English

In addition to their normal English class, all sophomores take Writing Workshop, an adjunct class that meets once per academic cycle. Writing Workshop provides instruction and practice in foundational elements of analytical writing, covering topics such as sentence-level mechanics and variety, thesis development, integration of evidence, paragraph structure, essay organization, revision, and other skills transferrable to multiple styles and genres of writing. The focus on these foundational skills gives students the opportunity to see build a base of understanding that is reinforced directly in their English class during the sophomore year and beyond. 

Since the ground-breaking publication of Art Spiegelman’s Maus in 1993, graphic novels have entered the global cultural and academic mainstream, inspiring complex interdisciplinary and multicultural analyses. In this course students will survey the current field and read works of fiction (Watchmen, Asterios Polyp, The Arrival), autobiography (Maus, Persepolis, Fun Home), and journalism (Safe Area Gorazade). In order to understand these works and the cultures that produced them, students will write essays using interpretive lenses focusing on history, gender, psychology, and class. Students will also explore the relationship between text and image in analyses as well as short sequential art sequences of their own.

Magical realism is a form of literature that collapses the boundary between the fantastical and the ordinary, forcing the reader to see “reality” through new eyes. Closely associated with 20th-century Latin American authors such as Gabriel García Márquez and Jorge Luis Borges, magical realism has attained a truly global reach, as writers and artists from around the world have employed it to reflect and refract deeper understandings of society. This course will explore magical realism in its Latin American context and across cultures, in prose, poetry, and film. Beginning with the works of Márquez and Borges, the course will attempt to isolate a set of characteristics that define magical realism. From there, students will explore how other authors have experimented with magical realism around the world and compare how those artists have utilized magical realism in their own ways. From the works of Lin Manuel Miranda to Kazuo Ishiguro and Jesmyn Ward, the class will see how the threads of magical realism can connect Latin America and the wider world and how place and genre can open a broader understanding of the ways artists manipulate reality to develop meaning. 

Our students delve into a variety of titles in varied genres — from poetry to creative nonfiction — throughout their course of study. To get a sense of some of the works that our students are reading, take a look at our most recent English course descriptions.

Since writing clear, logical, and persuasive prose is critical to academic achievement and to successful communication, the department teaches writing throughout the program. To accustom students to expressing themselves precisely, to teach proper usage and diction, and to foster creative sentence patterns and the use of figurative language, the freshmen work on personal narratives and short interpretive compositions. With the help of the Writing Workshop program, sophomores focus on expository and analytical writing based usually on required readings. Juniors continue to develop their expository writing while experimenting with rhetoric and argumentation, and in preparation for senior electives, they devote much of the year to writing analytical and personal essays that require substantial reading and deeper literary analysis.  A hallmark of the junior year comes in the form of a synthesis essay, a form of argument that asks the writer to engage with multiple differing sources. Students in the senior year are expected to use the skills they have developed to advance into writing projects that develop larger connections to themes in class and between multiple works. Seniors also are expected to develop written assignments without being provided with a question or prompt. The expectation is that seniors can pursue a topic or idea most interesting to them on and individual level.

With departmental approval, juniors and seniors may choose respectively the CL English III Seminar or the CL senior electives. The English Department expects students to accept increasing responsibility for their education and to participate actively in creating a classroom atmosphere in which they and their classmates will develop as scholars and independent thinkers.

Small class sizes and Harkness tables invite open discussion in our English Department. As students advance through the curriculum, we expect them to accept increasing responsibility for their education and to participate actively in creating a classroom atmosphere in which they and their classmates will develop as scholars and independent thinkers.

At Loomis Chaffee, we believe summer reading is an essential and enriching part of each student's experience. All students will have three Summer Reading requirements: an all-school read, grade-level and class requirements, and a “book chat” selection. Students choose from a list of departmental recommendations and then gather to discuss together in small groups in the fall.