Crown Point High School - Excalibur Yearbook (Crown Point, IN)

Page 30 text:

English students Above: Speech classes raise many debatable questions about current events as Tom Haverstock points out. Right: Sue Connelly uses review exercises to study effectively for her up-coming grammar quiz. Who was Beowulf? Just ask any senior English student. They learn all about this hero of the great medieval English epic. They also study Chaucer ' s Canterbury Tales and read classic novels selected from a long list. Creative writing is another important facet of this course; in some classes, the year-end term paper is a statement of the student ' s personal philosophy of life. Juniors read one or more of three novels: The Scarlet Letter, The Red Badge of Courage, and The Bridge of San Luis Rey. Such widely differing books present quite a chal¬ lenge to the students; they must analyze the plots, characteri¬ zations, and writing styles. Many junior English students write their first real term paper for this class: they select a famous quote, then do research on it and its author. Sophomores are studying the new transformational gram¬ mar as well as reviewing traditional grammar principles. They also read from a list of twentieth-century works, which includes books by Sinclair Lewis, Theodore Dreiser, and Er¬ nest Hemingway. Starting their first year of high school English, freshmen review grammar and usage, and then familiarize themselves with great literature by reading The Odyssey and Dickens ' Great Expectations. The work is difficult, but the knowledge gained will be useful to the student throughout his life.