Terms: 2 (fall and winter)
Grades: 11 (This course is required for all 11th grade students).
Students choose one of the following:
Moral Dilemmas in American Literature
Often our decisions reveal our values and our experiences. With this lens, students will examine a variety of topics in American literature, illustrated by characters with diverse backgrounds, voices, and perspectives. These readings, which include different genres, have been selected to help students come to an understanding of how these topics may be impacting their own lives. While developing close critical reading and writing skills, students will discover more about the (literary) history of the United States as well as the moral dilemmas that have influenced America and the students' own identities.
Historical Fiction
This course will investigate fiction that explores events, people, and ideas throughout American History, with a particular focus on America’s multicultural and multiracial historical and literary traditions. The course’s topics will loosely align with Peddie US History courses throughout the fall and winter, and we will read fiction for not only its human and literary resonance, but also its historical arguments and allegories.
Windows and Mirrors
Human beings use stories as a way to understand and move through the world around them. This course will examine first-person narratives that capture various moments in American history and the ways that narrators understand themselves and others in them. Through, primarily, fictional narratives in the fall and memoirs in the winter, students in this course will discover the importance of telling one's own story and question the construction of American systems, beliefs, and individuality.
Because this course is required, students have the option of taking the AP English Language exam. Peddie recommends students who wish to sit for the exam take the Language Exam in their junior year. Students should speak with their teachers and contact the Registrar in September if they wish to register for the exam.