Explore our Curriculum

Department

English

The study of English in the Junior School is designed to introduce students to the pleasures of reading important literary works and, through a variety of critical and creative exercises, to encourage and develop disciplined readers, writers, and speakers.

Building on skills developed in Grades 7 and 8, the two Middle School years encourage the students’ transition into increasingly complex responses to language and literature. In both years, students explore the foundations of literature in English, focusing on utopian and dystopian fiction in Grade 9, and exploring three literary genres—poetry, short fiction, and drama—in Grade 10.

In the Senior School, students pursue the study of language and literature in term courses. In the first term, all 11th Graders take a required writing course, while 12th Graders choose among a variety of Shakespeare electives. In the second term, students in the Senior School choose an elective from a range of offerings. For all electives, students should read the course descriptions carefully; they are not permitted to change English electives once the course is underway.

While English courses are not designated AP, the program at Hopkins is strong preparation for the English Language and English Literature Advanced Placement Examinations

English 7

Students read diverse literature by great authors, through which they develop their interpretive and imaginative skills. The course emphasizes frequent writing, both analytical and creative, as well as vocabulary study and a thorough grammar program. Lively class discussion helps to shape students’ verbal skills. Representative authors include Dickens, Hinton, Achebe, Shakespeare, and London.
English 8

This course extends the study of literary forms and explores themes such as identity, community, and agency. Frequent and varied writing assignments, with a focus on drafting and revision, support students in their growth as writers. Class discussion and expository writing promote the development of analytical thought, and the exploration of grammar and vocabulary continues. The Junior School curriculum fosters a smooth transition to the challenging upper school curriculum. Representative authors include Gene Luen Yang, Lorraine Hansberry, and John Steinbeck.
English 9

This course establishes a foundation for students’ close reading habits, analytical writing process, and discussion skills. Engaging a theme of ‘imagining society’ through studies of works by authors such as William Golding, Yaa Gyasi, Kazuo Ishiguro, and William Shakespeare, the course helps students move from observation to interpretation through a variety of assignments and activities that promote a deeper understanding of themselves and their society through our shared literature.
English 10

Introduced to increasingly sophisticated literature, students continue to develop and sharpen their reading and analytical thinking skills. The Grade 10 curriculum emphasizes the technical and critical vocabulary of literary forms: poetry, short story, and stage plays. Frequent writing allows students to develop and polish skills through analytical and creative assignments, bridging these compositional approaches to studying and appreciating literature. Students end the course by returning to studies of the novel, applying their evolved literary skills to a familiar form within the English curriculum at Hopkins. This course surveys a range of representative authors and texts, from the ancient to the contemporary.
English 11: Writing Semester

English 11 – The Writing Semester

Required for all 11th Graders, Term I, ½ credit.

This course is a concentrated study and practicum in writing. Students write often across multiple expository forms. For models, we turn to a department-curated collection of essays from a diverse range of classic and contemporary writers. Rhetorical theory and practice alongside additional ancillary texts expands writers’ range and opportunities to hone their craft.
Borderlands Literature

Borderlands Literature

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

Offered every other year. Next offered 2025-2026.

In this course, we will read texts about the national, cultural, and linguistic borders that sometimes divide us. We consider literature from the Mexican-American border that captures the ways that cultures clash and converge in that socio-political context. The class will also visit other borderlands, and borderless lands, around the world. In doing so, we will come to understand the ways in which literature from these dynamic places challenge the border as a place of difference and, instead, open up opportunities to construct new identities, reimagine nation, and explore novel methods of storytelling. Representative authors include Gloria Anzaldúa, Junot Diaz, Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, and Michael Chabon.
Creative Nonfiction

Creative Nonfiction

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

The fastest-growing genre of writing in the United States today, creative nonfiction takes factually accurate material and applies the craft of literary style and technique, rendering it in dynamic and compelling prose. In this literature-based elective, students will explore a wide range of forms of creative nonfiction, including memoir, essay, long-form journalism, profile pieces, science writing, and travelogue. In response to their reading, students will analyze the literary craft of this genre and consider the subtle interplay between creativity and nonfiction.
Dangerous Books

Dangerous Books

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

Offered every other year. Next offered 2026-2027.

