Course Description: English 12
The intent of this course is to instigate or invigorate an appreciation for the power of words. When we run out of the right words or even enough of them or use the wrong ones, we start blowing each other up. This is the historical inevitability we will strive to avoid. Students will expand their vocabularies so that literature is a source of joy and illumination instead of an annoying puzzle or seemingly unbreakable code.
Some history must, necessarily, be introduced. One cannot understand Shakespeare and not know anything about his queen; Stephen Crane needs the Revolutionary War in order to make sense just as Brautigan needs rock and roll, the War in Vietnam and Richard Nixon in order to be comprehensible.
Regular vocabulary tests will be administered. Vocabulary will come from the literature considered and from class discussions. Students will learn to write a complete page of original, lucid prose that is the final result of the writing process which demands concentration and seemingly endless editing.
Students are expected to enter the class and comport themselves therein with the decorum and gravity the academic atmosphere at once fosters and demands. They are not allowed to use computers in the classroom unless they are in the midst of a writing project. They will need to take notes and they will need to learn how to absorb and record.
