The Foundation for a Meaningful Life
Kindergarten - Grade 9 in Southborough, MA
Kindergarten - Grade 9 in Southborough, MA
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Sampling Writing Genres
Students in ninth grade English have the opportunity to stretch their writing skills far beyond the typical analytical essay. In addition to speech writing and the Scull essay personal narrative, students are encouraged to hone their writing skills by crafting obituaries, restaurant reviews, and movie reviews throughout the year. These assignments teach students to create a solid thesis, make a point backed by strong evidence, and use descriptive and persuasive language to make their analysis compelling. “A lot of what we do as an English Department is to find ways for the students to engage with the curriculum and teach skills in a way that is both meaningful and enjoyable for our students,” says English Department Chair Dr. Joe Mendes.
In Joe’s ninth grade English class, students had the opportunity to explore obituary writing this year, learning how to pay tribute in prose. They each wrote an obituary for a character in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. Next, they tried their hand at crafting a restaurant review. The class spent time reading some well-known reviews together and discussing the critical elements of a restaurant review, including the ambiance, the service, the food, and the kind of descriptive language that makes for an engaging review. Joe asked students to visit a restaurant to write a review and take notes during the meal. He stressed the importance of using vivid and descriptive language, giving, “The calamari which I expected to be crispy and firm, hung limp and lifeless before me on the plate,” as an example. Students were discouraged from overusing words like good, great, delicious, or terrible unless they immediately explained why with further details. “That bleeds into actual paper writing,” says Joe, “If you want to say that a character demonstrates recklessness, you have to say where and how and show why that is your interpretation.” Students took pictures to accompany their final reviews, and the final drafts were laid out in a newspaper format for a class publication called The Glutton. Finally, as students wrap up their gothic unit this term and finish their reading of Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, an early predecessor to Dracula, they will be writing movie reviews. The class will be watching Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula and the 2015 gothic horror film The Witch and applying what they have learned about Gothicism and gothic literature to write a critical review of one of the films.
While it is important to be able to craft an analytical essay in high school and college, prose writing skills touch so many aspects of life that it is a necessary skill for a global citizen, notes Joe. “We are encouraging students to think more deeply about the words and tone they are using and show with their writing rather than tell.”
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48 MAIN STREET
SOUTHBOROUGH, MA 01772
main number 508-490-8250
admission 508-490-8201
SOUTHBOROUGH, MA 01772
main number 508-490-8250
admission 508-490-8201
