Course Offerings
English
Creative Writing -- Tutor: Mrs. Katrina Ryder
This writing class will give interested writers encouragement and feedback for a wide for variety of writing styles, including poetry, personal essays, stories. We will hone skills of description, dialogue, characterization, and plot development. We will share and peer edit on a regular basis, developing our skills with positive constructive criticism.
Text: Depending on age of enrolled students, we will choose either The Creative Writer Level 3 or The Creative Writer Level 4 by Boris Fishman. Here’s a video description of the series from Susan Wise Bauer from The Well Trained Mind.
Annual Tuition: $400/ 40 Contact hours
Recommended: 8th-12th
Credit: 1 credit of English or elective
Introduction to Grammar and Composition – Tutor: Mrs. Katrina Ryder
Introduction to Grammar and Composition is a beginning grammar and essay writing course. During the Fall semester, we will emphasize grammar, sentence construction, and paragraph formation. Using the Michael Clay Thompson and Killgallon methodology, we will learn sentence analysis and combination methods. During spring semester we will introduce the five paragraph essay in three parts, learning how to format and construct a basic 5 paragraph essay.
Text: Grammar for Middle School and Paragraphs for Middle School by Don and Jenny Killgallon. Workbooks MUST be consumable. *If majority of enrollments are 9th+ grade, will use Killgallon's High School Sentence Composing and Paragraphs for High School (Free downloadable sample chapters from the texts are available at that website.)
Course Credit: 1 HSC of English
Available: 8th-10th (Students not ready for Honors)
Annual Tuition: $400/ 40 contact hours
Honors Grammar and Composition – Tutor: Mr. Jack Gale
Grammar and Composition is a two-semester course that begins with a review of traditional grammar, including parts of speech, noun usage, and basic sentence patterns, and moves on to verb conjugations, phrases, and clauses before the year ends. The grammar portion of the class emphasizes usage problems, such as major grammatical errors, common usage problems like agreement, punctuation, and sentence construction. Concurrent with the grammar portion of the class is a course in writing. The first semester focuses on various types of paragraphs (argumentation, persuasion, comparison, analysis, etc.) of a formal, three-part nature since this type of writing is the emphasis of most standardized tests, the SAT, and colleges. During the second semester students move on to full-length essays and conclude the year with a research paper on a general topic. Students are encouraged to use outside sources during the entire year and must practice the correct use of notes and bibliography. While this is not a reading class, per se, students will read a number of short literary works and one or two short novels to provide material for literary analysis. This course prepares students for college composition.
Text: will be provided
Course Credit: 1 credit of English
Available: All grades but recommended before college writing
Annual Tuition: $500/ 80 contact hours
Introduction to Literary Genres with Honors Option – Tutor: Mrs. Katrina Ryder
This class is a survey of literary genres, covering in equal parts novels, short stories, plays, and poetry. Major cannonical authors such as Shakespeare, Dickens, Lee, Poe, Sophicles, Ibsen, Homer, Hughes, and Dickinson are just a FEW that we may cover. The course will emphasize relevant features of each genre and cover a general understanding of literary devices such as symbolism, irony, foreshadowing, poetic language, etc. Reading comprehension will be a major emphasis of this class as we analyze and discuss our readings. While this is primarily a literature class, students will write paragraph and essay responses to literature selections.
Text: Windows to the World: An Introduction to Literary Analysis by Lesha Myers (samples available at links), To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Bible. Other novels/plays TBD.
Annual Tuition: $580/ 80 Contact hours
Recommended: 9th/10th grade
Credit: 1 credit of English
British Literature with Honors Option – Mr. Jack Gale, Tutor
Prerequisite: Grammar and Composition through Shanan OR if the student has had a thorough writing course previously with approval by the tutor.
This course is primarily a survey course that begins with Beowulf and ends with the Twentieth Century and covers all the significant literary periods (Elizabethan, Romantic, etc.). The focus will be on excerpts and shorter selections, but the student will also read a number of complete works, including a Shakespeare play, a nineteenth-century novel, and two selections of the student’s choice, one each semester. Students will also be expected to memorize eight standard pieces, including the first eighteen lines from the Prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and a passage or two from Shakespeare. British Literature also has a written component. Students will write five essays each semester: book reviews, literary analyses, and argumentative essays on matters of interest or importance. The year will conclude with a research paper on a literary topic. Regular study guides that coincide with major literary periods provide assistance in preparing for unit tests.
Text: will be provided
Course Credit: 1 credit of English
Available: Juniors and Seniors
Annual Tuition: $500/ 80 Contact hours