Afrofuturism is the intersection of speculative fiction and Black liberation. It is Black imaginations’ creations of possible new and different worlds approached through an understanding of the physical universe in which we humans live. Like all science fiction, Afrofuturism is bound by science. However, what is unique to Afrofuturism is its focus on Black liberation and collective care for Black people. In this class, students will first come to understand what is Afrofuturism, read literature written by Black writers from around the world, and explore the tensions between Afrofuturism and Africanfuturism–the latter is grounded in Sub-Saharan African cultures, histories, and mythologies, and therefore the West’s point of view is not centered. In addition to literature, students will explore the sound (music) and aesthetics (look) of  Afrofuturism.

(9) In this course, students read three African epics from the oral tradition: Sunjata from the Malinke people, Ibonia from the island of Madagascar, and Mwindo from the Nyanga people of the Congo. Through reading these texts, students will consider how the epic form merges metaphor, lyric, proverb, riddle, history, and poetry to create a larger narrative. At the center of these stories is a hero who struggles with his frailty and uncertainities. In his death, which is common but not necessary, he transforms his culture. Students will explore how the African epic combines history and poetry, reality, and fantasy, that point to significant moments in a culture’s history that don’t necessarily constitute a break but suggest continuity with ancient cultural wisdom. Students will also ponder why these texts continue to resonate not only within their cultures but have become part of the cultural lingo of the West. 

(11/12) African Literature: This class is an introduction to African literature. Each year, the course will have a different focus. We may read texts written in English or translated from French, Portuguese, Arabic and African languages, as well as engage works that originate in the oral tradition. Through multiple genres (novels, short stories, poetry, drama, and film), students will explore a range of themes that encompass the colonial encounter, the conflict between tradition and modernity, the negotiation of African identities, post-independence disillusion, gender and sexuality, and apartheid and post-apartheid. By approaching the literature of this content through a comparative framework, we will assess the similarities and differences across and within the cultures and historical contexts from which the literature emerges.

(10) In this course, we’ll learn and practice the basic principles of analyzing plays through the lenses of both literature and performance. Unlike novels, short fiction, and (most) poetry, a play’s primary function is to be performed rather than confined to the printed page, but knowing how to read a play—how to identify its themes, symbols, stylistic choices, and the particular ways its language contributes to the creation of character—is an essential tool in both literary studies and the world of the theater. We’ll focus on a range of semi-contemporary American playwrights, and we’ll take opportunities to collaborate with the CSW Theatre Department.

(10)The dream of America as an egalitarian utopia is important: An uplifting and coherent national narrative gives shape to our individual and collective existence. And we should be critical when examining the stories and ideals that have risen to the cultural surface. In this course, we will examine 18th and 19th century captivity narratives, legal documents, diaries, poems, paintings, and stories — from Walt Whitman’s sweeping and inclusive “Song of Myself” to Edgar Allan Poe’s tales of paranoia and madness. We will look at the texts that laid the foundation for notions of American exceptionalism and the American dream, as well as gothic texts that highlight the anxieties and tensions that have haunted America since its founding. Ultimately, students should leave the class habitually asking two questions: “What’s the official narrative—what am I being explicitly led to think?” and “What or who has been repressed, glossed over, or left out?”

(11/12 literature) In this class, students will read literature and fictional art produced in the United States by writers of Asian descent. As students explore these works, they will define and redefine the definition of "Asian American Literature." Short stories, essays, and poetry make up the primary readings for this course. 

(11/12) In this class, students will learn of the development of Arabic literature from its inception in the medieval Arabic literary tradition, which begins in the sixth-century with nomadic Bedouin poetry and the Qur'an, through new literary forms adapted from Western imaginative literature. The aim of the course is to introduce students to key samples of modern Arabic literature, which trace major social, political, religious, cultural and linguistic developments in the Arab world, including North Africa. All readings will be in English translations. The class will also explore the politics of translation. Some questions that will be addressed, but not exclusively: How do some Arab writers conceive of "modernity"? How do they conceive of their relation to politics, and how do they understand the role of intellectuals in their societies? Who are the readers (actual or implied) of these texts? How do these authors relate to the Arabic, European, and American literary traditions?

