Arts and Literature - Pacem School

Below is a description of our entire high school curriculum. Courses to be offered in 2012-2013 are
Global Literature: Rebels and Iconoclasts of Europe and the Americas (for ages 14-16), Peace and Conflict (for ages 16-18), and Poetry/Short Story

1st and 2^nd year students will alternate between the two courses described below: The Essayand Global Literature: Rebels and Iconoclasts of Europe and the Americas

The Essay

Literature: Students will read a variety of essays from Best American Essays, National Geographic, The New Yorker, Yankee Magazine, Teen Ink, Orion, The New York Times, and similar publications. They will also listen to at least one audio essay from Teen Radio Diaries or This American Life. While writing literature response essays, they will read short fiction like Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily,” or Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery.” While reading personal/memoir essays, they will read graphic memoirs like Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis.

Discussion: Students will help select essays for discussions and will help facilitate discussions. With guidance, students will focus discussions on the following areas: authors’ choices and how these create effects; central themes and ideas; authors’ analysis and substantiation of that analysis; authors’ point-of-view; connections between texts and other literature; connections between texts and students’ lives; connections between texts and world events.

Writing Pieces: Students will write shorter reflective and analytical responses to a number of different kinds of essays. They also will craft at least 4 complete essays.

Writing Skills: For analytical essays, students will: create arguments; substantiate arguments using well-chosen, relevant, and specific facts; use effective structures for conveying their arguments; and use tones appropriate to their topics. For narrative essays, students will develop stories depicting real experiences or events by crafting dialogue, pacing, description, reflection, and multiple plot lines; provide conclusions that follow from and reflect on what is experienced, observed, or resolved over the course of narratives. Overall, they will progress toward developing unique authorial voices, through selection of content and use of style. They will use English conventions outlined in the Core Standards for English Language Arts. With guidance, they will use proper MLA documentation. With guidance, they will use the drafting process to develop and complete essays.

Writing Publication and Documentation: Students will complete polished submissions for the fall and spring editions of thePacem Literary Journal. They will also select at least 2 pieces for their Pacem Writing Portfolio.

Global Literature: Rebels and Iconoclasts of Europe and the Americas (to be offered 2012-2013)

This class is a companion class to World Perspectives: Europe and the Americas

Literature: Students will read fiction, literary nonfiction, and poetry from Europe and the Americas. Though ‘Americas’ will primarily mean Central and South America, when appropriate, students will read short pieces of American literature to compare and contrast with the other literature they’re studying. Students will begin by reading excerpts of Celtic and Norse creation myths. They then will read a comedic Shakespearean play and an excerpt from Don Quixote. They’ll progress to Enlightenment era rabble-rousers like Jonathan Swift, and they’ll study social satire by Charles Dickens or Jane Austen. They’ll sail to the Americas with Mayan creation myths. They’ll study Spanish Conquistador exploration narratives, along with 16^thcentury debates over the humanity of the native peoples of the Americas. They’ll read an excerpt of the epic poem about a South American gaucho, “Martín Fierro.” To finish the year, they’ll read work by two of the following: Gabriel García Márquez, Isabel Allende, Julia Alvarez, Pablo Neruda, or Rigoberta Menchú. Students also may read The House on Mango Street as a companion piece.

Discussion: Students will help select literature for discussions and will help facilitate discussions. With guidance, students will focus discussions on the following areas: authors’ choices and how these create effects; central themes; complex characters and their relationship to plots; sub-texts, as well as metaphoric, symbolic, and figurative aspects of texts; rhyme, meter, form, and line breaks (poetry); connections between texts and other literature; connections between texts and students’ lives; connections between texts and world events.

Writing Pieces: Students will regularly write shorter reflective and analytical responses to readings. They also will craft at least one short story, one poem, one personal/memoir essay, and one literary analysis essay.

Writing Skills: For analytical essays, students will: create arguments; substantiate arguments using well-chosen, relevant, and specific facts; use effective structures for conveying their arguments; and use tones appropriate to their topics. For narratives, students will develop stories depicting real or imagined experiences and events by crafting dialogue, pacing, description, reflection, and multiple plot lines; provide conclusions that follow from and reflect on what is experienced, observed, or resolved over the course of the narratives. For poetry, students will use free verse or form, as well as a variety of techniques and figures of speech. Overall, they will progress toward developing unique authorial voices, through selection of content and use of style. Students will use English conventions outlined in the Core Standards for English Language Arts. With guidance, they will use proper MLA documentation. With guidance, they will use the drafting process to develop and complete narratives, essays, and poems.

3^rd and 4^th year students will alternate between the two courses described below: American Environment and Peace and Conflict

American Environment

This class is a companion class to New England Social and Environmental History, as well as Environmental Science.

Literature: Students will begin by studying Vermont, with texts such as Howard Frank Mosher’s Northern Borders, David Budbill’s Judevine, folklore retellings by Joseph Bruchac and Michael Caduto, and a variety of poems and essays by Vermont writers. Students will expand into the rest of New England by reading works by American Transcendentalists and Romantics. Students will then explore America’s other regions with texts like Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi orHuckleberry Finn. Students will read shorter companion pieces such as excerpts of works by Fredrick Douglass or Harriot Jacobs/Linda Brent. They’ll finish the year by independently exploring the American environment in the 20^th or 21^st century by picking a genre, theme, era, region, or author to study. As part of this independent exploration, they’ll ultimately teach an hour-long class to their classmates on their chosen genre, theme, era, region, or author.

