Writing Workshop (for risings 9s—11s) [2 or 4 week sessions]
This course is designed to help Upper School-aged students strengthen their academic writing skills by implementing proven techniques. The basic skills the students will practice are: writing a strong thesis statement; creating and organizing supporting statements; identifying and integrating direct textual references; breaking the essay writing process into manageable pieces; and, reading and decoding a teacher's essay prompt. In class, students will read poetry, fiction and non-fiction prose in an effort to better understand various writing styles, write, re-read, revise not only student writing, but also the writing of classmates, and learn to read critical essays and secondary sources as a key to writing more clearly.
Instructor: Eric Tillman
A 30-year veteran of the teaching profession, Eric Tillman has been a member of the English Department at Brunswick School since 1981. A graduate of Wesleyan University's MA program in English, Mr. Tillman has taught all levels of English and has prepared many Brunswick and GA students to score well on the Advanced Placement tests in English Literature. He knows the art of crafting solid essays and has helped students, young and old, dramatically improve their writing.
Foundations of Literature: The Bible
The bible is one of the cornerstones of modern Western thought and literature. Writers often use allusions to the Bible to enrich the meaning of their work. This course will explore several sections of both the Old and New Testaments in a secular examination of the text as literature. We will become familiar with some of the overarching themes of this work, and seek connections to contemporary literature.
Instructor: Robert Benjamin
An English teacher since graduating from college in 1982, Bob Benjamin has taught all levels of Upper School English at Brunswick since 1990. He has successfully prepared students for both the AP English Language and the AP English Composition exams. Mr. Benjamin has a BA in English from Colby College and an MA in Humanities from Wesleyan University.
What is Poetry?
This course answers that question by introducing the student to the reading and interpretation of poetry in English, from Geoffrey Chaucer to Glyn Maxwell. It will strive, while focusing on lyric poetry, to read the gamut of poetic genres outside of drama, including love poetry, fixed forms such as the sonnet, epistolary letters, epigrams, song, satire, and devotional works. Students will learn to scan verse—especially iambic pentameter—and to write brief essays exploring the poems they love most.
Instructor: Tim Markey
Tim Markey received his PhD in Comparative Literature from Harvard University, specializing in Classics and Renaissance literature, and was for four years a member of the English Department at Boston University, teaching English there and Renaissance literature, art, and thought in the Core Curriculum. He has published, reviewed books, and lectured in the United States, Canada, England, and Europe (review forthcoming in Essays in Criticism (Oxford University Press)). With his Latin Honors Seminar students, he co-wrote and edited Palladio at Five Hundred (Greenwich: Palladium Musicum Press). Past recipient of the Classical and Modern Literature Award, Dr. Markey gratefully accepted a Teacher Tribute from Stanford University in October 2007. He begins his seventh year in the Classics Department at Brunswick School this fall.
The World of Dante: The Inferno and Beyond
“Dante and Shakespeare divide the modern world between them; there is no third.”
“Dante and Shakespeare divide the modern world between them; there is no third.”
- T.S. Eliot
Dante Alighieri is arguably one of the two greatest modern poets of our time and his visionary masterpiece The Divine Comedy remains a cornerstone of Western Civilization’s literary heritage. As we journey with Dante through Hell and a few parts of Purgatory and Heaven we will analyze his literary genius as well as his masterful blend of the Medieval and Classical world. Throughout his epic poem, one of the first examples of Italian literature, Dante incorporates prominent historical and mythological figures of the arts, politics, sciences and religion from Antiquity to the turn of the 13th Century. For example, the Roman epic poet Vergil was not only Dante’s greatest literary mentor and inspiration but he also serves as Dante’s guide through Hell. This course is recommended for any student interested in English, Classics, World Languages, Theology or History. No prior knowledge of Italian is necessary since it will be read in translation.
Instructor: Sarah Crawford
Sarah Crawford received her MA in Italian from Middlebury specializing in Renaissance Literature and her BA in English and Italian from Tufts. She has lived in Italy for nearly three years and has studied at both the University of Ferrara and the University of Florence. She has taught at The American School in Switzerland in Lugano and at the University of Ferrara as an ESL teacher. She was an Italian public high school teacher in Massachusetts for two years before coming to Brunswick. A former Latin student with a passion for Classics, Sarah Crawford currently teaches both Italian and Latin at Brunswick.