Seckinger High School

9th Grade Language Arts

Freshman (9th Grade) Language Arts focuses on the development of strong literacy skills and includes a balance of reading and writing. A study of grammar, punctuation, and English language usage will be applied through written work. Word study and vocabulary development will be strengthened through direct instruction and application. Speaking, listening, and researching skills are also an integral part of the curriculum.

Media Literacy in a Global Society

Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create media in a variety of forms. In this course, students will extend their reading, writing, speaking and listening skills by developing critical thinking skills around all types of media, understanding how media messages shape our culture and society, evaluating the purpose behind media messages, and practicing digital citizenship skills for positive participation in our democracy and global economy. 

11th Grade American Literature

11th Grade Language Arts explores various themes in American Literature and Composition with a primary focus on the analysis of key ideas and details, craft and structure, integration of knowledge and ideas, and extending the reading, writing, speaking and listening levels of all students. 

Advanced Composition

This course is designed to help students further develop their writing and research skills and prepare students for advanced-level thinking, writing, and research in their academic disciplines and future workplaces. This course emphasizes research and writing as processes and requires students to focus on technical and business writing appropriate for college and career to make you responsible for determining what is required of you as a writer in your field. This will help you improve not only your professional skills but also your ability to produce rhetorically aware texts (which show awareness of the context, purpose, audience, and genre for which you’re writing). 

Advanced Placement Language

The AP Language course is designed to help motivate students to become highly skilled readers of prose works in a variety of contexts and to equip and inspire them to become effective writers who craft exceptional writing for a variety of purposes. Skillful reading and writing focuses students’ attention on the importance of comprehending a writer’s purpose, subject, and audience, while also helping students recognize the rhetorical conventions of language that writers use to create effective writing. The AP Language course emphasizes learning to distinguish, evaluate and dissect synthesis, analysis and argumentative essays in order to prepare for the national exam. The course also emphasizes personal and reflective writing that fosters the development of writing in any context. Students in AP Language learn to strategically refine their critical thinking as they analyze arguments embedded in the nonfiction masterworks of notable writers, thinkers and orators. AP Language correlates with a typical first semester college Freshman English class. In addition to the AP course description above, juniors will focus on a study of American literature; students will develop an understanding of the importance of various pieces of literature that characterize and reflect t

Advanced Placement Literature

The AP English Literature and Composition course focuses on reading, analyzing, and writing about imaginative literature (fiction, poetry, and drama) from various periods. Students engage in close reading and critical analysis of imaginative literature to deepen their understanding of the ways in which writers use language to reflect and comment on a range of experiences, institutions, and social structures. As they read, students consider a work's structure, style, and themes, as well as its use of figurative language, imagery, and symbolism. Students will examine the choices literary writers make and the techniques they utilize to achieve purposes and generate meanings. Writing assignments include expository, analytical, and argumentative essays that require students to analyze and interpret literary works. 

Dramatic Writing (Film, Television, Theatre I) Course

This course combines elements of both Language Arts and Theatre; therefore, it can be taken as either an elective for students interested in creative writing and film/theatre, or it can count as a Language Arts credit–making it open to many students in various situations. This would provide students with more options for Language Arts classes to take, be another option for students who have failed or have already taken AP courses early, or simply an engaging elective for students who enjoy narrative writing and the theatrical arts. There are currently no creative writing options for students, with high interest across the board, despite the fact that the Narrative unit in LA classes are by far the most students’ favorite unit. The AKS for this class is directly aligned with all of the other Language Arts courses. The main difference is that for Dramatic Writing, students write analysis, argumentative, research, and narrative essays using plays, film and television scripts, theatrical productions, and movies as their main source (rather than novel studies, they will analyze narratives/scripts/film texts). The writing, reading, and research AKS are the same as any other LA course; however, another fun element that separates this course from traditional LA courses is that it also includes a few performances AKS as well. For example, students can write their own plays and then perform them. By combining these new elements, and different ways of teaching writing skills, this course is both innovative and creative. Most importantly, it gives students more options to choose from when selecting both electives and LA courses. After speaking with the LA Department Chair at Seckinger, we both feel this course should be offered to Juniors and Seniors, after they have acquired and shown mastery of the basic LA writing skills as underclassmen so that they can be successful in this course.