English

Across grades 5-12, the USN English Department aims to help students become adept readers, thinkers, and writers. The USN English Department’s goal is to guide students to examine the world and themselves with purpose; to muddle over the how and why of living; to develop active consciousness, subtle thought, and sincere empathy.

We believe that through engaging with diverse literature–highlighting a range of voices and perspectives– and varied writing assignments students gain knowledge of themselves and their world while appreciating the beauty and possibilities of language. They develop skills that move from noticing and understanding to employing increasingly sophisticated vocabulary, syntax, and paragraphs. Students develop skills as essayists, poets, storytellers, journalists; they increasingly see the relationship between form and content as analytical and creative writers.

They build these skills through practice as writers, and as readers, reading across genre and form, from traditional literary texts to those of new media and forms. At the heart of our work is a respectful, collective exploration, both through writing and conversation, about what is good, what is true, and how we should live in a complex world, with reading and writing as vital ingredients in understanding that complexity.

American Literature

(Academic) 11th Grade 1 credit Year

American Literature explores the American experience through the poetry, drama, fiction, and non-fiction of a variety of American writers. Assignments typically involve close analysis of literature, with emphasis on constructing a text-based analytical argument and presenting that argument in mature, precise prose. Regular oral presentations and group discussions encourage students to improve public-speaking skills, and, during the spring semester, the creative writing project allows each student to write his or her own poems, stories, or play.
English 10

(Academic) 10th Grade 1 credit Year

English 10 develops skills in analytic writing and discussion through the critical reading of various literature and other media. Course texts are chosen to promote historical literacy while also preparing students to navigate a rapidly changing media landscape. Students will reflect on themselves and their experience in the world, coming to see themselves as informed and able participants in larger cultural conversations.
Humanities

(Academic) 9th Grade 2 credits Year, Double Block

Through work with primary sources and major works of literature, students will work to see and understand patterns that impact the human experience and shape our world. Close reading, research, critical and historical thinking, oral presentation, and analytical and creative writing skills will be emphasized, with a focus on process and reflection. Students will study a variety of historical, cultural, and literary works that will offer global perspectives and voices connected to key moments of history.
AT English: Creative Writing: Forms and Techniques

(Academic) Grades: 11-12 0.5 credit Fall Semester

Prerequisite: Creative Writing I or permission of instructor. Fulfills the Senior English requirement.

How do we tell stories of our lives, imagined lives, versions of the self? How do we describe and make meaning of the world? In Creative Writing: Forms and Techniques, we’ll explore a variety of modes and genres– poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, hybrid texts– to see how we can best express and tell the stories of our world, and the worlds we have yet to imagine. With readings from contemporary writers as mentors and guides, we’ll use technique and questions of voice to shape our exploration. Students should expect to draft, workshop, revise, polish their writing over the course of the semester; our classroom should be a community where we can grow individually and collectively as writers; feedback is an essential part of that process, and learning to talk about writing is part of our discovery.
AT English: Du Bois and the Black Intellectual Tradition

(Academic) Grades: 11-12 0.5 credit Fall Semester

Core senior English course

Following the lead of such contemporary intellectuals as Ibram X. Kendi and Ta-Nehisi Coates, this course grapples with present-day racial justice through the lens of W. E. B. Du Bois. Born in the early days of Reconstruction in Massachusetts, Du Bois died on the eve of the 1963 March on Washington. The contrast between life in the North and in the Jim Crow south––he spent college on scholarship at Nashville’s Fisk University––gave Du Bois a unique view of “the color-line” he predicted would be the twentieth century’s great “problem.” His writings, especially the groundbreaking The Souls of Black Folk (1903) and Black Reconstruction in America (1935), sought to give voice to Black Americans who lived, as he put it, inside a “veil” shaped by white American eyes and ideals. These writings shaped generations of Black thinkers, from Ida B. Wells and Ralph Ellison to James Baldwin, Malcom X, Martin Luther King, Jr, and Angela Davis. We will examine the diverse ways these figures applied Du Bois in their intellectual activism, continuing into our own moment. In addition to course reading and short essays, students will independently study a major Black intellectual or movement over the semester, culminating in a presentation and research essay.
AT English: Postcolonial Literature and Theory

