When freshmen students enter the English classroom in September, many encounter the large oak Harkness table for the first time in their academic careers. They take a seat and face their new classmates instead of their teacher. Nervous silence. Expectant faces. Wonder...
"I am not what I am," confesses Iago in Shakespeare's Othello. Iago forces his audience to bear witness to the discord that he intentionally and openly creates. The brazenness of his duplicity draws sophomores into a world of multiple interpretations and perspectives.
In the opening of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Robert Walton struggles to find his place in the world and writes to his sister, asking, "do I not deserve to accomplish some great purpose?" What Shelley has in store for him is to play the role of the reader, the person present as the story unfolds. In a similar way, English 3 takes as an assumption the notion that readership is a "great purpose," and that for Literature to mean anything there must be someone "there"....
The senior year in English demands sharp writing, critical insight and creativity and invites students to join the conversation about complex human questions: What is art? How can a work of literature offer a response to history? How does literature offer a way to transcend our limited worlds and perspectives on life and truth?
