It is only natural that education evolve over time. Today’s honors course, for example, may resemble that of times past hardly at all. Recently, I learned that all high school English classes in Newton meet but three times a week and that teachers can assign only an hour of homework per week. Current instructors also confessed that their classes cover just three books a year. “For better or worse, times have changed,” they concluded, “and we cover what we can in class.”
Stunned, I decided to revisit my syllabus for my Junior Year course of about a dozen years ago, the one I passed out to parents at Back to School Night. I post it below. Just imagine if I tried to teach such a course these days!
Junior Honors English: Mr. Jampol
American classics that we will read:
The Open Boat by Crane
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Bierce
Bartleby the Scrivener by Melville
A Rose for Emily by Faulkner
The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne (Signet edition)*
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (autobiography)
My Antonia by Cather
The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald
Death of a Salesman by Miller
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Hurston
The Things they Carried by O’Brien
Poetry by Poe, Whitman, Dickinson, Frost, Plath, and others
Selected speeches by Abraham Lincoln
Sections of Lincoln at Gettysburg by Garry Wills
Miscellaneous Literature:
The Bull on the Mountain by Sacks
Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky (Signet edition)*
Macbeth by Shakespeare (Folger Shakespeare Library)*
Poetry by Keats, Wordsworth, Yeats, and other European poets
Texts:
The Lively Art of Writing by Paine
English, A Comprehensive Course (Amsco)
The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition by Strunk and White*
Language, Structure, and Use (Red edition)
English Grammar and Composition (White Warriner’s)
* Please purchase these books, which should be available at local bookstores like NEMB.
Although junior English emphasizes American literature, we will wander far afield, stopping in Macbeth’s Scotland and Raskolnikov’s Saint Petersburg. Along the way we will pay dutiful visits to Professor Strunk’s rules of usage; sail between the grammatical Scylla of subordinate clauses and Charybdis of absolute phrases; and pay homage to the Greeks and Romans for having bequeathed us the family of roots, prefixes, and suffixes. Birds will loom larger than life as we immerse ourselves in Whitman’s Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking, Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale, Yeats’s The Wild Swans at Coole, and Frost’s The Oven Bird. We will also refine our prose style with help from The Lively Art of Writing.
Students will find that the course requires a great commitment of time and creativity. I hope that they view the intellectual rewards as worthy of such effort. For me, teaching is a labor of love.
Mr. Jampol
I was underwhelmed by my child’s experience in junior honors english this past year at one of Newton’s meh high schools. It paled in comparison to the American Lit class I had at that age. Back then the Jesuits knew a thing or two about how to educate in the humanities in general and American Lit/History specifically. I suspect they still do.
Bob – I admit to being overwhelmed by your list at first until I realized that it’s for a year, not a semester, none of the books are mega-tomes like War and Peace, and some of the readings are short works like stories. At that point it looked similar to my high school equivalent of honors back in the 70s where we met for 5 class periods/week (though 3x/week due to double periods). I can’t imagine only covering 3 books/year!
It seems ridiculous to have the same work requirements for regular and honors classes. I understand the need to keep total hours of homework at a more sane level than they’ve been in the past, but 1 hour/week for a core class just doesn’t make sense especially if it’s supposed to include reading time.
Agreed on all counts.
If you really want to look back in history (back to the paleolithic 1950’s), check out the Roland Heintzelman Award, which, I hope, is still given in memory of one of NHS’s most exacting and influential AP English teachers. Eleven years ago, at our 55th reunion, a few of us who were privileged to be in his class gathered to remember him, along with former English Department Chair Brenda Keegan. Brian Baron, then the Newton South English Department Chair, came along to record the conversation. Here is the link. https://www.newton.k12.ma.us/Page/2442
I wish my kids took Bob’s course. Does anyone have a modern day Junior Honors syllabus to post for comparison?
I would love to understand why it’s changed. As in, what pedagogical benefit is there in reducing the reading load as indicated in the post?
Perhaps someone from the School Committee can post and explain.
Perhaps it’s an opportunity to cover books in greater depth. I know when I was at NN, it sometimes felt we didn’t get enough time to delve thoughtfully into the assigned texts. Plays, in particular, I think are best shared/read in class to get a feel for the language. Quality over quantity, etc. Plus, these kids have five or six other classes, with homework, and all those afterschool sports and activities.
Funny how different states and schools have different reading lists. I read all almost all of the American lit books listed in 8 and 9th grade. I believe the thinking was to start us on the shorter books, and leave the long novels like Crime and Punishment (and European authors perhaps) for Junior/Senior years.
Some of these books listed also helped me understand my favorite reading paradox. Your relationship and understanding of a great book changes fundamentally as you age. The book is a constant, but your view shifts as you pass the lighthouse, so to speak. I understood the text at 14, but some of the books hit harder after kids, or middle age, or retirement.
Anyway, absent a syllabus so we can compare apples to apples, I’m having trouble knowing if this is a major change, minor change, or just a different teaching method (going more in depth on fewer books, longer books, etc.). Perhaps Bob was also unique at Newton South. Was his syllabus standard?
But my two questions would be:
1) Does honors english and non-honor english read the same texts?
2) Does the department set the books to be read across the district? How much choice do the teachers get?
I have read of the push to diversify and bring in new voices into the literature component of English classes as well. I’m curious how that is being accomplished in Newton, which may be a separate conversation if Bob is willing to speak to it.
Shorter Summary Fig Post:
Need current syllabus for context. I enjoyed these books through multiple readings. What makes an honor’s class different? Who picks the books, teachers or administration?
Instructors “confessed” that they cover only three books a year? So is this an unintended consequence of the restriction on homework rather than a deliberate pedagogical decision? I’d ask how this minimal workload is supposed to prepare “honors” students for college, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t like any of the answers.
