For a complete listing of courses and descriptions, view the 2023-2024 Course Selection Guide.
Junior Level Courses
- Honors Poetry I
This course is designed to explore the art of writing poetry, focusing on the elements most relevant to poets writing today and presented from the point of view of practicing poets. Included is an examination of poetic diction, rhythm, metered and free verse, figurative language and symbols, tone, meaning and idea. This introductory course involves extensive reading, writing, and informal critique. Students are exposed to the works of such poets as Mary Oliver, Ross Gay, Safia Elhillo, Richard Hugo, Carrie Fountain, Larry Levis, and Nate Marshall.
- Honors Fiction I
This course is a rigorous introduction to the craft of fiction writing. There is heavy emphasis on both reading and writing; we cannot learn how to write without reading closely and effectively. So this is a course designed to make students good readers as well as good writers. Through reading the stories of Richard Ford, Anne Beattie, Raymond Carver, Amy Hempel, Sherman Alexie, and many others, students will learn the craft of the traditional, realistic short story and the many variations of it that exist. Students will be expected to write at least three “realistic” stories, which will be workshopped by their peers and their teacher.
- Honors Creative Nonfiction I
This course focuses on self-discovery and includes portraits, encounters, and memoirs, along with the more traditional personal essay. Works read and discussed include selections from Chuck Kosterman, Annie Dillard, David Sedaris, Joan Didion, Tracy Kidder, and Ian Frazier.
- Honors Intensives
Junior and Senior Intensives are end-of-the-year short courses (7-8 class days each), rotating between fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and screenwriting. Students are expected to complete a single project—at the instructor’s discretion during each intensive. These courses are designed to test the students’ attention to craft and their ability to meet a deadline in a tight time frame.
- Flash Fiction I
This course focuses on linked collections of flash fiction. In this four-and-a-half week course, students will read books (or parts of books) by J. Robert Lennon, Kathy Fish, Lydia Davis, Matt Bell, Tao Lin and others. Students will investigate the form of flash, or very short fiction, and learn how it differs from short story. This is one goal of the course. The other major goal of the course will be to understand how to create a coherent arc between different pieces of fiction. Students will examine a variety of types of linked collections, and then they will write either the beginning of a chapbook of flash or three individual pieces.
- Found Forms and Inspirations
Writing does not happen in a vacuum—poets are influenced by the world around them and by other writers and works of art. In this course, we will focus on poetic forms that interact with and find inspiration from other art forms. We will do this by exploring three main categories: 1. poetry that makes use of image-based forms, like concrete poetry and poems written in forms outside of literature (recipes, games, math equations, etc.) 2. found poetry and erasure 3. ekphrastic poetry. In exploring these forms, we’ll learn about the forms’ history as well as read contemporary poetry that engages with a diverse range of topics and experiences.
- Special Projects I
Both juniors and seniors will take a semester-long course each semester. These courses are taught by our Emerging Writer-in-Residence. In the past, these courses have focused on revision and innovative forms. In the future, we hope to feature a variety of genres, including expanding and developing further playwriting and screenwriting.
Senior Level Courses
- Honors Poetry II
In this course, students continue to explore voice, tone, and form. Students read contemporary poets who are relevant to the craft needs of each student. Poetry I is focused upon exploring and discovering voice and, thus, content; in this course, greater attention is placed upon musical and formal poetic elements. Students create and develop a sixteen-page portfolio of poems that incorporates their developed voices, along with a sophisticated understanding of both music and form.
- Honors Fiction II
This course develops and expands the craft of fiction writing. Like the first course, reading in order to become a better writer is emphasized, but this time the course will push into new territory. Where Fiction I emphasized the traditional, realistic short story, Fiction II will explore writers that push traditional boundaries and aim to create a different, if still realistically-based, form. Students in this course will write three longer stories in which they will be asked, in some small way, to challenge a notion of traditional narrative, while still maintaining necessities of realistic conflict, action, setting, characterization, etc. Readings will include work by David Foster Wallace, Aimee Bender, Donald Barthelme, A.M. Homes, and newer writers like Tao Lin and Catherine Lacey.
- Honors Creative Nonfiction II
A continuation of Creative Nonfiction I, this course pays close attention to voice, style, and tone. There is also a focus on the extended essay, with an emphasis on revision. Students read, analyze, and interpret contemporary essayists such as Susan Orlean, John McPhee, and Bruce Chatwin, among others.
- Honors Screenwriting I
Students discover what it means to write for film, with an emphasis on developing an original idea they can expand into a full-length script. In addition to learning the process of screenwriting and the structure of a typical script, students will read and analyze screenplays by writers such as William Goldman, Alan Ball, Robert Benton, Robert Towne, and Bo Goldman.
- Honors Intensives
Junior and Senior Intensives are end-of-the-year short courses (7-8 class days each), rotating between fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and screenwriting. Students are expected to complete a single project—at the instructor’s discretion during each intensive. These courses are designed to test the students’ attention to craft and their ability to meet a deadline in a tight time frame.
- Science Fiction I
This course will focus on the writing of science fiction stories. We will examine the genre starting with past masters like Arthur C. Clarke, Ursula Le Guin, and Philip K. Dick. We’ll then move on to contemporary practitioners of the genre, with a more literary bent: Kelly Link, Ted Chiang, Adam Johnson, and Allegra Hyde. In this four and half week course, students will learn the craft elements of sci-fi writing from these past writers, and then we’ll learn how newer writers are playing with and expanding those rules. Students will produce one flash fiction, and one full length story, which will be workshopped by peers.
- Senior Chapbooks
In this course, seniors will compile, write, and revise a collection of about 20 poems, which they can take with them after graduation as either a complete chapbook draft or the beginning of a chapbook draft. As a class, we will read and think critically about chapbooks in an effort to understand what exactly a chapbook is. What makes it different from an incomplete full-length collection? What is distinct about this form beyond just its length? Students will explore this question through their own work as well. This course will challenge students to think about the narratives they are telling through their work and to read their poems in the context of a larger collection.
- Specials Projects II
Both juniors and seniors will take a semester-long course each semester. These courses are taught by our Emerging Writer-in-Residence. In the past, these courses have focused on revision and innovative forms. In the future, we hope to feature a variety of genres, including expanding and developing further playwriting and screenwriting.