(Academic) Grades: 11-12 0.5 credit Spring Semester

Core senior English course

The history of colonialism is the history of our modern world. This class will explore the impacts and legacies of colonialism through a variety of cultural and theoretical lenses. We will begin by reading literature from the height of European colonialism, continue through the period of decolonization in the 1960s, and end with contemporary theoretical approaches drawn from Postcolonial Studies. Students will have the opportunity to build upon their understanding of European imperialism by engaging writers who reflect on the experience of being colonized, resisting empire, and building a post-colonial world. This course will reward those who are interested in delving deeply into the history of colonialism, honing their literary analysis skills by engaging complex texts, and grappling with philosophically rich theory. Readings may include Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, Assia Djebar, Jamaica Kincaid, Aime Cesaire, Claude McKay, Gillo Pontecorvo, and Arundhati Roy. In addition to the assigned readings, students will independently study a specific (post)colonial intellectual or artist over the course of the semester, culminating in a research essay and presentation.
AT English: Twice Told Tales

(Academic) Grades: 11-12 0.5 credit Spring Semester

Core Senior English Course

As James Baldwin writes in “Sonny’s Blues”, “For, while the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it must always be heard. There isn't any other tale to tell, it's the only light we've got in all this darkness.” We know that there is a universality in literature, that stories resonate beyond their particular moment; so, how can we hear these tales across a range of times and places? How can we see connections between and within texts? How does narrative perspective shape our understanding? And what happens to archetypal stories—fairy tales, Shakespeare’s plays—when they appear in more contemporary texts. In this course, we will look at stories told in one form and re-examined in another—perhaps in a more contemporary way, or through a different voice. Students will have the opportunity to pick their own paired texts to explore and consider over the course of the semester with sustained inquiry and research. Possible texts/pairings include: Passing and The Vanishing Half, The Stranger and The Meursault Investigation, Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea; King Lear, and Station Eleven; Grimm’s Fairy Tales and Transformations; and, perhaps an exploration of retellings of The Odyssey.
AT World Literature: Conflict and Connection

(Academic) 12th Grade 0.5 Credits Spring

In AT World Literature, writers from different places and historical periods come into conversation with each other about some of the big, basic questions of human existence. Characters such as Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Tolstoy’s Ivan Ilych, Virginia Woolf’s Clarissa Dalloway and James Baldwin’s John Grimes, Voltaire’s Candide and Zora Neale Hurston’s Janie help us explore questions like this: How do we live a meaningful life in the face of inevitable death? How do we face suffering and embrace moments of joy? How do we balance individual passions with communal well being?

As we discuss the texts we read, we will work together on identifying the artistic techniques writers use to create meaning in their work, and essays will ask students to analyze how these techniques convey the big questions the works raise. Critical and objective self-assessment of your own work and growth is an integral part of the course.

Connected more by an approach than by a common theme, this course also provides room for students to formulate their own questions inspired by the texts we read. Students who thrive in this course will enjoy both the ambiguity of there being no one right answer and the challenge of building arguments based on nuances of a writer’s language to defend their own interpretations.

The course may be taken in the Fall, Spring, or for a Full Year.
AT World Literature: Identity and Rebellion

(Academic) 12th Grade 0.5 Credits Fall

In the AT World Literature, writers from different places and historical periods come into conversation with each other about some of the big, basic questions of human existence. Characters such as Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Tolstoy’s Ivan Ilych, Virginia Woolf’s Clarissa Dalloway and James Baldwin’s John Grimes, Voltaire’s Candide and Zora Neale Hurston’s Janie help us explore questions like this: How do we live a meaningful life in the face of inevitable death? How do we face suffering and embrace moments of joy? How do we balance individual passions with communal well being?

As we discuss the texts we read, we will work together on identifying the artistic techniques writers use to create meaning in their work, and essays will ask students to analyze how these techniques convey the big questions the works raise. Critical and objective self-assessment of your own work and growth is an integral part of the course.

Connected more by an approach than by a common theme, this course also provides room for students to formulate their own questions inspired by the texts we read. Students who thrive in this course will enjoy both the ambiguity of there being no one right answer and the challenge of building arguments based on nuances of a writer’s language to defend their own interpretations.