Discussion: Students will help select literature for discussions and will help facilitate discussions. With increasing independence, students will focus discussions on the following areas: authors’ choices and how these create effects; central themes; complex characters and their relationship to plots, as well as texts’ overall structures, meanings, and aesthetic impacts; multiple meanings and sub-texts, as well as metaphoric, symbolic, and figurative aspects of texts; rhyme, meter, and complex forms (poetry); connections between texts and other literature; connections between texts and students’ lives; connections between texts and world events.

Writing Pieces: Students will write 3-5 journal entries each week. Entries will include reflections and observations on the local environment, as well as reflections on the relationship between texts studied and students’ lives. They will develop and write 3 to 4 shorter (2-5 page) fiction and/or nonfiction pieces. They may also write poems. Their selection of pieces will relate to their long-term educational goals. During the second semester, students will write a 10-15 page essay that explores a 20^th or 21^st century American environmental writing genre, theme, era, region or author. (Students in their 3^rd sequence year may choose instead to write two 5-8 page essays on different aspects of one topic; for example, a student may choose to write an expository essay about the life of a particular author and a literature response essay about one of that author’s works.) Students will end the year by designing and teaching an hour-long class on the topic of their essay(s).

Writing Skills: For analytical essays, students will: create arguments; substantiate arguments using the most relevant facts; use structures for conveying their arguments that form unified wholes; and use tones appropriate to their topics. For narratives, students will develop stories depicting real or imagined experiences and events by crafting dialogue, pacing, description, reflection, and multiple plot lines; create coherent wholes that form particular tones or outcomes; provide conclusions that follow from and reflect on the significance of what is experienced, observed, or resolved over the course of the narratives.For poetry, students will use free verse or form and a variety of techniques and figures of speech. Overall, they will refine their unique authorial voices, through selection of content and use of style. Students will use English conventions outlined in the Core Standards for English Language Arts. They will independently use proper MLA documentation. They also will use the drafting process to develop and complete essays, narratives, and poetry.

Writing Publication and Documentation: Students will complete polished submissions for the fall and spring editions of the Pacem Literary Journal. They also will select at least 2 pieces for their Pacem Writing Portfolio.

Peace and Conflict (to be offered 2012-2013)

This class is a companion class to Nonviolence, Conflict, and Change in the 20^th Century and Beyond.

Literature: Students will start with ancient conceptions of conflict and peace by reading excerpts of ancient texts like theIlliad and The Republic of Plato. They’ll explore heroic ideals of warfare with texts such as Beowulf, as well as the intertwined concepts of warfare, courtly love, and marriage through Arthurian legends. They’ll compare and contrast these with alternative visions of peace and conflict from native North American cultures. They’ll study late 19^th and early 20^th century utopian and dystopian images of peace and conflict with texts such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland and George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. They’ll contrast modern visions of one conflict by studying texts like Martin Luther King’s speeches and The Autobiography of Malcolm X. They’ll finish the year with an independent exploration of peace and conflict in the 20^th or 21^st century by choosing an era, region, or author to study. As part of this independent exploration, they’ll ultimately teach an hour-long class to their classmates on their chosen era, region, or author.

Writing Pieces: Students will write 3-5 journal entries each week, in which they’ll reflect on peace and conflict in their own lives, as well as the contemporary world. The journal will also consist of reflective entries on texts and discussions. They’ll develop and write 3 to 4 shorter (2-5 page) fiction and/or nonfiction pieces. They may also write poems. Their selection of pieces will relate to their long-term educational goals. During the second semester, students will write a 10-15 page essay that explores peace and conflict in the 20^th or 21^st century by choosing an era, region, or author to study. (Students in the 3^rd sequence year may choose instead to write two 5-8 page essays on different aspects of one topic; for example, a student may choose to write a persuasive essay about potential solutions to a conflict and a literature response essay to fiction about that same conflict.) They will end the year by designing and teaching an hour-long class on the topic of their essay(s).

Writing Skills: For analytical essays, students will: create arguments; substantiate arguments using the most relevant facts; use structures for conveying their arguments that form unified wholes; and use tones appropriate to their topics. For narratives, students will develop stories depicting real or imagined experiences and events by crafting dialogue, pacing, description, reflection, and multiple plot lines; create coherent wholes that form particular tones or outcomes; provide conclusions that follow from and reflect on the significance of what is experienced, observed, or resolved over the course of the narratives.For poetry, students will use free verse or form and a variety of techniques and figures of speech. Overall, they will refine their unique authorial voices, through selection of content and use of style. Students will use English conventions outlined in the Core Standards for English Language Arts. They will independently use proper MLA documentation. They will use the drafting process to develop and complete essays, narratives, and poetry.

Writing Documentation and Publication: Students will complete polished submissions for the fall and spring editions of thePacem Literary Journal. They will select at least 2 pieces for their Pacem Writing Portfolio.

Electives:

Creative Writing Workshop
The Short Story (to be offered 2012-2013)
Creative Non-fiction
Poetry (to be offered 2012-2013)