This course is intended for students who are highly skilled and motivated in language arts, including both reading and writing. It is designed to cover areas of literature, writing, and vocabulary development. Students will be exposed to a variety of literary forms as well as various kinds of writing experiences, from reading long-form narratives, essays, primary sources, and poetry. Critical thinking is emphasized, and complex writing assessments, including a research paper, are required. This course builds on the skills developed in the ninth grade year and includes exercises in vocabulary building, close reading, and literary analysis are designed to engage the student in the learning process and take ownership of their own progress. This course explores literature from many different time periods and geographical areas. Texts are complex and demand a certain persistence and appreciation for language arts.  Authors include (but are not limited to) Sophocles, Matsuo Basho, Olaudah Equiano, Locke, Descartes, Kafka, Conrad, and Shakespeare. The writing process is interwoven into the literature analysis with models being presented and step by step guidance on how to respond to a literary analysis question given. 

This advanced course delves into Greek mythology to teach the power of critical analysis. Hidden themes are embedded to teach students how to find life’s lessons through character analysis to guide them into becoming better writers. Several famous speeches are used for close reading opportunities. This is a well-rounded course! 

Kim Nellum - Language Arts Teacher, Method Schools