominent and productive genres of literature in which humans have asked difficult questions about themselves and offered equally complex answers. Through an examination of fourteen of the best plays of the past century, we will grapple with the way that artists from the United States and Europe have grappled with everything from racial, cultural, and gender differences to the limits of language and free will. The nature, merits, and limitations of naturalism, expressionism, existentialism, absurdism, and realism will be explored. The course will also include at least two trips to off-Broadway and/or Broadway plays.
Texts studied may include Tracy Letts, "August: Osage County"; Martin McDonough, "The Pillowman"; Eugene O'Neill, "Long Day's Journey Into Night"; Anton Chekhov, "The Three Sisters"; John Guare, "Six Degrees of Separation"; Harold Pinter, "The Homecoming"; Edward Albee, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"; Arthur Miller, "A View from the Bridge"; David Mamet, "American Buffalo"; Tom Stoppard, "Arcadia"; Samuel Beckett, "Waiting for Godot"; Donald Margulies, "Loman Family Picnic"; Tennessee Williams, "The Glass Menagerie"; and August Wilson, "Fences."
Rites of Passage
You're living it; why not study it? See what “the experts” have to say about adolescence and take this moment to put your own opinions on this turbulent, exciting period of life into writing. You will have the opportunity to read psychological studies of adolescence and to assess works of literature and film in terms of their portrayal of the developmental “tasks” of adolescence. Our readings will be selected with consideration of the two major categories of an adolescent's psychological work: separation and individuation. How do the characters we encounter manage the task of breaking away from family? How comfortable are they in their own skins? What mechanisms are in place in the surrounding culture for integration into larger social frameworks and consolidation of their developing identities? Of course all of these questions relate to you as well, so analysis of books, poems, and films will be accompanied by personal writing and multi-media explorations of identity. Readings will expose you to various cultural and historical contexts as you explore questions of gender and sexuality, relation to tradition, and the uses of transgression. Texts and films include but are not limited to: J.D. Salinger's "DeDaumier Smith’s Blue Period,” Joyce Carol Oates’ "I.D.," Russell Banks’ "Success Story,” Mary Karr’s memoir "Cherry," "Pump Up the Volume,” "Boys Don't Cry,” "Megamind," "Whale Rider,” "What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” and "Smoke Signals."
Science Fiction: Utopias and Dystopias
We will explore the world of science fiction through novels, stories, film, and television, focusing in particular on the ways in which writers and producers of science fiction imagine a better (or in most cases worse) version of humanity and the world. We will begin by reading perhaps the earliest work of science fiction, Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein." Other texts will include Orwell's "1984," Huxley's "Brave New World," and works by authors like Margaret Atwood, Ursula Le Guin, Octavia Butler, Philip K. Dick, and others. Films will include "Brazil," "Metropolis," "The Matrix," and others.
Shakespeare and Film
In this course we study Shakespeare's plays along with films which take their inspiration from these plays. A guiding question is: What is the relationship between Shakespeare's plays, whose medium is language within a non-realist theatre, and their interpretation in film, which, in its dominant, classical form, is a realist, visual medium? Simply put, how is it, and why is it, that word-based Shakespeare has been joined to image-based film?
We will study individual plays closely to understand their poetic, literary, and theatrical qualities, and to understand the play's context. We will look at individual films derived from the play: How has the adaptation or interpretation been achieved? What purpose does the director have? How do the film's linguistic, narrative, symbolic, and visual aspects indicate faithfulness to, or departure from, Shakespeare's work? How does the director react to and even shape the cultural and material context of the film's making? We will learn the critical vocabularies to approach both the art of Shakespeare and the art of film. We will also read selected criticism about the films and the context of the plays.
Reflections, short essays, creative writing, partner presentations, and final presentations constitute course assessments.
Shakespeare: Text and Performance
This course will do three things. First, we will read, discuss, and write about three or four Shakespeare plays. This part of the course will, in some ways, be a traditional, Shakespeare focused English class. However, even as we study the texts, we will begin to approach the plays as an actor does, by exploring the voice and speech exercises that will be important later in the course. Second, students in the course will have an opportunity, in pairs, to teach selected scenes from one of the plays, Romeo and Juliet, to Riverdale 8th graders, who will be studying the play in their English classes. Third, we will use the fourth quarter to rehearse and then perform selected, interconnected scenes from the plays we have studied. No prior acting experience is necessary.
North Carolina author, Pat Conroy, once remarked, "All southern literature can be summed up in these words: 'On the night the hogs ate Willy, Mama died when she heard what Daddy did to Sister.'" Conroy's statement captures the fact that writers of the American South frequently revel in grotesque and outlandish accounts. However, Conroy's description does not tell the whole story. Although Southern literature does often dwell upon the macabre, it is also preoccupied with race relations, the legacy of the past, the burden of tradition and family, and complex notions of gender. In this survey, we will devote our time to exploring these issues in works written by major Southern writers of the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Among other texts, we will read Mark Twain's "Pudd'nhead Wilson," Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God," Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian," and Tennessee Williams's "A Streetcar Named Desire," as well as short stories by William Faulkner, Carson McCullers, Flannery O'Connor, and Ernest Gaines. As we make our way through works by some of America's most talented (and colorful) literary figures, we will write several short reflection papers and a seven-page final essay.
Thinking About Thinking
An interdisciplinary seminar concerned with the nature of thinking, especially reasoning. The course will examine such topics as animal and human intelligence, language, logic, inductive and deductive reasoning, belief, and knowledge. The unifying theme of the course is classification, or taxonomy, inasmuch as no thinking is possible without systems of classification, and taxonomic problems are often the most contentious within scholarly and scientific disciplines, which are themselves the products of taxonomic decisions. In particular, the course will examine the ways in which human cultures have classified the world in a variety of contexts and disciplines, including philosophy, the biological and physical sciences, the human sciences, history, and literature.
Though this is a writing intensive course, coursework is designed to make maximum use of class time for the study and practice of writing and thus to minimize homework assignments. Short, focused exercises target writing issues and skills that the group deems most useful. Longer pieces center on particular modes of writing and draw on personal experience for their material. Several model essays are read and discussed throughout the semester with careful attention to diction, rhetoric, and tone. At the end of the course, students work with each other to edit and polish one piece of writing each for inclusion in a course anthology.