Academics

English Core Course Descriptions

Grade 9

Students must take English Grade 9.

English Grade 9

Course #: 1102, 1100 | Level: Honors, CP | Credits: 4
This course begins the four-year English Language Arts curriculum aligned with The Massachusetts Curriculum Framework for English Language Arts and Literacy. Students experience a broad range of literature, including non-fiction informational texts, fiction, drama, and poetry with an emphasis on critical thinking and analysis. Each unit is anchored by a text that allows students to learn critical reading and various writing modes to establish a foundation for success in all subsequent years. Students will be expected to participate in class discussion, respond to daily, in-class writing-to-learn activities, and deliver frequent oral presentations. MCAS close reading sets and test taking strategies are embedded into the curriculum and students will complete a series of common formative and summative assessments throughout the year.

English Grade 10 

Course #: 1202, 1200 | Level: Honors, CP | Credits: 4 
This course deepens students focus on acquiring the reasoning and analytical skills associated with literature and rhetoric, and the course will continue to focus on helping students make connections between literary and thematic elements and text-based support established in freshman year. Anchor and linking texts span long and short fiction, drama, and nonfiction. Synthesis of multiple texts will be integral to the curriculum, and students will complete classroom activities along with formative and summative assessments requiring synthesis throughout the year. Students will complete a series of common formative and summative assessments throughout the year.

English Grade 11

Course #: 1302, 1301, 1300 | Level: Honors, ACP, CP | Credits: 4
This course examines American literature through fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama from multiple perspectives. Students will analyze texts through stylistic, social, economic, historical, and critical lenses. The emphasis of this course is evaluating the relationship between form and content in a literary work, and then analyzing how both the author’s intent and reader’s perspective illuminate the meaning of the text. Students will produce short narratives, dramatic scenes, oral presentations, and analytical essays.

English 11  and Agricultural Sciences 

Course# 1350 | Level: Honors | Credits: 8
This full-year course is a double-block interdisciplinary course that combines the Grade 11 Pathways course for Agricultural Plant Sciences with English 11.  This standards-based course is for students who are interested in learning about agricultural productivity through applied integration learning projects with embedded English content and skills.  This course will deepen and extend the connections between the fundamental concepts of agricultural sciences, including food resources, sustainability, and the future of farming in America.  Content standards from the Massachusetts English Language Arts and Literacy Curriculum Framework (2017), prescribe that students develop their reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills by using their ability to make sense of problem situations in an applied field. The focus will be on deeper learning through problem-solving strategies, questioning, investigating, analyzing critically, gathering and constructing evidence, and communicating rigorous arguments to justify their thinking.  This is a co-taught, high engagement course where application leads to deeper theoretical understanding.  Co-teachers will serve as coaches to student-designed integration projects.  This course satisfies the requirements for an English course as stipulated in MassCore and the Grade 11 Agricultural Science pathway course.  Prerequisite:  Enrollment in the Plant Science Cluster (Arboriculture, Landscape & Turf, Management, Sustainable Horticulture, Natural and  Environmental Sciences) or Culinary Arts Program.

Advanced Placement in English Language and Composition – Grade 11

Course #: 1303 | Level: AP | Credits: 4 
In the A.P. English Language and Composition course—the rhetoric course—students learn how to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate nonfiction texts, including essays, biographies and autobiographies, speeches, sermons, and passages from writings in the arts, history, social science, politics, science, and other areas of study. Students learn to evaluate and construct arguments drawn from articles in newspapers, magazines, and online “‘zines” and “blogs.” The course cannot help but be interdisciplinary, immersing students in a variety of sources. Students are expected to take the College Board A.P. English Language and Composition Exam in May. College credit may be applied with a score of three or higher on the College Board exam.

English Grade 12

Course #: 1402, 1401, 1400 | Level: Honors, ACP, CP | Credits: 4 
This course focuses on a variety of literary and informational texts that include the Western cultural philosophies of nihilism, modernism, idealism, existentialism, and magical realism, including rigorous practice in research, informational writing, and personal narrative. Students will identify critical lenses, recognize multiple themes, analyze in concrete and abstract perspectives, and evaluate multiple interpretations from secondary sources. Students will draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support their analysis, reflection, and research. Essays and discussions will relate the work to its historical circumstances, trace a symbol through a work or works, or consider a moral or philosophical question. The major works and ideas of Western literature will be addressed.

Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition – Grade 12

Course #: 1403 | Level: AP | Credits: 4 
In the A.P. English Literature and Composition course, students engage in becoming skilled readers of prose and poetry written in a variety of rhetorical contexts, and in becoming skilled writers who compose for a variety of purposes. Through critical analysis and focused writing, students learn the interactions among a writer’s purposes, audience expectations, and subjects, as well as the way genre conventions and the resources of language contribute to effectiveness in writing. The course follows A.P. curricular guidelines and prepares students for the A.P. test, given in the spring. Students should expect challenging college-level content and a workload requiring nightly preparation and independent study. The accelerated pace of A.P. coursework is designed to parallel an introductory college semester course. Students are expected to take the College Board A.P. English Literature and Composition Exam in May. College credit may be applied with a score of three or higher on the College Board exam. 

English 12 and Agricultural Management Integration

Course# 1450| Level: Honors | Credits: 8
This full-year course is a double-block interdisciplinary course that combines English 12 with the Agricultural Plant Cluster Pathways course, Agricultural Management.  This standards-based course is for students who are interested in learning about agricultural management through applied integration learning projects with embedded English content and skills.  This course will deepen and extend the connections between the fundamental concepts of agricultural sciences, including the agribusiness management practices, agricultural technology, and effective communication practices. Content standards from the Massachusetts English Language Arts and Literacy Curriculum Framework (2017), prescribe that students develop their reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills by using their ability to make sense of problem situations in an applied field. The focus will be on deeper learning through problem-solving strategies, questioning, investigating, analyzing critically, gathering and constructing evidence, and communicating rigorous arguments to justify their thinking.  This is a co-taught, high engagement course where application leads to deeper theoretical understanding.  Co-teachers will serve as coaches to student-designed integration projects.  This course satisfies the requirements for an English course as stipulated in MassCore and the Grade 12 Agricultural Science pathway course.  Prerequisite: Enrollment in the Plant Science Cluster (Arboriculture, Landscape & Turf Management, Sustainable Horticulture, Natural and Environmental Sciences).