Interesting points. The department moved “My Antonia” from ninth grade, where few teachers used it, to junior year for its narrative of the settlement of the west, consistent with the eleventh grade emphasis on American history. I was delighted, having always loved Cather’s depiction of the Pioneer Era. “Macbeth” replaced “Hamlet,” to my dismay, when the latter became the staple of senior year English. Though I enjoyed teaching the Scottish tragedy, “Hamlet” lies close to my heart in its richness of language and remarkable characterization. I can’t think of a better written book in the English language. Do seniors still read it?
In a recent interview in the New York Times Book Review, Geraldine Brooks describes her shock upon discovering that none of the students in her graduate seminar had read any plays by Shakespeare. Her outcry struck a chord with me and was, indeed, the inspiration for my post. Our department used to take great pride in knowing that all our students read at least one play by Shakespeare each year.
The overlooked variable in this pretty condescending walk through the good old days is the pandemic.
Over the years the department phased out most of the 19th Century authors, inserting instead diverse voices, many of them contemporary. I was the last teacher, as far as I know, to teach anything by George Eliot (not in the course above), and Thomas Hardy is gone as well. Note that my course included books about the Vietnam War, Black life in rural Florida, and so forth. The goal: to mix the classics with more modern works from many quarters of American society. I support that aim but hope that classics don’t disappear altogether.
Final note: Improving any skill requires practice and feedback, something particularly true of reading and writing. At bottom, that is what English classes are largely about.
Our MCAS scores tell us that English instruction needs more attention from the School Committee. Don’t hold your breath. They continue to be absent in advocating for high quality education.
There are five problems with the current way English is talk at in NPS. 1) In elementary and middle school there is not enough emphasis on grammar. For my kids, I regrettably discovered this too late. 2) the quantity of reading is on the light side. 3) The quality and challenge level of the reading is on the light side. 4) Writing is on the light side and there is very little teacher feedback (redlining) on written work. English, if taught well, is incredibly time-intensive for the teacher. This requires the administration to do a better job helping English teachers. 5) The movement to add diversity fails to add high quality literature. For example, instead of reading speeches by Frederick Douglas, students read “The Hate You Give,” (which glorifies misogynist and convicted felon Tupac Shakur). The one exception to this that I noticed was the assignment of MLK’s “Letter from a Birmingham jail.”
Regarding the 5th problem, here is a story from my son’s 9th grade English class a few years back. He was assigned, Alexie’s, “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.” This is a pop-culture book. I don’t think it is going to be a classic. Alexie was accused of sexual harassment while the class was in the middle of reading the book. The teacher responded to this news by asking the students to put their books on their desks and preceded to pick up the half-read books. My son wanted to know how it ended. He went to the principal and asked for special permission to get his book back.
@Jeff– While you may be spot-on correct about all the other points you made, I must take exception to your characterization of Tupac, who was hand-down one of the most brilliant and influential black artists of the 20th century.
Tupac was overrated.
I taught at NSHS for 34 years and was English Dept Head for the last fifteen years. Certainly, each generation has to redefine what they want taught and how much “work” students and teachers will do. There certainly are also different kinds of work. For what it is worth, if one can believe the reports above, by my generation’s standards (and we were supposedly rebels,) not nearly as many of the books nor nearly as much of the kind of work that we required and did (most of us, most of the time), especially writing with feedback and teaching/learning grammar, seem to be happening now. On the other hand, I have heard that there is infinitely more communicating with/reporting to parents on the curriculum, student performance etc. One hopes that the new kinds of learning and work will be sufficient unto the day. If not, best of luck figuring it out. – Dwight Mac Kerron
After traveling to see grands, I’m home and want to respond to your letter, Bob, because I don’t think you got an accurate impression of English at South. Even when I was teaching Junior AmLit Honors with you, I tried to add different voices (The Way to Rainy Mountain, Passing, Invisible Man, The Things They Carried) along with all the traditional AmLit from Huck Finn, Gatsby, short stories and poetry by varied writers, male, female, and Hamlet. Today you should check out the impressive curriculums presented to the public on the NSHS site- Junior English offers three courses(including the Global studies co-taught class) -raising the expectation level for honors as well as mixed levels- reading traditional authors like Fitzgerald, Huston, Miller, Douglass to O’Brien, Gene Luen Yang, and Alexie; they are still asked to write longer analytical and comparatives essays. Honors students have outside reading.. And of course the creative Heintzelman piece as well as their personal essays at the end of the year. Senior year look like a college-level offering- from AP Lit (where on top of the required books, they’re expected to read a book a month) to full-year choices of Shakespeare, Contemporary Lit, Global Justice, Horror and Science Fiction, Women in Lit,African-American Lit, Jewish and Jewish-American Lit, Asian and Asian-American Lit, Film studies and a list of electives as well. And last year I was privileged to help judge the creative writing awards, and was awed by the sophistication and originality of the pieces. I feel proud of the department, their energy and commitment to ALL the students, their determination to widen perspectives and send students off well-prepared for college and writing in general.
I took your class in 1996 and can confidently say you are the very BEST English teacher from whom I ever learned a lesson. My mom had to beg you to take me into your junior honors class and it was all worth it.
I ended up as one of the very best writers in all my classes in college and have always been considered one of the best verbal and written communicators at the companies where I have worked.
But quite frankly, I can’t remember a damn thing about Crime and Punishment. Literally….I got nothing.
Thanks, Kate, and it seems that you have done well in life. It was a pleasure to have taught that class, which had a celebrity or two in it as well.
I am surprised to hear, however, that begging was necessary. You were also in my ninth grade class, and I had a positive impression of you from then. As for Dostoevsky, try reading it now. All things, even books, have their time.
Regards to classmates who may remember me.