This sophomore course builds on the writing and language arts skills students have acquired to date while allowing an outlet in which each student will explore his or her own interests and abilities in writing. This course’s focus is on the writing process with a particular focus on the study of major genres and styles of writing. Writers will develop their voices by exploring the works of classic and contemporary authors as well as those by fellow students. This course also emphasizes skills in proof reading, peer editing, and revision. Critical thinking skills will be developed through intensive reading assignments both in and out of class.
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Fiction Units (with texts including, but not limited to):
Dramatic Monologues: "...& Answers" -- Joyce Carol Oates "The Lady's Maid" -- Katharine Mansfield "Straight Pool" -- John O'Hara Voice + Unreliable Narrator: "The Hunting Knife" -- Haruki Murakami "Car Crash While Hitchhiking" -- Denis Johnson "Cathedral" -- Raymond Carver Southern Gothic: "Miriam" -- Truman Capote "The Lottery" -- Shirley Jackson "Good Country People" -- Flannery O'Connor "A Rose for Emily" -- William Faulkner Magical Realism: "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez "The Piano" -- Antonio Machado "The Nose" -- Nikolai Gogol "The Enormous Radio" -- John Cheever Brighten the Corner Where You Are -- Fred Chappell |
Novel Study: Brighten the Corner Where You Are by Fred Chappell
This gentle, wryly comic look at one day in the life of a rural North Carolina schoolteacher, Joe Robert Kirkman, is narrated by his son Jess. The year is 1946, and Joe Robert is no ordinary schoolteacher. He is a farmer, a hunter, a dreamer and a philosopher whose innovative teaching methods and evenhanded approach to the theory of evolution have irked the local school board. They have summoned him to a late afternoon meeting. His ideals and livelihood imperiled, Robert feels--understandably--apprehensive, and to make matters worse, that day's bizarre series of events (an unfortunate encounter with a treed bobcat, a courageous rescue of a drowning child, and several unsettling metaphysical discussions) have left him battered in mind and body. The meeting is hilarious, if inconclusive. A finely drawn series of minor characters, including stoic farmers and wives, tale-spinning coon hunters and a shrewd local reporter, enriches this modest yet deeply satisfying chronicle. (review from Publisher's Weekly) Poetry Units:
Narrative Poems Ballads Lyric Poems |