This course asks questions about the status quo: What systems are in place that serve some at the expense of others? Who are the “some” and who are the “others”? What are the dangers of questioning, and not questioning, the status quo? The “dangerous” texts—by authors such as Miriam Toews, Anthony Burgess, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and Colson Whitehead—interrogate the world, and systems of ideas, around us.
Dark Romanticism

Dark Romanticism

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear . . . From Frankenstein to more modern creations, Dark Romanticism has delighted and disturbed audiences through its representations of the spectral and the supernatural, the sublime and the uncanny. Students will study early conventions and innovators of the Gothic across literary forms. Thereafter, students will explore contemporary recreations of the Gothic, resituating Dark Romanticism’s western European foundations within the works of Yoko Ogawa, Jesmyn Ward, and Silvia Moreno-Garcia, among others.
Humanities Symposium: African-American History & Literature

Humanities Symposium: African-American History and Literature

Grades 11 & 12, Term II, 1 credit
(½ credit English, ½ credit History)

Offered jointly through the English and History Departments

Students receive both English and History credit for this team-taught, interdisciplinary course. Each class meets for a double-block period. African-American experiences are explored through literary texts and historical documents alike, with the critical examination of primary sources and articles providing a backbone for studies in literature. The course begins with the complex histories of the peoples of the African subcontinent before turning to address slavery, Reconstruction and Jim Crow, the Harlem Renaissance and Civil Rights Movement, and the present. Representative authors have included Frederick Douglass, Richard Wright, Alice Walker, August Wilson, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Yaa Gyasi, and Toni Morrison. In addition, art, film, and music will inform our study. Assessments are jointly given and graded, and consist of essays, research presentations, creative assignments based on research, and a collaborative, capstone analytical project. Through the interdisciplinary examination of literature and history, students have the opportunity to reach a deeper understanding of the circumstances, challenges, contributions, and resiliency of African Americans from the days of slavery to our current moment. [This course counts as two academic courses in Term II.]
Moral Questions in Literature

Moral Questions in Literature

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

This course examines how literary texts engage in questions of morality in an ambiguous world. Students will read excerpts of moral philosophy alongside literature that depicts lives of flourishing, folly, and deliberation. Throughout the semester, students will write about and grapple with concepts such as moral relativism, utilitarianism, and virtue ethics; current news and issues also feed our analyses. Recent authors have included Kwame Appiah, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and E.M. Forster.
Native American Literature

Native American Literature

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

To read Native American literature is to engage in decolonization. This course opens with a look at historical, political, and legal documents before shifting to novels, short stories, and poetry that focus on reservation life and Native urbanity. Our representative authors—Natalie Diaz, Louise Erdrich, Larissa FastHorse, Tommy Orange, and Leslie Silko—craft metafictional and metahistorical stories that tear down American exceptionalism and celebrate the truth that Native Americans “are still here.”
Nature Literature

Nature Literature

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

Some view their relationship to nature as conquerors, others as collaborators, and some as the conquered. This course explores how writers inhabit those relationships and investigates our own connections to natural spaces. We will explore the ways in which nature transcends setting and becomes a character in literature of the past and present. Students will live the connections between characters and place by investigating their own natural spaces, including some around the Hopkins campus. Authors range widely in perspective—from Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and Frederick Law Olmstead, to David Orr, Camille T. Dungy, and Robin Wall Kimmerer.
Our Mythological Heritage

Our Mythological Heritage

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.
Students explore the origins, types, meanings, and resonances of mythology. By studying myth through literary works, students probe the questions that humans seek to answer through storytelling: Where do we come from? Why are we here? What is our purpose? Where will we go next? Texts include selected Greek tragedies, Virgil's Aeneid, Milton's Paradise Lost, selected modern poetry, and a contemporary novel.
Postcolonial Literature: The Empire Writes Back

