Home >> High School Tutorials >> British Literature, Writing
| Tutor |
Chris Westrate |
| Target Students |
ninth and tenth graders |
| Instruction Time |
two 90-minute tutorials per week |
| Recommended Companion Tutorials |
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Though tutorials differ as to age, grade level and subject matter, the general philosophy of language studies remains the same. In every tutorial, from middle school through senior year, students work almost entirely from primary sources, analyzing the material independently, through in-class discussions, and in the context of tutor questions and lectures. Students are asked to do the difficult thinking rather than letting Spark Notes do their work for them. Also, though the writing genres are essentially the same for a middle school student as for a professional writer, the complexity of and expectations for student writing change over time. Students are growing as writers within these genres over many years. Therefore, they are asked to achieve greater clarity, control and power as they progress. Finally, these courses seek to engage students in the language arts from the perspective of the Christian faith. It is the position of New Hope Tutorials that the humanities are most profoundly understood and appreciated through the life of faith in Jesus Christ.
British Literature, Writing is a reading and writing course which attempts to develop critical literacy and thoughtful written expression. These two objectives are always balanced by the overall purpose of the language arts: to hone skills of communication. Because reading and writing are so closely tied together, students will always work to improve their writing when they are dealing critically with a literary text and, through excellent writing, they will learn to be strong readers.
This class is the first “survey” literature course New Hope students should take. Survey literature and writing courses concentrate on a specific historical period and setting. Representative literature is drawn from this time period, and the students study the texts both as specific works of art and as important steps in the greater “story” of literary development. British Literature, Writing seeks to expose early high school students to some of the greatest works of literature produced in the English language, those written and published on the British Isles. This year we will not take a strictly chronological track with the literature. Rather, we will splice later works into the curriculum as they are desirable thematically. For instance, the chronological track will begin early with Bede (731 A.D.) and Beowulf (c. 650-999 A.D.), but will be interrupted by Shelley’s Frankenstein as it relates to the “monster theme” in Beowulf,offering us a different (Gothic Victorian) perspective. Though the reading curriculum is “spliced”, students will read representative literature spanning from the 7th to the 20th centuries. The reading component will be ordered according to the reading list below.
Written work will continue to hone students’ abilities in the genre areas of reflection, exposition, persuasion, apology, literary analysis, narrative, poetry, etc. Special attention will be placed on students’ growing capability to handle a variety of themes in an objective, logical and scholarly way. Mature exposition will be stressed though creative work will also play a major role in class. Students will be responsible for one major research term paper at the end of the year. This unit will teach students about research, critical sources, and process writing.
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Please see Mr. Westrate's book lists for all tutorials (PDF file).
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