Course Description
The honors English track concludes with English 4 [Honors]. This course requires students to engage with a variety of fiction and nonfiction texts, including works by William Shakespeare, Charlotte Brontë, Geoffrey Chaucer, John Donne, Virginia Woolf, and Henry David Thoreau. In addition to reading, analyzing, and evaluating these texts, students will also hone their writing skills through a range of assignments and build on previously learned concepts to begin generating their own paper topics and research questions.

Course Breakdown

“The Gettysburg Address” by Abraham Lincoln
“Civil Disobedience” by Henry David Thoreau
“Little Things Are Big” by Jesús Colón
“Self-Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Common Sense by Thomas Paine
“My Wood” by E. M. Forster
“Death of the Moth” by Virginia Woolf
“No Faith in the Media” by Ahmed Versi
“When Harry Met Sexism” by Bidisha
“Women’s Fiction is a Sign of a Sexist Book Industry” by Alison Flood
“Baking Mad: The Return of Afternoon Tea” by Maria Fitzpatrick
“Wind of Change” by Harold Macmillan
“Marc Antony’s Speech” by William Shakespeare
“Of Adversity” by Sir Francis Bacon
“Of Death” by Sir Francis Bacon
“The Fallacy of Success” by G. K. Chesterton
“Sermon on the Mound” by Margaret Thatcher
“We Shall Fight on the Beaches” by Winston Churchill
“The Golden Speech” by Queen Elizabeth I
Candide by Voltaire “Faith” by Tim O’Brien
“The Sniper” by Liam O’Flaherty
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
“The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allen Poe
“The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant

Course Goals
Research a grade-appropriate topic by finding a variety of credible resources.
Write a research paper.
Read and analyze nonfiction articles, essays, and speeches.
Write a persuasive essay. Write a personal narrative that addresses a common theme in literature.
Read and analyze William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Examine plot components and elements of drama.
Create a presentation that compares and contrasts two productions of Hamlet.