Students are often frustrated by the repetitious cycle of typical English classes. Contrary to normal English classes, the department offers many elective courses that give students a chance to express their ideas in a form other than essays.

Fantasy Literature is an example of the difference between the elective courses and regular English courses. The class gives students who enjoy fantasy literature a chance to get together and study it as a genre. Under the instruction of English teacher Ms. Madeleine Osgood, students read various fantasy stories such as The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia. Film versions of the books are also used to enhance students’ understanding of the literature.

“The class gives [students] who enjoy fantasy literature a chance to get together,” Osgood said.

The students will study fantasy literature as a genre and do in-depth analysis of the stories they read.

“We’ll read a chapter and we discuss it, and then we’ll watch the scene from the movie. It’s a lot better than analyzing text and writing essays,” sophomore Sara Foster said.
In addition to the movies, students get to live out the books to an extent by parodying stories, organizing medieval fairs and playing Quidditch, a fictional game from the Harry Potter series.

“Fantasy Literature is similar to other English courses because you have units talking about specific themes, notes and discussions about the books,” sophomore Kenny Wohl said.

Unlike other English classes, Fantasy Literature allows students to have creativity with a multitude of different hands-on projects. Science Fiction, also taught by Osgood, will take place next year. It switches off with Osgood’s Fantasy Literature class each year. The class is similar to Fantasy Literature, but focuses on a different genre. Students watch and discuss various television series such as Firefly and Stargate Atlantis, and read books such as The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that stem from this genre of literature.

“I signed up for Science Fiction with a couple friends because I wanted to take something new and different,” junior Maddie Li said. “I’ve never read any science fiction book. I thought it would be really interesting to learn and read science fiction.”

One of the unique features that Science Fiction has is that the class does not have any exams or essays. Instead, the regular assignments are replaced by movies and stories to help students get a better taste of science fiction. In addition, students delve into unique projects such as group productions of original films.

Aside from literature genres, Creative Writing is a taught by English teacher Mr. Steven Orders. In this one-semester course, students write fictional short stories and poetry. They also learn scriptwriting and songwriting.

“Students write every day. Homework in this class is fun, so students don’t mind,” Orders said. “It is a class that everybody can get something out of.”

Later in the year, some of the students’ writings are published in the Literary Magazine, PULP.

“It’s similar to regular English classes in that before you turn in work you do peer revisions and you can sit down to discuss your work with the teacher,” junior Will Conway said. “But, it’s also different because you have units like songwriting, scriptwriting, poetry and short stories.”
Conway added that even musicians like himself can enjoy not only the songwriting unit, but in fact the whole semester without getting bored. “It’s basically fun every day,” Conway said.

There are additional English elective courses such as Film Studies where students can take a break from the typical English assignments. English teacher Mr. Garvan Giltinan and Ms. Michelle Olson instruct Film Studies.

Another approach to learning, Film Studies highlights the classics of the history of film, the not-so-classic and everything in between.

It is a class where students watch and study a wide spectrum of film. In addition to the movies, students write their own film reviews and create movie posters.

“It's simple. If you like to watch movies and then talk about it with your friends, this class will suit you. Plus, you don't have to pay to watch the movies,” senior Kenneth Congmon said.

With so many distinctive activities available, an elective course can be a good choice for students who are looking for unique entertainment in English classes.