The course may be taken in the Fall, Spring, or for a Full Year.
English & Art: William Blake: Poetry as Visual Art

(Academic) Grades: 11-12 0.5 credit Fall Semester

Core Senior English Course; Satisfies Visual Art Requirement

William Blake is best known as a poet, but he never intended for his poems to be read as text alone. He engraved, printed, and hand-colored these poems in his home, joining words with intricate images in the long tradition of the "illuminated manuscript." In these combinations of image and text, Blake developed an enigmatic Christian mythology and prophesied a political uprising in Europe and America. This project-based course invites students to discover Blake's art through projects inspired by Songs of Innocence and of Experience, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and another work of their choice. For each of these works, students will produce a letterpress, etching, or handbrayed printing project.
English: Comics and the Graphic Novel

Not offered 2026-2027

(Academic) Grades: 11-12 0.5 credits Spring Semester

Core senior English course

This course explores the history of comics, with a special emphasis on the graphic novel. Students will learn to analyze graphic narrative in relation to other narrative forms, and will create a short visual narrative of their own. We will read foundational as well as experimental examples, comparing Western conventions to those established in the rich tradition of Japanese manga. A short unit will also consider two important precursors in graphic narrative: Japanese scroll paintings and works by William Blake.

Readings might include Alan Moore's Watchmen, Art Spiegelman's Maus, Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, Gabrielle Ba's Daytripper, Riad Sattouf's The Arab of the Future, and Osamu Tezuka's Astroboy. We'll also sample self-produced underground "comix" of the 1960s and new web comics.
English: From Black Arts Movement to Black Lives Matter

Not Offered 2026-2027

(Academic) Grades: 11-12 0.5 credit Spring Semester

Core Senior English Course

How can an examination of contemporary Black literature enhance and reshape our understanding of national and global struggles for social justice ? In what ways have the needs and desires to liberate, reform, translate, and “keep it real” influenced Black writers and creatives? We will consider these questions--along with intersections of class, gender, sexuality-- as we analyze an array of literature, art, and media produced during and after the Black Arts/Aesthetic Movement (1960-present). We will cover multiple literary genres (poetry, drama, realistic fiction, speculative/Afrofuturism), music, and performance as we consider this canon’s distinctiveness and enduring power. Potential authors/artists include Malcom X, Toni Morrison, Amiri Baraka, Audre Lorde, Kiese Laymon, N.K. Jemisin, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Claudia Rankine, Danez Smith, Jesmyn Ward, Clint Smith, Janelle Monáe, Jordan Peele, Amir "Questlove" Thompson, Alicia Garza and Kendrick Lamar.
English: Literature of the City

(Academic) Grades: 11-12 0.5 credit Fall Semester

Core senior English course

Cities may be humanity’s greatest invention: places where individual lives intersect, where dreams and disappointment coexist, where history is layered into streets, buildings, stories, and art. Cities generate creativity and conflict, anonymity and belonging, opportunity and injustice. Each city is singular, shaped by its unique geography, history, and people, yet cities across the world echo one another in surprising ways. In this course, we will explore how writers and artists represent cities as both real lived environments and as symbolic spaces that shape who we are and how we see ourselves the world. We will travel to both real and imagined cities, across historical periods and places, from Tokyo, to Lagos, to Buenos Aires, to New Orleans and New York. Writing assignments will include analytical essays, creative responses, and an extended “Urban Memoir” or research-based project focused on a city of choice, with opportunities to connect literature to personal experience, history, and contemporary culture. Possible authors and texts include Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, Teju Cole's Open City, Zadie Smith's NW, and shorter works by James Baldwin, Joan Didion, Vivian Gornick, N.K. Jemisin, James Joyce, Hemingway, Borges and more.
English: Literature of the Fantastic

