English 11 – The Writing Semester

Required for all 11th Graders, Term I, ½ credit.

This course is a concentrated study and practicum in writing. Students write often across multiple expository forms. For models, we turn to a department-curated collection of essays from a diverse range of classic and contemporary writers. Rhetorical theory and practice alongside additional ancillary texts expands writers’ range and opportunities to hone their craft.

Borderlands Literature

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

Offered every other year. Next offered 2025-2026.

In this course, we will read texts about the national, cultural, and linguistic borders that sometimes divide us. We consider literature from the Mexican-American border that captures the ways that cultures clash and converge in that socio-political context. The class will also visit other borderlands, and borderless lands, around the world. In doing so, we will come to understand the ways in which literature from these dynamic places challenge the border as a place of difference and, instead, open up opportunities to construct new identities, reimagine nation, and explore novel methods of storytelling. Representative authors include Gloria Anzaldúa, Junot Diaz, Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, and Michael Chabon.

Creative Nonfiction

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

The fastest-growing genre of writing in the United States today, creative nonfiction takes factually accurate material and applies the craft of literary style and technique, rendering it in dynamic and compelling prose. In this literature-based elective, students will explore a wide range of forms of creative nonfiction, including memoir, essay, long-form journalism, profile pieces, science writing, and travelogue. In response to their reading, students will analyze the literary craft of this genre and consider the subtle interplay between creativity and nonfiction.

Dark Romanticism 

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear . . . From Frankenstein to more modern creations, Dark Romanticism has delighted and disturbed audiences through its representations of the spectral and the supernatural, the sublime and the uncanny. Students will study early conventions and innovators of the Gothic across literary forms. Thereafter, students will explore contemporary recreations of the Gothic, resituating Dark Romanticism’s western European foundations within the works of Yoko Ogawa, Jesmyn Ward, and Silvia Moreno-Garcia, among others.

Humanities Symposium: African-American History and Literature

Grades 11 & 12, Term II, 1 credit
(½ credit English, ½ credit History)

Offered jointly through the English and History Departments

Students receive both English and History credit for this team-taught, interdisciplinary course. Each class meets for a double-block period. African-American experiences are explored through literary texts and historical documents alike, with the critical examination of primary sources and articles providing a backbone for studies in literature. The course begins with the complex histories of the peoples of the African subcontinent before turning to address slavery, Reconstruction and Jim Crow, the Harlem Renaissance and Civil Rights Movement, and the present. Representative authors have included Frederick Douglass, Richard Wright, Alice Walker, August Wilson, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Yaa Gyasi, and Toni Morrison. In addition, art, film, and music will inform our study. Assessments are jointly given and graded, and consist of essays, research presentations, creative assignments based on research, and a collaborative, capstone analytical project. Through the interdisciplinary examination of literature and history, students have the opportunity to reach a deeper understanding of the circumstances, challenges, contributions, and resiliency of African Americans from the days of slavery to our current moment. [This course counts as two academic courses in Term II.] 

Moral Questions in Literature

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

This course examines how literary texts engage in questions of morality in an ambiguous world. Students will read excerpts of moral philosophy alongside literature that depicts lives of flourishing, folly, and deliberation. Throughout the semester, students will write about and grapple with concepts such as moral relativism, utilitarianism, and virtue ethics; current news and issues also feed our analyses. Recent authors have included Kwame Appiah, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and E.M. Forster.

Native American Literature

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

To read Native American literature is to engage in decolonization. This course opens with a look at historical, political, and legal documents before shifting to novels, short stories, and poetry that focus on reservation life and Native urbanity. Our representative authors—Natalie Diaz, Louise Erdrich, Larissa FastHorse, Tommy Orange, and Leslie Silko—craft metafictional and metahistorical stories that tear down American exceptionalism and celebrate the truth that Native Americans “are still here.”

Nature Literature

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

Some view their relationship to nature as conquerors, others as collaborators, and some as the conquered. This course explores how writers inhabit those relationships and investigates our own connections to natural spaces. We will explore the ways in which nature transcends setting and becomes a character in literature of the past and present. Students will live the connections between characters and place by investigating their own natural spaces, including some around the Hopkins campus. Authors range widely in perspective—from Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and Frederick Law Olmstead, to David Orr, Camille T. Dungy, and Robin Wall Kimmerer.

Our Mythological Heritage 

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

Postcolonial Literature: The Empire Writes Back

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

This course focuses on postcolonial literature from 1945 to the present. How did writers respond to the massive societal and political upheavals that followed the British withdrawal from Nigeria, South Africa, India, the Caribbean “West Indies”? Did the British really ever leave? Students will read works of fiction, poetry, and plays that reveal and examine the diversity of experiences and perspectives within the canon of postcolonial literature. Representative authors include J.M. Coetzee, Anita Desai, Jamaica Kincaid, Wole Soyinka, and Derek Walcott.

Queer Literature

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

What does it mean to be queer? This course offers a few answers to that question in an introduction to literature that expands our thinking about intersecting identities shaping difference and power, historically and in contemporary culture. We will read literature by and about people and communities who identify as LGBTQIA+ to examine and analyze how texts disrupt, subvert, and challenge sexual, gender, and other sociocultural norms and dynamics. Authors have included Sappho, John Lyly, Audre Lorde, Tony Kushner, and Maia Kobabe.

Russian Literature 

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

Offered every other year. Next offered 2026-2027.

This course explores a rich, troubled, and fascinating culture in its literary golden age, the 19th century. Students read works by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Mikhail Lermontov, Alexander Pushkin, and Anton Chekhov, appreciating them first as great literature, then as windows on a nation, a people, and humanity itself.

