2024-2025 Course Flipbook v2 - Flipbook - Page 29
literature as a tool to study and understand the real world, developing the agency to think
critically about issues such as the form and function of families, legal justice, experiences
of war, and the American Dream/Nightmare. Selected texts may include Reginald Rose’s
12 Angry Men, Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Tim O’Brien’s
The Things They Carried, and more.
12TH GRADE SEMINARS
The required (6-11) English courses at The Field School build student mastery with closereading, critical thinking, and articulate communication of original ideas. This growth is
nurtured as students accept increasing responsibility for their English study. Concluding
11th grade, students have experienced independently selecting texts, conducting original
research, and synthesizing their thoughts into original work. The 昀椀nal step, then, is for
Seniors to embark on a capstone English experience of their choosing. Each Senior
Seminar requires students to engage in intensive reading, deep analysis, dynamic
discussion, and interest-driven research, culminating in the creation of an original major
work. This submission demonstrates students’ highest achievement in English.
SENIOR SEMINAR: STORYTELLING AS RESISTANCE
ENGLISH
Margaret Atwood observed, “A word after a word after a word is power.” In this course,
students read literature that portrays individuals facing profound adversity and whose
redemption lies in resisting the power
structures that oppress them. Each
title we study emphasizes the idea that
the ability to express one’s thoughts
and feelings - reclaiming one’s own
narrative - is crucial to developing
a sense of self and, in turn, hope,
resilience, and agency over one’s
life. The story is the resistance, the
rebellion, the survival tool. Studied
works may include Margaret
Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale,
Alice Walker’s The Color Purple,
Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand
Splendid Suns, Tara Westover’s Educated, and more. Selections represent a range
of backgrounds, allowing students to consider the impact of place—cultural,
geographical, and historical—on perspective and to explore the mechanisms
of personal and social change. Students analyze their relationship to literature
through discussion, response writing, critical essays, creative writing, and projects.
They build an awareness of the ways in which a reader’s background, experiences,
and assumptions in昀氀uence the reading of literature. Our work culminates with a
major activism project and with each student writing their memoir. One of the
highest goals in this course is for students to understand the power of their voices—
to recognize that each individual has valuable ideas, an important story to tell, and
the agency to make a signi昀椀cant impact on the trajectory of their lives and those of
others.