 (11/12 literature)“Call me Ishmael!” Take to the high seas with this “in-depth” exploration of Herman Melville’s 1851 great American novel Moby Dick: Or, the Whale. Melville’s epic novel is narrated by Ishmael, a sailor who joins a whaling voyage aboard the Nantucket-based whaling ship the Pequod. Unbeknownst to Ishmael and the rest of the crew, the Pequod’s mysterious captain Ahab has a maniacal and singular objective: to seek vengeance against the elusive ‘white whale’ called Moby Dick. Moby Dick remains groundbreaking for its unique narrative voice, synthesis of styles, and accurate portrait of life aboard a whaling ship in the mid-19th century. Students will practice close-reading and analysis, informed by substantial historical context. Students will also consider twenty-first century implications of Melville’s text, asking questions such as, “what does Moby Dick have to say about climate change and environmentalism? About race? About queer relationships? About the origins and trials of American democracy?” In addition to reading the novel and supplementary sources, students will travel to key sites associated with Melville’s novel, including the New Bedford Whaling Museum. Students will also be invited to participate in an annual 24-hour Moby Dick Readathon. 

(11/12) In 1967, Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude unleashed a Latin American ‘literary boom’ on an unsuspecting outside world and introduced Magical Realism to a greater audience. It marked the cultural emergence of Latin America on the world stage. Covering politics, history, and other truths, One Hundred Years of Solitude offers reflections on loneliness and the passing of time as well as a caustic commentary on the evils of war and a warm appreciation of familial bonds. Students’ reading, writing, analytical, collaborative, and presentation skills will be developed in this class.

(10) Romanticism was an artistic, literary, and philosophical movement that originated in Europe in the late 18th-century and reached its peak in the early 19th-century. Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion, imagination, individualism, and nature. Ultimately, it was a reaction against the Enlightenment. The European Romantic movement reached the United States in the early 19th-century and gave rise to New England Transcendentalism, which portrayed a less restrictive relationship between God and the Universe, and Romantic Gothic Literature.In this class, students will review the Enlightenment to learn what the Romantics were reacting against, selections from the Lyrical Ballads of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge as well as work by William Blake to understand how these principal poets of Romanticism’s early phase defined the movement.

(9) Enter the world of Monkey: Folk Novel of China, an adaptation of Journey to the West, a 16th-century novel by Wu Cheng’en. Long before Goku defeats his enemies in Dragonball Z, Sun Wukong—The Monkey King—embarks on an epic journey with the Buddhist monk (Tripitaka) and his disciples to obtain Buddhist scriptures from India and bring them back to China. This folk epic mixes satire, allegory, and history and provides students with the opportunity to explore a classic that is as famous in East Asia as The Odyssey. Students will also have the opportunity to learn about Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, and participate in a Chinese calligraphy workshop. This course awards credit toward the social justice graduation requirement.

(10) By immersing themselves in the vibrant worlds of graphic novels, students in this course will learn to be critical readers of images and text. Analytical assignments will guide students to unpack the effects of visual and textual choices, while creative assignments will challenge students to harness the power of images as a means of communication. The graphic novels we read will touch on rich themes of immigration, coming of age, race, and sexuality, and may include Shaun Tan’s The Arrival, Craig Thompson’s Blankets, Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, Gene Luen Yang’s Boxers and Saints, and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis.

(11/12) This course offers an introduction to writings by Latinx authors in the United States, with an emphasis on the similarities and differences that have shaped the experiences and cultural imaginations of various groups collapsed under this political label. The majority of readings covered will be from the 20th- and 21st-centuries. By critically analyzing poetry, fiction, memoirs, film, and/or performance, along with recent literary and cultural theory, the course will explore some of the major themes and issues that inform the cultural production of these groups. Through comprehensive coursework, students will develop their reading, writing, analytical, collaborative, and presentation skills.

(Grade 10-12 Dramatic Literature Course) Major Author: August Wilson: This course explores the work of August Wilson, the most prominent Black American playwright of the 20th century. Wilson's ten-play Pittsburgh Cycle, each play set in a different decade, examines the many nuances of the Black experience in America over time, including interpersonal and systemic racism, the lasting impacts of slavery and exploitation, and the joyfulness of communal Black identity. We will read two of the most enduring plays of the Cycle, Fences and Joe Turner's Come and Gone, and discuss Wilson's overall theatrical vision and approach alongside our close attention to those texts. Students will also have the opportunity to explore Wilson's lasting legacy in Black American theater through independent work.

(11/12) In this course, students will start by examining and questioning their knowledge of Native Americans in order to decolonize their belief systems. We will then focus on the importance of the oral tradition and read myths from Native American cultures around the U.S. in order to better understand shared themes, archetypes, and ideas. Each week for four weeks we will concentrate on a particular geographic area in the U.S. and pair older, traditional stories with contemporary texts by Native American authors in each tribe. These may include but are not limited to Vine Deloria of the Sioux (Great Plains), Leslie Marmon Silko of the Pueblo (Southwest), and Sherman Alexie of the Coeur d’Alene (Northwest).