Postcolonial Literature: The Empire Writes Back

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

This course focuses on postcolonial literature from 1945 to the present. How did writers respond to the massive societal and political upheavals that followed the British withdrawal from Nigeria, South Africa, India, the Caribbean “West Indies”? Did the British really ever leave? Students will read works of fiction, poetry, and plays that reveal and examine the diversity of experiences and perspectives within the canon of postcolonial literature. Representative authors include J.M. Coetzee, Anita Desai, Jamaica Kincaid, Wole Soyinka, and Derek Walcott.
Queer Literature

Queer Literature

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

What does it mean to be queer? This course offers a few answers to that question in an introduction to literature that expands our thinking about intersecting identities shaping difference and power, historically and in contemporary culture. We will read literature by and about people and communities who identify as LGBTQIA+ to examine and analyze how texts disrupt, subvert, and challenge sexual, gender, and other sociocultural norms and dynamics. Authors have included Sappho, John Lyly, Audre Lorde, Tony Kushner, and Maia Kobabe.
Russian Literature

Russian Literature

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

Offered every other year. Next offered 2026-2027.

This course explores a rich, troubled, and fascinating culture in its literary golden age, the 19th century. Students read works by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Mikhail Lermontov, Alexander Pushkin, and Anton Chekhov, appreciating them first as great literature, then as windows on a nation, a people, and humanity itself.
The Novel

The Novel

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

Few literary forms capture the depth and complexity of the human experience like the novel. This course traces the evolution of the novel from the mid-19th century to today, diving into a variety of vibrant, thought-provoking works that reveal the emotional richness of the art form. Through evocative prose, students will explore themes of identity, society, and human nature, discovering how the novel continues to shape our understanding of the world. Previous authors in this course have included Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison.
Studies in Poetry

Studies in Poetry

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

“Poetry is not a luxury,” declared Audre Lorde, “it is a vital necessity of our existence.” Embracing this sentiment, we embark on a journey through the rich and diverse tapestry of American poetry. In this course, we will explore how poets harness the interplay of imagery and metaphor, sound and rhythm, thought and syntax to transform language into a potent force for liberation. This exploration will empower us to envision a more just and equitable world, one that embraces the power of poetry in shaping our collective consciousness. Prepare to be challenged and disoriented, but also to emerge as skilled readers and writers of poetry.
Twentieth Century American Literature

Twentieth Century American Literature

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

The course focuses on American writers seeking to expose or to change an evolving and often elusive American dream. Students will connect literature to historical, social, and political contexts such as the women’s movement, the civil rights movement, the LGBTQ+ movement, and the anti-Vietnam war movement. Students will also consider the original pursuit of the American Dream and apply it to a 20th century reality. Representative writers include F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nella Larsen, Ernest J. Gaines, Tim O’Brien, and Arthur Miller.
Write it Right! Practical Writing Skills & Strategies

Open to students entering grades 9–12.

Communication skills—especially writing—are the single most important advantage you can give a child. Future performance in school and in the workplace is greatly enhanced by the ability to speak and write well. This course provides a six-week writing tutorial: forming a topic sentence and thesis, methods of organization, using transitions, sentence variety, basic editing techniques, writing introductions and conclusions, supporting points, and along the way, the “art of being a student.” Students are taught elements of description, narration, comparison, persuasion, definition, division & classification, as well as the underlying grammatical structure of English—the building blocks of sentences. The course uses today’s technology and popular media, including YouTube videos, vlogs and discussion threads, films, art, popular lyrics, film music, and literary excerpts to teach critical thinking and foster creativity. This is an active participation course with lots of one-to-one attention in a supportive environment.

