Freshmen Composition:

This composition course is centered around the expository essay. Students move from mastery of the paragraph to the expository essay with logical and well-supported writing. Students develop their voice and skills while writing about literature, other readings, and personal experiences.

Freshmen Literature Study & Analysis:

The structure of the course requires independent reading and writing, critical analysis of literature read, critical examination of relationships and connections between works of literature, authors, and ideas, Socratic-style discussions, and self-evaluation of personal writings. The writing instruction emphasizes evidence of depth, complexity, variety and higher level thinking.

First Quarter

You will write
if you will write without thinking of the result
in terms of a result,
but think of the writing in terms of discovery,
which is to say that creation must take place
between the pen and the paper,
not before in a thought or afterwards in a recasting...
It will come if it is there and if you will let it come."
Gertrude Stein

Our first unit for the year will be focused on reading short stories and developing as writers. Our goals are to perfect the paragraph form and then move to the complex but wonderful world of essay writing.

Third Quarter

To Kill a Mockingbird, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Through these three stunning texts told by bold female authors, we will discover the history of the Great Depression and the oppression of the Jim Crow South. By focusing on the themes of race, class, and gender, we will critically analyze the culture of the time and seek to learn from our history.

Fourth Quarter