(10) Transcendentalism was a literary and philosophical movement based in New England in the 1830s and 1840s. Though its practitioners vary in their beliefs, writings, and attitudes, Transcendentalists share an investment in development of the individual, commitment to ethics, and a deep exploration of the human relationship to nature. Most notable among its authors are Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller, whose works are explored in detail in this course. Students will be encouraged to consider questions about the self and the natural world through the transcendental lens, writing their own treatises of transcendental ideology at the end of the course.

(9) The Arabian Nights or One Thousand and One Nights is a collection of suspense-laden folk tales from the Middle East, North Africa and Asia, first written down as early as the 9th century. The principal literary device of the collection is the famous frame story of Shahrazad who must tell her husband the king Shahrayar a story each night in order to save her own life. Through this device the reader is taken into a rich world of historical tales, love stories, tragedies, comedies, and poetry that feature jinns, ghouls, magicians, and places of magic. These tales continue to have resonance in Asian and North African as well as European and American literature and are considered a foundational text in world literature.

(10) Broadly defined, rhetoric can be understood as any writing or speech act used to modify the perspective of others. In this class, we will encounter a variety of texts—including Op-Ed articles, Ted Talks, TV commercials, and personal narrative essays—and analyze them for their rhetorical effectiveness.  How do the purpose, the intended audience, and the genre of our writing shape the rhetorical decisions we make? What strategies do writers use to best persuade and reach their audiences? And how can an awareness of these rhetorical tools help students become more insightful readers? To investigate these questions, students will not only read and think critically about texts from various media but also try their hand at producing their own rhetorically effective writing in an array of genres. 

(10) Science Fiction & Fantasy: While this genre of literature lets us explore the heights of human imagination, it also gives us a realistic and perturbing view of a people or society's fears for a perhaps not-too-distant future. In this 10th-grade elective, students will be examining different narratives that allow us to understand their authors' prevalent concerns, as well as to firmly center the book within a broader social context. The class will study works that fit together thematically, culturally, or geographically. Authors read may include: Octavia Butler, Shweta Taneja, and Indra Das.

(10-12) Of course, comedies are supposed to make us laugh, which is why Titania falls in love with a peasant with donkey ears in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and why Beatrice and Benedick exchange sick burns in Much Ado about Nothing. But what purposes do comedies serve beyond amusing their audiences? In this course, students will consider those purposes as they read a couple of Shakespeare’s comedies. They will examine the context of these works while also considering what messages they offer to a 21st-century audience. Throughout the mod, students will consider the following questions: What makes these plays comedies? What is satire? What role does romance play in these works? How do these plays address the human contradiction? How do the things that amuse an audience reveal and explore the cultural values of that audience? Additionally, students will practice writing analyses of scenes from these plays while also developing creative (and performative) projects that talk back to Shakespeare.

As of the 2023-2024 school year, this course is open to grades 10-12. Students who previously completed the course are not eligible. 

(9) In this class, students will be exposed to the storytelling traditions of indigenous peoples of North America. The readings will be organized around five geographical regions to begin with a poem from traditional oral stories and end with contemporary poets. The class will also explore specific tropes, like the Trickster, for example. It will also place these stories within their cultural, political, and national contexts to understand Indigenous culture as living. In addition, we will incorporate the social, aesthetic, and religious. Most importantly, we will examine how Native American storytellers and writers imagine themselves, the landscape, nature and nation, and colonization as well as engage their cosmologies. Special attention will be paid to the relationship between the oral traditions and contemporary poetry to understand indigenous poetics.

(10) In this class, students will explore the short story as a discrete genre in its traditional and innovative forms. The structure of the readings will be chronological according to publication date to trace literary influences. As a result, students will analyze the elements of fiction as they apply to short fiction. Additionally, diverse American experiences will be attended to as they are represented in this form. Critical reading and writing skills will be developed through appropriate assignments individual and collaborative assignments.

Students who previously took the single-block science version of the course should not sign up for this course.

(11) In this 11th grade requirement, students learn the research and writing skills necessary to produce a long research paper. Students spend the beginning of the mod reading and discussing a novella, play, or short story collection together, and then work under close supervision to research and draft a 10‑15 page research paper based on that text.

(11/12 writing) Each of us has stories to tell, stories about ourselves and others. In this course, we begin by reading published stories as inspiration for writing our own stories, and continue with a sequence of short exercises designed to explore the various facets of short story writing. In the second half of the mod, we move into a formal workshop period, where each student develops a draft of an original story and receives feedback from peers and the teacher.