Students get hands-on practice leading class lessons and reviews: if you can explain it to someone, you know it! By the end, students will have produced a body of written work to show for their efforts. All course texts and materials are provided. Come with a laptop, an iPad, or just pen and paper!

Course created by The University of New Haven Senior Lecturer, Wes Davis, who brings decades of experience teaching every kind and level of writing from remedial to honors, from middle school to college.
Twenty-first Century American Literature

Twenty-first Century American Literature

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

This course focuses on literature written after the events of September 11th, 2001, with an eye toward understanding the anxieties and concerns of today. By reading our country’s complex and diverse literature, we will come to know it and perhaps one another better. Authors may include Ayad Akhtar, Ocean Vuong, Patricia Lockwood, Xochitl Gonzalez, and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah.
Weddings, Witches, and Wombs: Women’s Narratives

Weddings, Witches, and Wombs: Women’s Narratives

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

This course focuses on how the canon of women’s writing in English has evolved and emerged from the late 18th century to the present. What kinds of stories do women tell, when the female body and mind has long been weaponized, infantilized, constructed, manipulated, and revered by writers for complex and often fundamentally different ends? By reading a range of genres from various times and places, students will come away with an understanding of how varied writing by women can be. Authors may include Jane Austen, Emily Brontë, Emily Dickinson, Zora Neale Hurston, Audre Lorde, Sylvia Plath, and Maxine Hong Kingston.
Wit and Wisdom

Wit & Wisdom

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

Offered every other year. Next offered 2025-2026.

Comedy’s intellectual side can be as dark and socially critical as it is hilarious. This course examines satire, irony, wit, and absurdity in various forms in literature from ancient Greece to the 21st century and approaches the study of comedy as a source of wisdom, perspective, and power. Recent authors include Aristophanes, Oscar Wilde, Paul Beatty, and Douglas Adams.
Heroic Figures in Shakespeare

Heroic Figures in Shakespeare

Grade 12. Term I, ½ credit.

This course examines how Shakespeare expands, develops, and influences the heroic tradition in literature. By examining some of the Bard’s most striking characters from the tragedies, histories and comedies, students will study how the views and expectations of heroism and honor have evolved as the arenas—battlefields, courtrooms, and bedrooms—have changed.
Love in Shakespeare's Plays

Love in Shakespeare’s Plays

Grade 12. Term I, ½ credit.

This course explores how Shakespeare challenges us to think deeply about the complex qualities of love—between lovers, married couples, parents and children, friends, and ultimately communities—rather than to accept the traditional mythologies. Beginning with the sonnet, we follow with examples from both tragedies and comedies. Students will learn to distinguish types of love and question its very nature in Shakespeare’s writings.
Political Shakespeare

Political Shakespeare

Grade 12. Term I, ½ credit.
This course explores the attributes and character of the ideal (and less than ideal) ruler, while examining the personal sacrifices leaders often have to make as they struggle to maintain stability in their realm. Through a study of Machiavelli’s The Prince and Shakespeare’s history plays, students will critique the tension that exists between being both an effective leader and a moral person.
Shakespeare & Performance

Shakespeare & Performance

Grade 12. Term I, ½ credit.

This course focuses on a close reading of Shakespeare’s plays and the decisions involved in bringing his words to film and the stage. The class explores Shakespeare in his own context and in modern productions so students can identify artistic choices and interpret their implications. Whenever possible, the class will host guest speakers from academia and the theater to amplify the discussion. To extend their learning beyond the classroom, students should expect frequent field trips and after school commitments to view live and screened theater performances, including a kick off during pre-season at Elm Shakespeare in New Haven.
Shakespeare & the Problem of Justice

Shakespeare & the Problem of Justice

Grade 12. Term I, ½ credit.

