Curriculum Detail

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English

The English Department of Trinity School believes that reading and writing are the core enterprises that make possible all intellectual growth and exploration. With that belief in mind, we employ a relatively simple pedagogical model: we ask our students to read important literature of gradually increasing complexity and depth; we discuss these texts together in a way that teaches our charges how to dig for understanding and interpretive meaning; and we ask our students to practice various modes of writing in order to learn to express themselves clearly and thoughtfully. In this way we provide our students the tools they need to explore the creative and intellectual possibilities of their world and to know themselves in it.

So we read, we discuss, we write, we read some more...and so we go. Every grade level makes its way through the year in the same manner. Every child in every class is challenged by what she is asked to read, nurtured by the collective conversation about it, and pushed to expand her particular writing capacities. Every year introduces and then reintroduces and then expands the same fundamental skills of reading and writing, reaching backward to years past and forward toward lessons to come. We teach in these dynamic loops of new idea anchored in familiar lesson because our students grow not linearly but exponentially. They grow like trees, deepening their solid foundational roots even as they grow sturdy trunks and learn to send out wild shoots that will blossom.

  • English 5

    The central concern of Grade 5 English is to learn to pay close attention to language, as both readers and writers.  The essential question of the year is, therefore, “What do you notice?”  The work of English 5 involves the development of a metacognitive approach to reading and writing -- learning to observe oneself in the process of reading and writing, learning to interrogate one’s reactions to reading, learning to “pop the hood” to see how the writer’s language made the reader’s meaning. We teach students to wonder about what they read: What do you notice about that character?  What is that character like?  How do you know that?  What language did the writer use to convey that idea?  What language should you use to explain what you see?

    Texts include:

    The House on Mango Street     by Sandra Cisneros
    Various short stories, including “The Necklace,” “The Lottery,” and “Through the Tunnel”
    The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe     by C.S. Lewis
    The Call of the Wild by Jack London
    A Biography (chosen by the students)
    The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Spear
    Unit on the Harlem Renaissance

  • English 6

    The main work of English 6 is to take those observational skills acquired in English 5 and put them to work in the business of making interpretations and measuring significance. English 5’s “What do you notice?” becomes English 6’s “What does that mean?” Writing assignments move gradually but steadily away from “What is the treasure Aphrodite wants Psyche to collect?” to “What is the ironic truth about that treasure?” Students continue to be encouraged to read deeply and accurately, but they are challenged now to assemble all those observations (“Tiny Tim is a very sympathetic character”) into interpretations (“He is as if Scrooge’s lost sympathy made real”). Students in English 6 are increasingly encouraged to present independent and different opinions about the meaning of what they read; cheerful disagreements in class and on paper become much more common.

    Texts include:

    Greek Myths by Olivia Coolidge
    A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
    Before We Were Free by Julia Alvarez
    Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
    Poetry Unit
    Short Story Unit

  • English 7

    English 7 is a pivotal year in which earlier skills (making accurate observations and intelligent interpretations) get harnessed in the name of generating a meaningful written argument. The central question of Grade 7 English is, therefore, “What argument could be made here?” It could be argued that there is no more important academic skill than the ability to analyze complicated information (text) and generate a cogent, original argument about it in response. This is the work of political scientists and literary critics and economists and art historians alike. The focus of English 7 is therefore on the art of claim-making in all its forms (analytical, certainly, but also creative), and the goal is to hand our students off to English 8 ready to assert a more mature intellectual independence.

    Texts include:

    The Pearl by John Steinbeck
    Short story Unit (including “Shibusa,” “Marigolds,” and “The Gift of the Magi”)
    Animal Farm by George Orwell
    A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
    To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

  • English 8

    English 8 is a year of both reaping and sowing. By this point in their English education our students have been exposed to every vital element of good writing (the necessity of clear expression, the importance of generating an effective thesis statement, the use of quotations in writing, the benefit of varied and dynamic vocabulary choices, etc.) and are tasked with the challenge of integrating all these skills. If the central question of English 5 was “What do you notice?” and those of English 6 and 7 were “What does that mean?” and “What argument could be made?,” the core question of English 8 is “What original understanding do I have to offer?” This is deep and essential work.

    Texts include:

    Lord of the Flies by William Golding
    Various Short Stories (including “Harrison Bergeron,” “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” and “These Are the Blues I’m Playing”)
    The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
    Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
    Poetry Unit (focus on Sonnets)
    The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
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Located on the Upper West Side of New York City, Trinity School is a college preparatory, coeducational independent school for grades K-12. Since 1709, Trinity has provided a world-class education to its students with rigorous academics and outstanding programs in athletics, the arts, peer leadership, and global travel.