Not offered 2026-2027

(Academic) Grades: 11-12 0.5 credit Spring Semester

Core senior English course

Although in America today we tend to see only realistic literature as "serious," at other times and in other cultures, many writers have used elements of the fantastic in their writing to do much more than tell adventure stories. Tales of monsters, angels and ghosts may help us explore psychological and spiritual journeys beyond our daily trips to school and work; struggles with demons may stand in for struggles against repressive governments in countries where writers cannot safely protest openly. This course will explore such works. Texts will be chosen from a wide variety of time periods and geographical locations, ranging from ancient Mesopotamia to contemporary America, including works such as Gilgamesh, an epic poem from the second millenium BCE to Exit West, a twenty-first novel by Mohsin Hamid.
English: Secrets, Lies, and Confessions

(Academic) Grades: 11-12 0.5 credit Fall Semester

Core Senior English Course

Why keep a secret? When we lie, what’s at stake? In this course, we will explore the social and psychological forces that cause people to keep secrets, tell lies, and to confess. We will also explore the ways that texts and authors keep secrets from the readers, the ways that fiction itself is, in the words of Khaled Hosseini, "the act of weaving a series of lies to arrive at a greater truth.” As we study fiction, poetry, drama, essays, and podcasts, we will shape our own first person narratives, confessions, and investigative pieces. Possible major works include Marquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Murata’s Convenience Store Woman, Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing along with works by Jumpha Lahiri, George Saunders, and Jesmyn Ward.
English: Spirited Away: Ghost Stories

(Academic) Grades: 11-12 0.5 credit Spring Semester

Core Senior English Course

Don’t be afraid. Whether images of fear or images of wonder, whether friendly or menacing, whether representing mistakes in life or mysteries in death, ghosts have been making frequent appearances in our stories since the time of the earliest Greek dramas. Whether in a fixed external form or contained within a haunted mind, those ghosts, and the authors that create them, often have important lessons to teach about identity and imagination. This course will go ghost hunting through novels such as Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Shirley Jackson’s Haunting of Hill House, Eka Kurniawan’s Man Tiger, Jez Butterworth’s The Ferryman, and Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing; as well as stories by H.P. Lovecraft, Carmen Maria Machado, and James Joyce along with a few films, such Miyazaki’s Spirited Away, Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense, and Peele’s Get Out.
English: The Hero's Journey

(Academic) Grades: 11-12 0.5 credit Spring Semester

Core Senior English Course

Among the enduring narratives fundamental to virtually every culture and civilization known to history is the hero’s journey: a quest in pursuit of a goal for personal reasons, communal reasons, or both. This course will explore a range of individuals and groups on such journeys—whether by choice or by happenstance—with varying degrees of heroism, love, bloodshed, assistance, and transformation along the way. Whether we’re following a poet as he descends into the lowest regions of Hell on a mission for spiritual salvation, a heroine’s quest to liberate the multitudes trapped in subway tunnels deep beneath a teeming modern metropolis, castaways forced to grapple with dark magic on a remote and seemingly uninhabited island, a woman struggling to live life on her own terms under the pressures of a theocratic regime, a teenager confronting the complete unraveling of the society in which she lives, or lone individuals confronting humanity’s place in a vast and indifferent universe, each story is defined by the willingness to proceed despite daunting obstacles and forbidding odds.
English: Video Games as Literature

(Academic) Grades: 11-12 0.5 credits Spring Semester

Core Senior English Course

Narrative video games fall in a long line of interactive literature, from ancient oral epics to contemporary "choose your own adventure"-style novels. This course examines games chosen for aesthetic and narrative richness, facilitating critical engagement through play as well as written analysis. Much of our time will be spent in design teams that will collaborate to build new games. As such, we will draw on skills not only of gamers and programmers but also of visual artists, creative writers, musicians, and students interested in animation and digital editing. All skill levels are welcome; what matters most is the willingness to collaborate.
Math & English: Storytelling with Data

(Academic) Grades: 11-12 0.5 credit Spring Semester

Core senior English course

Understanding and making meaning of data is essential to making sense of the world. Figuring out, then, how to interpret and communicate that data in ways that are effective and intentional, in ways that make an argument and can affect change, is the next step. In this course, students will learn a variety of creative ways to understand, represent, and talk about data; they will learn about ways that data can be interpreted– and misinterpreted. They will learn to use data as a tool of communication in concert with writing, presentations, podcasts– they will discover ways to use data and language to build arguments, tell meaningful stories, persuade, and understand how to communicate effectively to make an impact. For example, students might write an opinion article that uses data to shape their perspective; they might write a braided essay combining data, literature, and personal experience; they might present a narrative as a podcast that is based on data and fact, aiming to name a problem and possible solutions. Through a variety of case studies, students will explore questions of interest and find ways to think about the purpose and audience in their sharing of their work.
Creative Writing I: Creation, Revision, and Publication

