English Department Updates: Fresh Curriculum for Freshmen! 

As the year ends, the English department would like to highlight a department initiative to shake up the Grade 9 curriculum with new texts and a greater emphasis on writing. Our year looks at the individual and how they respond to their external world, from the pressures of conformity, society, relationships, and their environment. Students have written comparative analyses, completed in-depth character studies of Shakespearean characters, and are currently working on a Literature Circle unit that will culminate in a persuasive argument showcase. 

We would like to highlight specifically our Literature Circle unit. The goal of the unit was threefold: get students really talking naturally about literature, prepare them for the rigor and confines of timed writings, and introduce the art of argument. We modeled close reading through our anchor text: John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. Students submitted targeted annotations, choosing three pages of each assigned reading to closely unpacked with a provided annotation code. We then used the anchor text to model claims, subclaims, counterclaims, and rebuttals, with students completing a formative timed writing to practice this argument structure. 

Students then selected texts they would like to read for our Literature Circle, where the skills we modeled through the anchor text study were applied to their novels. Students cycled through three key roles. The Discussion Director generated some starter questions and was responsible for keeping the conversation flowing productively, working to include reticent students. The Literary Luminaries found passages that were insightful, rich, funny, heartbreaking, infuriating, etc. The Story Connectors found connections between their novel and other texts, from texts we studied in class to media they consume in their daily lives. Students discussed for 20 minutes, then had time to write their reflections afterward. The culminating task is an argument showcase in which students will argue which aspect of one’s environment they believe holds the most influence over an individual. Their showcase will highlight their claims, subclaims, evidence and elaboration, counterclaim, and rebuttal. 

We are very proud of the work these students have done this year!