Shakespeare explores revenge, inaction, and forgiveness as part of a range of human responses to injustice. In this course, students will investigate the tension between justice and mercy, or vengeance and absolution. Through the study of some of the most beautiful passages in Shakespeare’s “problem plays” and at least one of his major tragedies, students will grapple with their own notions of justice, in literature and in life.
Supernatural Shakespeare

Supernatural Shakespeare

Grade 12. Term 1, ½ Credit.
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word / Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, / Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres . . . This course explores the supernatural elements of representative works by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Ghosts and goblins, fairies and spirits, demons and the divine—all conjure textual and performative possibilities, influencing dramatic genres and disparate themes. This course will raise and recast these supernatural specters for interrogation and interpretation.
Women in Shakespeare

Women in Shakespeare?

Grade 12. Term I, ½ credit.

This course explores the complexities and ambiguities of Shakespeare’s portrayal of women in their roles as daughters, lovers, mothers, wives, sisters, friends, and rivals. Drawing on traditions of feminist criticism and gender theory, students will explore the possibilities, limitations, and boundaries for female characters through their own and others’ words and deeds. Students will also examine the gendering of power, authority, and agency in Shakespeare’s plays.
Expository & Creative Writing - Summer

Open to students entering grades 7–8.

This course builds upon fundamental skills and seeks to improve the quality of writing through the composition and revision of essays and other short pieces of written work. Based upon our belief that clear writing comes from clear thinking, the writing course emphasizes various approaches to the logical development of ideas and to methods of organizing ideas. Sentence structure, paragraph coherence, and common writing errors will be examined and discussed. Assignments will cover various types of expository writing, allowing as much latitude for creativity and originality as possible. This class caps at 10 students.

Cost: $1,250
Section 1 (code #103)
Section 2 (code #102)

If taken in combination with a second course: Cost: $2,000 Total.
Creative Writing

Creative Writing

Grade 11 & 12. Term I, ½ credit.
In this writing workshop, students develop the technical skills essential to writing short fiction and poetry. Students read and analyze fiction and poetry by contemporary authors to aid in the development of their own creative work. Students also engage in critical analysis of each other’s writing. (This course requires departmental permission and may be taken only as a second English course.)
Reading & Writing Short Stories & Memoirs

Reading & Writing Short Stories & Memoirs

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

Offered every other year. Next offered 2025-2026.
In this writing workshop, students develop the technical skills essential to writing short fiction and memoirs. Students read and analyze fiction and creative nonfiction by contemporary authors to aid in the development of their own creative work, which is the primary aim of the course. Students also read, discuss, and engage in critical analysis of each other’s creative work. (This course may be taken as the primary Term II English elective in Grade 12. This course requires departmental permission when taken as a second English course in Grade 11.)
Writing for Stage & Screen

Writing for Stage & Screen

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

Offered every other year. Next offered 2026-2027.

This course is designed to explore the core components of storytelling as embodied in theater, either on stage or on screen. Students will consider the work of award-winning playwrights and screenwriters alongside lesser known artists, analyzing techniques in building character, dialogue, and conflict. Students will develop their own short plays; advanced exercises will emphasize skills such as developing backstory, showing rather than telling, adapting descriptive prose, and managing multiple storylines. The class will include a final performance of polished work. (This course may be taken as the primary Term II English elective in Grade 12. This course requires departmental permission when taken as a second English course in Grade 11.)
Race, Identity, and Power In Shakespeare
Whodunit? A Study of the Detective Story

Whodunit? A Study of the Detective Story

Grade 11 & 12. Term II, ½ credit.

Offered every other year. Next offered 2025-2026.

This course examines the traditional detective story, why it emerged in the 19th century, and how it has changed over time. We will study key elements—the seemingly perfect crime, the wrongly accused suspect, the bumbling constable, the superior mind of the detective, the red herring, and the startling, unexpected denouement—and how these weave the perfect mystery. Examining the worlds of these varied detective figures, we will ask ourselves why this genre continues to capture the popular imagination. Sample authors may include Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Walter Mosley, and Tana French.
Young Apprentice Writers Program

Young Apprentice Writers Program (YAWP)

Grade 11 Only, Term II, ½ credit;

Summer Apprenticeship, ½ credit.

