Fifth Form - Core Courses/Departmental Offerings

The following courses are offered as Core Academic Courses for the Fifth Form. All Fifth Form students take these courses. To view additional departmental course offerings please click here.

English III

Constituting the Fifth Form core curriculum with the United States History class, English III examines some of the important historical and intellectual issues in American culture. In their study of American topics arranged chronologically from the colonial era to the present, English III students read a wide variety of material including nonfiction essays, speeches, and letters, novels such as The Scarlet Letter and The Great Gatsby, The Best Short Stories of Mark Twain, plays including Death of a Salesman, and poetry. In the process, Fifth Form English students continue their work on close reading; they build textual analysis skills, become familiar with “critical” language, and learn how authors use the elements of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama to achieve their rhetorical and aesthetic purposes. Students practice the procedures for student-centered “discovery” classes, trying different roles and ways of participating. They continue the process of learning to choose good evidence to support assertions and to integrate that evidence, particularly quotations, into their writing. Weekly composition assignments emphasize the entire writing process from brainstorming a topic to making the final revisions and producing a finished document; topics range from personal narrative to argument and literary analysis. The reading and writing skills practiced throughout the course will prepare students for the verbal and writing sections of the SAT I exam.

English III Advanced

The advanced section of English III follows the curriculum of the mainstream sections with a few exceptions. This Fifth Form course will integrate US History with English. Students will read text, novels, short stories, speeches and primary source documents beginning with the colonial experience of Native Americans, and finishing with US involvement in Vietnam. Texts include Unredeemed Captive, Mayflower, Band of Brothers, Cuba Libre, Lonesome Dove, A Little Yellow Dog, and The Things They Carried. The interdisciplinary classes will read literature that provides contrasting viewpoints on important concepts framed within the American experience. Students will be self-motivated, independent learners, dedicated to challenging themselves academically. Supplementary articles discussing the texts and their historical contexts will form a critical part of reading assignments; students will be exposed to a variety of reading and writing exercises.

US History

US History students apply what they learned in History I and II to an in-depth analysis of United States History. Since Fifth Form students must begin to seriously position themselves for the college selection process, one section of this course is taught in a more “traditional” manner, with an eye on the SAT II test offered in the spring. The second section is presented with “process oriented” rather than “subject content” objectives. Its members are those students for whom this approach seems advisable. Often some of our history buffs prefer this approach. History III covers American history from the European migration to the present. Specific themes covered include the formation of the American character, westward expansion and the American dream, diversity, economic growth, religious values, the Cold War and Globalism.

US History Advanced

US History Advanced covers the history of the United States from the colonial experience of Native Americans to Vietnam. As noted in the advanced English course description, the two courses will be interdisciplinary. Students will read text, novels, short stories, speeches and primary source documents from the time periods studies. Texts include A People's History of the United States, Mayflower, The Essential Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers, The Lincoln Douglas Debates, To End All Wars - Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for New World Order, and We Were Soldiers Once...and Young. Particular attention is devoted to the political, social, religious, and economic aspects of American exceptionalism. Westward expansion and the diversity of the population will be the starting points of discussion. Understanding “frame of reference” will be the focus of the class.