The Novel 

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

Few literary forms capture the depth and complexity of the human experience like the novel. This course traces the evolution of the novel from the mid-19th century to today, diving into a variety of vibrant, thought-provoking works that reveal the emotional richness of the art form. Through evocative prose, students will explore themes of identity, society, and human nature, discovering how the novel continues to shape our understanding of the world. Previous authors in this course have included Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison.

Studies in Poetry 

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

“Poetry is not a luxury,” declared Audre Lorde, “it is a vital necessity of our existence.” Embracing this sentiment, we embark on a journey through the rich and diverse tapestry of American poetry. In this course, we will explore how poets harness the interplay of imagery and metaphor, sound and rhythm, thought and syntax to transform language into a potent force for liberation. This exploration will empower us to envision a more just and equitable world, one that embraces the power of poetry in shaping our collective consciousness. Prepare to be challenged and disoriented, but also to emerge as skilled readers and writers of poetry.

Twentieth Century American Literature 

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

The course focuses on American writers seeking to expose or to change an evolving and often elusive American dream. Students will connect literature to historical, social, and political contexts such as the women’s movement, the civil rights movement, the LGBTQ+ movement, and the anti-Vietnam war movement. Students will also consider the original pursuit of the American Dream and apply it to a 20th century reality. Representative writers include F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nella Larsen, Ernest J. Gaines, Tim O’Brien, and Arthur Miller.

Twenty-first Century American Literature

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

This course focuses on literature written after the events of September 11th, 2001, with an eye toward understanding the anxieties and concerns of today. By reading our country’s complex and diverse literature, we will come to know it and perhaps one another better. Authors may include Ayad Akhtar, Ocean Vuong, Patricia Lockwood, Xochitl Gonzalez, and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah.

Wit & Wisdom 

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

Offered every other year. Next offered 2025-2026.

Comedy’s intellectual side can be as dark and socially critical as it is hilarious. This course examines satire, irony, wit, and absurdity in various forms in literature from ancient Greece to the 21st century and approaches the study of comedy as a source of wisdom, perspective, and power. Recent authors include Aristophanes, Oscar Wilde, Paul Beatty, and Douglas Adams.

Heroic Figures in Shakespeare

Grade 12. Term I, ½ credit.

This course examines how Shakespeare expands, develops, and influences the heroic tradition in literature. By examining some of the Bard’s most striking characters from the tragedies, histories and comedies, students will study how the views and expectations of heroism and honor have evolved as the arenas—battlefields, courtrooms, and bedrooms—have changed. 

Love in Shakespeare’s Plays 

Grade 12. Term I, ½ credit.

This course explores how Shakespeare challenges us to think deeply about the complex qualities of love—between lovers, married couples, parents and children, friends, and ultimately communities—rather than to accept the traditional mythologies. Beginning with the sonnet, we follow with examples from both tragedies and comedies. Students will learn to distinguish types of love and question its very nature in Shakespeare’s writings.

Political Shakespeare 

Grade 12. Term I, ½ credit.

Shakespeare & Performance 

Grade 12. Term I, ½ credit.

This course focuses on a close reading of Shakespeare’s plays and the decisions involved in bringing his words to film and the stage. The class explores Shakespeare in his own context and in modern productions so students can identify artistic choices and interpret their implications. Whenever possible, the class will host guest speakers from academia and the theater to amplify the discussion. To extend their learning beyond the classroom, students should expect frequent field trips and after school commitments to view live and screened theater performances, including a kick off during pre-season at Elm Shakespeare in New Haven.

Shakespeare & the Problem of Justice

Grade 12. Term I, ½ credit.

Shakespeare explores revenge, inaction, and forgiveness as part of a range of human responses to injustice. In this course, students will investigate the tension between justice and mercy, or vengeance and absolution. Through the study of some of the most beautiful passages in Shakespeare’s “problem plays” and at least one of his major tragedies, students will grapple with their own notions of justice, in literature and in life.

Women in Shakespeare?

Grade 12. Term I, ½ credit.

This course explores the complexities and ambiguities of Shakespeare’s portrayal of women in their roles as daughters, lovers, mothers, wives, sisters, friends, and rivals. Drawing on traditions of feminist criticism and gender theory, students will explore the possibilities, limitations, and boundaries for female characters through their own and others’ words and deeds. Students will also examine the gendering of power, authority, and agency in Shakespeare’s plays.

Creative Writing 

Grade 11 & 12. Term I, ½ credit.

Reading & Writing Short Stories & Memoirs 

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

Offered every other year. Next offered 2025-2026. 

Writing for Stage & Screen

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

Offered every other year. Next offered 2026-2027. 

This course is designed to explore the core components of storytelling as embodied in theater, either on stage or on screen. Students will consider the work of award-winning playwrights and screenwriters alongside lesser known artists, analyzing techniques in building character, dialogue, and conflict. Students will develop their own short plays; advanced exercises will emphasize skills such as developing backstory, showing rather than telling, adapting descriptive prose, and managing multiple storylines. The class will include a final performance of polished work. (This course may be taken as the primary Term II English elective in Grade 12. This course requires departmental permission when taken as a second English course in Grade 11.)

Whodunit? A Study of the Detective Story

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

Offered every other year. Next offered 2025-2026. 

This course examines the traditional detective story, why it emerged in the 19th century, and how it has changed over time. We will study key elements—the seemingly perfect crime, the wrongly accused suspect, the bumbling constable, the superior mind of the detective, the red herring, and the startling, unexpected denouement—and how these weave the perfect mystery. Examining the worlds of these varied detective figures, we will ask ourselves why this genre continues to capture the popular imagination. Sample authors may include Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Walter Mosley, and Tana French.