This seminar course is designed to explore the analysis and writing of a variety of rhetorical modes of discourse—summary, description, process, compare and contrast, definition, causal analysis, and argumentation. Other concepts covered include figurative language, tone, critical reading, prewriting tactics, subject refinement and thesis development, diction and clarity, paragraph unity, revision, ethos, pathos, and logos, visual rhetoric, research, and the Toulmin structure of argument. This course moves beyond the formulaic essay styles and teaches students how to write extended pieces in which their ideas and their rhetorical goals guide the organization of their writing. Prerequisite: OE011 Modes of Writing and Argumentation or consent of instructor

This course surveys works of literature written in English from 1600 to the present. To make such a survey possible, the course focuses on literature from the “traditional axis” between England and the United States, though a crucial link to Caribbean literature is explored to create an understanding of contemporary Postcolonial perspectives. Works of literature to be studied include many novels, poems, a graphic novel, and other literary genres. Featured selections are drawn from the works of William Shakespeare, Zora Neale Hurston, Virginia Woolf, Walter Benjamin, Alice Walker, Herman Melville, Derek Walcott, Paul Auster, Emily Dickinson, and Laurence Sterne. At year’s end, students collect their writings on literature into a portfolio that narrates how they view the study of literature after many months of exploration. This portfolio also includes an essay portion where students formulate their general position on literary issues as it appears across their collected work. The extra-literary objective of the course is to enable students to enjoy reading in and writing about a variety of literature from a diversity of critical frameworks, e.g., historical, formal, theoretical, or biographical. Prerequisite: OE020 AP English Language and Composition or consent of instructor

Student interested in taking these courses may do so through the EPGY Online High School. For more information about the Online High School and how to register for these courses, see OHS Single Course Registration.