YOUTH INITIATIVE HIGH SCHOOL
Waldorf Initiative in Viroqua, Wisconsin, USA
COURSES AND CLASSES
English Path Class
12th Grade Creative Writing
Teacher: Donna Simmons
The first three weeks of the semester will be devoted to the study of Hamlet. This will include working on the play itself, reading various pieces of literary criticism, and fulfilling a couple of assignments. We might also watch Franco Zefferelli’s version of Hamlet at the end of this study.
Having dispatched with Hamlet, we will then turn to the real focus of the semester – creative writing. The pace of the class will be very fast and the emphasis will be on imaginative, beautiful, compelling and exciting writing. Students will be given lots of short, lively in-class written exercises as well as assignments to complete at home. How much and what depends largely on the interests and needs of the students.
However, I do want us to read two short novels, Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street, both wonderful examples of exquisite modern writing. Short stories I have in mind include pieces by O. Henry, Flannery O’ Connor, Joyce Carol Oates, Virginia Woolf, DH Lawrence and a number of lesser known contemporary authors.
To pass this class, students must do the work that needs to be done…. which could vary from student to student. If some students really want to get their teeth into the art of creative writing, I am excited to support them in their efforts. If others want just to pass this class, then that’s ok, too. Those who wish to be considered for a Pass with Honors must tell me what that might look like for them: written proposals outlining the details are due on 18 September.
Archetype & Dystopia
10th Grade Fall Semester 2006 English Path
Instructor: Matthew Voz
This semester will be divided into two unequal halves. The first and shorter half will focus on archetypes, those symbols that seem to pervade the human mind regardless of geography or culture. Using Jungian theories of the collective unconscious as our point of departure the class will read and analyze mythologies from around the world focusing on major themes such as cosmological creation, knowledge and the fall of humanity, and apocalypse. By studying these myths students will hopefully be able to develop a powerful tool with which they can more effectively understand and interpret literature of all kinds and from all periods.
The second half will be based on another basic human fantasy – utopia. The class will read a sampling of works that are either utopian or dystopian. Through reading, discussion, and written analysis of these works the class will explore not only basic literary devices such as allegory, perspective and tone, but also investigate the how a work of literature is effected by its own particular social milieu and how it can change its own social context.
The Reading List:
First Half:
Various mythological texts including, Genesis, Revelations, Enuma Elish, Ovid’s Metamorphses, Hesiod’s, Theogony and Works and Days, the Rg Veda and others.
C.G. Jung will also figure prominently.
Second Half will include some of the following:
George Orwell: 1984
Aldous Huxley: Brave New World
Henry Miller: The Crucible
Francis Bacon: The New Atlantis
John Bunyan: Pilgrim’s Progress
Jonathan Swift: Gulliver’s Travels