English
Our English Department offers a rich program of reading and writing, a journey that not only draws on some of the best known throughout the ages but also equips you to address the challenges of modern life, fostering your personal growth and development.
Prepare to embark on a journey of critical reading and thinking, essential life skills in a world filled with multimedia messages. You’ll not just engage with great literature, but also explore the profound human questions it raises. Our program is designed to keep you on your toes with creative, dynamic assignments, such as critically examining a podcast or even making an animated film based on a scene from “Hamlet.”
We’ll challenge you to formulate arguments, weigh and select evidence, reason logically and effectively, write a clear narrative, express personal views, use language imaginatively and present all of the above in clear, grammatically correct prose.
You’ll find yourself in a vibrant learning environment, surrounded by intellectually and emotionally engaged peers. Our classrooms are a space where your love for language and ideas is not just respected, but celebrated, fostering a sense of belonging and value.
Our dynamic curriculum includes courses in humanities and classical and contemporary literature. We offer advanced placement classes and the Creative Writing Signature Experience, a unique opportunity to develop your passion for creative writing through elective classes and extracurricular activities. This experience includes workshops with published authors, open mic nights, and the chance to publish your work in our annual literary magazine.
English Course Offerings
- AP English Literature
- Creative Writing Signature Experience
- Creative Writing Signature Experience: Personal Reflection through Non-fiction
- Humanities
- Literature and Composition
- Senior Seminar in Contemporary Literature
- Spring Elective: In This Distracted Globe
- Spring Elective: “From Books to Bebop and Bearden to Basquiat and Beyonce”: African-American Literature and Art since World War II
- Spring Elective: “Madwomen in the Attic”: Women and Horror
- Spring Elective: Always the Point: A Seminar on Joan Didion
- Spring Elective: Challenging Education: Unexpected Journeys through School
- Spring Elective: College Lit
- Spring Elective: Contemporary Plays and Playwriting
- Spring Elective: Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment
- Spring Elective: Food Writing
- Spring Elective: Growing Up to Rock & Roll (and others)
- Spring Elective: Literature of Time Travel
- Spring Elective: Paying Attention
- Spring Elective: The Dawn of Everything: Rethinking Human History
- Spring Elective: The One Ring: Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings – a Cinematic and Literary Journey
- Spring Elective: The Story of a New Name
This is the best time in human history to be in an English class. There are more ways to access texts, more ways to connect with literature to experience and more ways to share and refine your ideas about a text. We take full advantage of that opportunity.”
chart your course
The possibilities are (almost) endless. Download the English Curriculum Pathway to guide your academic journey from beginning to end.
download the pdfOUR FACULTY
Kurt Bennett
Head Coach, Boys Thirds Basketball
M.A., Middlebury College
Alexa Beckstein
Assistant Coach, Girls Varsity Soccer and Girls Junior Varsity Basketball
Drew Davis
Assistant Coach, Indoor Track
BA, Lafayette College
Grant Edwards
Head Coach, Boys Varsity Cross Country
M.A., Dartmouth College
John Kauffman
Head Coach, Boys Varsity Rowing
Joseph La Bella
Assistant Coach, Boys Varsity Soccer
Assistant Coach, Boys Varsity Baseball
Jan Denise Loughran
Dean of Students, 10th Grade
J.D., Villanova University School of Law
M.A., Middlebury College
Joseph Murtaugh
Assistant Coach, Varsity Rowing
M.Ed., University of Virginia
Marc Onion
Chaplain
Head Coach, Boys Junior Varsity Soccer
B.A., Boston College
Matthew Roach
Head Coach, Girls Varsity Soccer
M.A., Bread Loaf School of English
Catherine Rodrigue
Assistant Coach, Cross Country
M.A., University of Virginia
Ami Shah
Ph.D., University of California
M.A., University of California
Leigh Wood
M.A., University of Idaho
Tristram Wood
Head Coach, Girls Junior Varsity Lacrosse
M.Ed., University of Idaho