(Academic) Grades: 9-12 0.5 credit Spring Semester

This course operates in two parts: as an introductory creative writing course and as an opportunity to create and produce the school literary magazine. It allows students to explore various topics – from the secret life of inanimate objects to untapped childhood memories – through a variety of genres, including poetry, short stories, screenplays, and flash fiction. Discussing works by accomplished writers and by classmates, students will practice techniques used to evaluate a text and express views about writing in constructive ways, skills that students will then apply in revising their own work.

Those same skills will apply with the production of the literary magazine, whose chief purpose is to provide opportunities for staff members to learn and practice techniques of literary evaluation, editing, magazine design, and production. The magazine also strives to motivate student experimentation of different forms of writing. Collection of student artwork and photography is also a task of the magazine’s staff. The staff draw material from the general student body (through student submissions) and select pieces in order to produce an annual publication called Interrobang.
Journalism/Newspaper Prod.

(Elective) Grades: 9-12 0.5 credit Fall and Spring Semesters

This semester class produces The Peabody Press (our high school newspaper), which is written and edited by students, and published monthly in print and online.

Enrollment is open to all students; those new to the class may be asked to submit an expository writing sample during course requests. This hands-on program requires writing, collaboration, and revision, as well as some basic technical work with our newspaper’s website and our print design software.

Occasional readings and discussions about journalism, democracy, and social media will be part of the class as well.

Dedication to the production of the newspaper and an interest in developing journalistic skills (research, observation, concise prose), while working under deadline conditions, are expectations for the course.

Students in their second semester of the course are eligible to apply for editor positions. Editors’ writing responsibilities may be slightly different as they take on the work of laying out, designing, and editing the newspaper, as well as working with guest contributing writers, but they are still expected to contribute as writers to the production of the newspaper.
APL Lab

(Elective) Grades: 9-12 0.25 credit Fall or Spring Semester Pass/Fail

APL Lab is a structured, credit-bearing study block designed to help students develop learning strategies informed by their awareness of their own learning processes, optimize academic performance, and strengthen habits that support excellence across learning environments. Students use this time to complete academic work while also learning how they learn most effectively through coaching, modeling, and research-based strategies. The goal of APL is not just to finish work—but to grow as a learner. The class is facilitated by a HS Learning Specialist and an English teacher.
MSON: Etymology of Scientific Terms

(Academic) Grades: 11-12 0.5 credit Fall semester

MSON course - counts towards English or Science requirement

The purpose of the course is, to quote the textbook, "By teaching … the root elements of medical terminology – the prefixes, suffixes, and combining forms of Greek and Latin … not only to teach students modern medical terminology, but to give them the ability to decipher the evolving language of medicine throughout their careers."

This is in many ways a language course and deals with elements that are used to create terms to meet the specific needs of medical scientists. As material is introduced, students will complete practice exercises during each class meeting, as well as complete approximately one quiz per week. Outside of class, students are expected to analyze and define fifty terms each week. Additional material deals with complex etymologies, the history of our understanding of certain aspects of medical science, and relevant material from Greek and Latin texts.
MSON: Etymology of Scientific Terms

(Academic) Grades: 11-12 0.5 credits Fall Semester

Tuesday/Thursday, 1:10-2:10 pm

Target Grade Level: 11-12

Prerequisite: None

Instructor: Joel Svensson, Winchester Thurston School, Pittsburgh, PA

By teaching the root elements of medical terminology – the prefixes, suffixes, and combining forms of Greek and Latin, this course seeks to not only teach students modern medical terminology, but to give them the ability to decipher the evolving language of medicine throughout their careers. This is in many ways a language course and deals with elements that are used to create terms to meet the specific needs of medical scientists. Students will analyze and define terms, complete practice exercises, learn complex etymologies, explore the history of our understanding of certain aspects of medical science, learn about key figures in science, and connect terminology to specific body systems (e.g. cardiovascular system, the respiratory system, etc.). Essential Questions: how are prefixes, suffixes, and combining forms used to create new words? What are the basics of the cardiovascular, respiratory, and digestive systems? How has the historic development of our understanding of medical science affected the terminology in use today?
MSON: Misinformation, Conspiracy Theories, and Digital Literacy
(Academic) Grades: 11-12 0.5 credit Spring Semester

