Course Overview and Expectations


In brief, eleventh grade English at Brunswick is a chronological study of American literature, focusing on some of the major works and movements that helped shape American literary history. The course examines a variety of literary topics, from the romantic vision of the “American Dream,” to the more realistic struggles of the human condition; from the celebration of the “Self” in New England Transcendentalism, to the dark, grotesque characters of the American Gothic. In addition, students explore works that reflect the changing role of women in American society, the African-American “experience,” and the impact of war on the individual.

Readings include:

-- Krakauer's Into the Wild (summer reading)
-- selections from the writings of Emerson and Thoreau
-- Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter
-- Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
-- the poetry of Poe, Whitman, Dickenson, Eliot, et al.
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
-- short stories of Hemingway
-- William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying
-- the poetry of Plath, Hughes, Brooks, Frost, Ginsberg, et al.
-- Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire
-- Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
-- Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried

Homework

During any given academic week, homework will consist of reading, preparation of assigned topics for class discussion, and written assignments based upon the literature. Homework assignments may take up to 40 minutes per night. Students will be assigned major works to read on a long-term basis, while poetry and short prose will be assigned on a nightly basis. Weekly assignment sheets will be posted on the my website.

Essays

Essays will be 2-6 page word-processed papers that require a student to generate original thoughts and interpretations. Class notes will provide a basis and a direction for these essays, but the students should clearly understand that they are to incorporate their own thoughts into the paper. Grades for these essays are determined by the student’s command of the topic, depth of understanding and clarity and conciseness of the writing.

Final drafts of essays should be word-processed. Final drafts will be submitted electronically together with a hard copy. Essays should be double-spaced with the student’s name and the current date in the upper left-hand corner. Essays should always be titled. The use of spell-checkers and grammar checkers is encouraged.

Lateness Policy

Essays and other homework assignments are due in class on the day they are assigned. If an assignment is not submitted in class, it will be considered late and will be penalized 5 POINTS per day. A student may seek an extension by asking for one before the assignment is due. However, I reserve the right to refuse an extension if I feel the reason for the request is not legitimate or if the student has a history of abusing the extension policy.

Make-Up Work

If a student is out of school with an illness the day an essay is due, that essay will be due when the student returns to school on the theory that an essay is a long-term assignment, and the student should have been constructing it before the one-day illness.

A student who misses school on the day of a test/quiz must make up the test/quiz the next day. It is the responsibility of the student to schedule the test with the teacher. Failure to take a test or submit a paper within the given period of time will result in a 5% per/day penalty. Deadlines following lengthier illnesses will be negotiated on an individual basis.

Essay Rewrites

A student may rewrite an essay of B- or lower after having a writing conference. This conference is to ensure that the rewritten essay will be of suitable quality and worth the time and effort required to earn a new grade. Rewritten papers submitted without consultation will not be accepted. 

Extra Help

Individual attention is available in two ways. A student may “drop-in” to the English Office during free time, or may schedule a conference. Extra-help may be obtained from any member of the English Department.

Academic Honesty

Reading great literature and struggling with the weighty ideas contained in that literature has bought joy, fulfillment and confidence to people for centuries. Not surprisingly, the Brunswick School English Department is committed to the idea that students should learn to read and enjoy great works of literature and should then learn to articulate in clear, concise writing the thoughts inspired by that literature. The thoughts the students generate, however, should be their own, derived from the works read and the guidance provided by the English instructors. The thoughts presented in their written work should not be regurgitated thoughts culled from external sources such as Cliff’s Notes, SparkNotes, or any of the numerous sites devoted to providing students with ready-made essays.

Because students are unfairly tempted to plagiarize, the unacknowledged use of someone else’s work in place of one’s own , by taking whole essays, parts of essays, or merely bits of sentences from the websites they find, Brunswick is now subscribing to an online service that will check the authenticity of students’ written work either whole or in part. All essays submitted to us will be checked by this service, developed by a group of professors at The University of California at Berkeley. Initially this may sound like an extreme solution, but further deliberation should bring students and parents to the realization that the pressure to plagiarize in the quest for higher grades has been lifted. The Brunswick English Department has always preferred that students learn to think for themselves and learn to articulate their thoughts in original form rather than merely regurgitating the thoughts of others. The adoption of the new technology merely reinforces the preexisting policy.

Students who wish to use outside sources to assist them in writing papers must cite those sources, and any member of the English Department will gladly provide assistance in doing so properly. Failure to cite a source will be considered plagiarism. Any assignment found to be plagiarized will receive a zero and the student will be required to rewrite the essay. The maximum grade for the rewritten essay will be a 50. The student will also face serious official sanctions from Brunswick or Greenwich Academy.

The same sort of standards that apply to the construction of essays also applies to daily assignments. Any homework of any sort that is handed in under a student’s own name must in fact be work produced by the student, not through collaboration with other students; some assignments may ask students to work in a group, but such projects will be clearly delineated as such. Any homework submitted that is not clearly collaborative in nature must be original. We would like students to learn to take pride in doing their best on any given assignment. Parents are always welcome to assist their sons and daughters in doing homework, but help should be rendered with the understanding that homework is an opportunity for students to strengthen their knowledge; homework is not something that is merely to be completed.

One of the skills taught in a Brunswick English class is the proper annotation of a text. These notes are valuable during class discussions, the construction of essays, and the preparation for semester exams. Oftentimes, students are asked to write essays within the context of class and are frequently allowed to use their texts which should contain valuable annotations. Therefore, students will be required to use only their own books, not books borrowed from other students or siblings for writing "in-class" essays. The annotations of others may indeed constitute an unfair advantage and their use is considered plagiarism. 

The Brunswick English Department takes very seriously the issue of academic integrity, and we hope our strong stand on this issue will help students avoid succumbing to the powerful temptations with which they are presented.