An educational course that provides a comprehensive overview of the fundamental principles and components of reading and writing development, focusing on key areas like phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and how to effectively teach these skills to students, often with a specific emphasis on early childhood and elementary literacy development.

English 9 is a comprehensive English course of literature, composition, and language, including listening and speaking. The study of literature includes reading and comprehending a wide variety of literary forms including short stories, nonfiction, poetry, drama, novels, and spoken and visual texts. The course offers supportive reading strategies for various purposes. This course also focuses on the writing process through response to literature, creative writing, and connections to real-life situations and problem-solving. The study of language targets usage, mechanics, and strategies for vocabulary development integrated into literature and composition components. In addition, the course will teach grammatical concepts and applications. Students will review punctuation, capitalization, spelling, and usage and work on logical thinking and various modes of composition, including the research paper. Listening and speaking skills are also developed throughout the course.

This is a course in English language and composition providing a survey of fiction and nonfiction texts from authors  and media around the world with an emphasis on critical thinking and problem solving for the 21st century gifted learner. The course texts and assignments are meant to aid students in viewing the world from a variety of different perspectives and to allow students to see literature as a response to historical and social contexts. Further, there is significant consideration placed on the needs, skills, and effective habits of students as they transition into high school.

Students will read persuasive texts, with a focus on the credibility of an author’s argument, the relationship between generalizations and evidence, the comprehensiveness of evidence, the way in which the author’s intent affects the structure and tone of the text, and extend ideas through original analysis, evaluation, and elaboration. Students will read expository texts, use what they have learned to establish a controlling impression or coherent thesis that conveys a clear and distinctive perspective on a subject, maintain a consistent tone, and focus throughout a piece of writing. Students will read literary texts (e.g., short stories, poetry, and longer works, including novels), recognize and understand the significance of various literary devices, including figurative language, imagery, allegory, and symbolism, and explain their appeal.

This course's main purpose is to analyze literature and expository texts in greater depth and produce more complex writing assignments. This year-long course utilizes a variety of literary forms, genres, and voices to help students advance their reading, writing, listening, speaking, and analytical skills to develop language arts skills to fully prepare student for an honors, AP, or college-level course in their junior year. As an honors course, students may be expected to read a greater quantity of texts which may be longer, more complex, or more mature.

A grade of an “A” in regular English 10AB, or a grade of a “B” or higher in honors English 10AB. This is an elective course as students must be concurrently enrolled in an English class while enrolled in AP Seminar during the 11th grade year. AP Seminar is a foundational course in the AP Capstone experience that engages students in cross-curricular conversations that explore the complexities of academic and real-world topics and issues by analyzing divergent perspectives. Using an inquiry framework, students practice reading and analyzing articles, research studies, and foundational, literary, and philosophical texts; listening to and viewing speeches, broadcasts, and personal accounts; and experiencing artistic works and performances. Students learn to investigate a problem or issue, analyze arguments, to synthesize information from multiple sources, compare different perspectives, synthesize information from multiple sources, develop their own perspectives in written essays, and design and deliver oral and visual presentations, both individually and as part of a team. Ultimately, the course aims to equip students with the power to analyze and evaluate information with accuracy and precision to craft and communicate evidence-based arguments.

A grade of an “A” in regular English 9AB, or a grade of a “B” or higher in honors English 9AB. This course will fulfill the 10th-grade English B requirement. As an English 10 course, AP Seminar English 10 provides students with dynamic opportunities to explore real-world issues, read a variety of text types, construct written responses, collaborate in teams, and present confidently—all skills that support future success in AP and college coursework. See the description for the AP Seminar course above.

American Literature and Composition is a semester-long course that includes standards-based instruction centered on recurrent themes and genres in United States literature from the colonial period to the present and reflects on the diversity of American life. Students read and respond to historically or culturally significant works of literature that reflect and enhance their studies of history and social science. The philosophical approach is the focus, as students analyze the philosophical arguments presented in literary works to determine whether the authors’ positions have contributed to the quality of each work and the credibility of characters. As a means of developing the critical thinking and communication skills necessary for the demands of college and work, students will engage in discussion to prepare oral and written arguments that provide all relevant perspectives and consider the validity and reliability of sources. The major purpose of Contemporary Composition semester course is to explore ideas, issues, and themes from contemporary fiction, nonfiction, and informational materials and to focus on writing coherent and complex texts that convey well-defined perspectives and tightly reasoned arguments. Students will think about the structure, style, content, and purpose of contemporary literature, expository, and visual texts through different lenses and various perspectives to investigate personal, American, and global views on current events, issues, and themes. As a means of developing the critical thinking and communication skills necessary for the demands of college and work, students will engage in discussion to prepare oral and written arguments that provide all relevant perspectives and consider the validity and reliability of sources.

In this 11th grade honors course, differentiation strategies of acceleration/pacing, depth, complexity, and novelty are used. Writing instruction and carefully designed prompts should aim at enabling students to express complex and interrelated ideas with clarity and a mature, sophisticated style. The course will be demonstrably more challenging than regular college preparatory sections, requiring more extensive and challenging reading assignments; more frequent, complex, sustained writing assignments; and written examinations, including a comprehensive written final examination.

AP English Language and Composition is an introductory college-level composition course. Students cultivate their understanding of writing and rhetorical arguments through reading, analyzing, and writing texts as they explore topics like rhetorical situation, claims and evidence, reasoning and organization, and style. This course cultivates the reading and writing skills that students need for college success and for intellectually responsible civic engagement. The course guides students in becoming curious, critical, and responsive readers of diverse texts and becoming flexible, reflective writers of texts addressed to diverse audiences for diverse purposes. The reading and writing students do in the course should deepen and expand their understanding of how written language functions rhetorically: to communicate writers’ intentions and elicit readers’ responses in particular situations.

This semester course's main purpose is to provide writing experiences characterized by logical and coherent organization, clarity of expression, and suitability in style, usage, and the conventions of writing. The student is required to read closely within and across expository and informational genres (e.g., essays, biographies, critiques, précis, and newspaper and magazine articles) for literal and implied meaning and to demonstrate through classroom discussion, oral presentation, and written expression an understanding of the text(s). Emphasis in this course is on expository reading and writing and the essential skills of editing, although the course provides some practice in other domains of writing.

The major purpose of Modern Literature semester course is to study significant works of the 20th-century literary movement. Students will develop a basis for understanding modern literature through investigations of universal themes across social and historical contexts and evaluations of how the influences of the regions and historical events shaped the discourse across genres. Students will engage in a study of interpretative theories to help them understand multiple perspectives and ways to understand literature through different lenses.