Monday/Wednesday, 11:15-12:15 pm

Instructor: Justin Quam, Mounds Park Academy, Saint Paul, MN

“Falsehood will fly from Maine to Georgia, while truth is pulling her boots on.” As this line from an 1820 newspaper testifies, there is a long history of truth-stretching, rumormongering, and misinformation in American (and global) politics. Unsupported beliefs about politics and public policy may persist for decades or centuries, even if no evidence exists to back them up.

In this course, we will examine the historical roots of misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories, as well as the psychological factors that make it easier for people to fall prey to ‘facts’ that don’t deserve the label. We will then try to understand what has changed in recent decades to make it easier for misinformation to spread more quickly and in more media than ever before, how that media landscape is continuing to change, and what we can do to be better-informed global citizens in the 2020s.

This may be the class for you if you’re interested in discussing…
- Why a movement that insists “birds aren’t real” claims to have hundreds of thousands of supporters…
- Whether the Defense Department has convincing evidence of the existence of UFOs…
- How misinformation on Facebook is connected to the preservation of the Amazon rainforest…
- And whether you can ever really debunk a myth.
MSON: Politics of Horror (Or, Horror of Politics)

(Academic) Grades: 11-12 grade 0.5 credit Fall Semester

Monday/Wednesday, 10:05 am-11:05 am

Target Grade Level: 11-12

Instructor: Jason Zencka, Manlius Pebble Hill School, Syracuse, NY

In 1982, Stephen King wrote that “the horror movie is innately conservative, even reactionary.” In 2022, this statement seems less dated than nonsensical. Contemporary filmmakers and horror writers like Jordan Peele, Stephen Graham Jones, and Carmen Maria Machado have turned horror stories into a go-to genre for progressive cultural criticism. So which is it? Yard signs may urge us to vote our hopes, not our fears, but anyone who’s lived through campaign season knows that politics and fear are as well-matched as the Frankenstein monster and his bride. Students in this class will use contemporary and classic horror novels, stories, and films to identify and analyze the political preoccupations of its authors and readers, and will ask whether “scary stories” are uniquely positioned to identify and critique our political beliefs.
MSON: Queer Literature

(Academic) Grades: 11-12 0.5 credit Spring Semester

Tuesday/Thursday, 1:30-2:30 pm

Prerequisite: None

Instructor: Terence Mooney, Hopkins School, New Haven, CT

What and who is “queer,” and when and where? This course explores the vibrant possibilities of a single word that can expand our thinking about identity, difference, and power, historically and in contemporary culture. We will read literature by and about people and communities who identify as LGBTQIA+ to examine how texts disrupt, subvert, and challenge sexual, gender, and other sociocultural norms and dynamics. Authors have included Sappho, John Lyly, Audre Lorde, Tony Kushner, and Maia Kobabe.
MSON: Watching the Watchmen: The Role of Detective Narratives in a Carceral Culture

(Academic) Grades 11-12 0.5 credit Spring Semester

Monday/Wednesday, 10:05 am-11:05 pm

Prerequisite: None

Instructor: Jason Zencka, Manlius Pebble Hill School, Syracuse, NY

Writing about the hard-boiled detective novel he helped to invent, Raymond Chandler wrote, “Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean…” This course investigates the cynicism and grittiness of detectives in relation to national incarceration rates. Is this relationship coincidental, or does our national fixation with hero detectives, warrior cops, and batmen suggest something more complex at work? Students in this class will examine portrayals of crime and crime fighting in fiction and film as a way of interrogating our national culture’s understanding of itself in relation to crime and policing. They will discuss the ways that authors of detective, mystery, and "thriller" fiction both submit to and subvert genre tropes to make compelling and thematically complex art.