Young Apprentice Writers Program: Elements of Apprenticeship. (Term II)

Supported by weekly peer workshops designed to develop writing projects and collaboration skills, students will compose approximately 25 pages of finished writing across genres and forms, culminating in a portfolio. Visits from and meetings with alumni and other professional writers will complement the writing process and help students develop essential apprentice skills. Students also will read two course-wide books and two additional, self-selected texts relevant to their project. Those independent readings will grow students’ expertise within their proposed genre and form. A formal proposal for their summer reading and writing will accompany the spring portfolio. (This course may be taken as a second Term II English class only. Application and departmental approval required.)

Young Apprentice Writers Program Apprenticeship. (Summer)

The formal proposal will guide and structure the summer project. Past participants have drafted a novel, completed several short stories, written a crown of sonnets, produced a poetry chapbook, and composed screenplays. Students will log between 12-15 weekly hours of reading, writing, and conferencing. Other requirements include regular and productive use of the mentor conferences, maintaining a writer's journal, and thoughtful responses to the Director’s summer communications. Upon successful completion of the summer work, students will earn a half credit. The YAWP experience culminates with an autumn reading event in front of family, peers, and mentors.

Our Faculty

Joseph Addison

English Department Chair

203.397.1001 x721

Amherst College - B.A.
Columbia University - M.A.

jaddison@hopkins.edu
Amelia Audette

English

203.397.1001 x637

Union College - BA
Boston College - MA

aaudette@hopkins.edu
Dante Brito, Jr.

Pathfinder Dean of Students / Athletic Department Associate / English

203-397-1001 x647

Stonehill College - B.A.
Western Kentucky University - M.A.

dbrito@hopkins.edu
Sarah Cussler

English

Yale University - BA
University of CA at Berkeley - MA

scussler@hopkins.edu
Bradford Czepiel

English

203.397.1001 x714

Vassar College - A.B.
Middlebury College - M.A.

bczepiel@hopkins.edu
Alissa Davis

English / Director of Community Service

203-397-1001

Yale University - B.A.
Middlebury College - M.A.

adavis@hopkins.edu
Daniel Drummond

English / College Counseling

203.397.1001 x640

Harvard College - B.A.
Harvard Graduate School of Education - M.Ed.

ddrummond@hopkins.edu
Hughes Fitzgerald

English

203.397.1001 x256

Yale University - B.A.

hfitzgerald@hopkins.edu
Leah Fry

English

203.397.1001 x729

The College of William and Mary - B.A.
University of California-Santa Barbara - Ph.D.

lfry@hopkins.edu
David Harpin

English, Global Programs Coordinator

203.397.1001 x121

Saint Anselm College - B.A.
Harvard University - A.L.M.

dharpin@hopkins.edu
Benjamin Johnson

English

203.397.1001 x712

Rice University - B.A.
Johns Hopkins University - M.F.A.

bjohnson@hopkins.edu
Alexandra Kelly

English

203.397.1001 x641

Bates College - B.S.
Middlebury College - M.A.

akelly@hopkins.edu
Anna Khoury

English

203.397.1001 x622

Dickinson College - B.A.
University of Pennsylvania - M. S. Ed

akhoury@hopkins.edu
Shanti Madison

English

203.397.1001 x809

smadison@hopkins.edu
Stephen May

English

203.397.1001 x628

University of Pittsburgh - B.A.
Hunter College - M.A.

smay@hopkins.edu
Terence Mooney

English

203-397-1001 x611

Middlebury College - M.A.
Kenyon College - B. A.

tmooney@hopkins.edu
Geoff Nelson

Dean of Faculty

203.397.1001 x400

gnelson@hopkins.edu
Brad Ridky

English

University of North Carolina - B.A.
Southern CT State University - M.Sc.

bridky@hopkins.edu

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Explore our Curriculum

English

Our Faculty