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We are what we read. Juniors and seniors at Marietta High School this year will have a much expanded potential of what they can become through reading this year.
The traditional American and English literature textbook offerings are being replaced with an array of more adventuresome one-semester English courses created from the ground up by the teaching staff.
Civil War Literature, Women in Literature, American Film, Mythology, Early Works of Stephen King, Death Penalty Literature, Science Fiction/Short Story, Poetry of Springsteen and Friends, Dystopian Literature and Creative Writing are intended to appeal to contemporary student interests and to reflect the interests of the individual teachers.
Marietta High School Principal Chad Rinard said the project is driven by the school’s five English Language Arts teachers, along with survey input from students.
“The English teachers came to me with this -- we have meetings once a week with the different teacher-based teams-- and they had been looking at a lot of data and UDL (Universal Design for Learning). They said that to get kids more engaged, we can redesign the courses and still follow the standards, allow kids to pick their areas of interest,” Rinard said. “I thought it was a powerful idea and told them to go ahead with it.”
That was early this year, he said, and during the spring and early summer, the teachers formulated the concept into instructional reality.
“The last two months of school, they worked very diligently, gathering data and polling junior and senior classes on what they thought might be interesting,” he said.
The result was 11 one-semester courses, each on a specific author or topic.
“When we rolled this idea out to students in April, they seemed really excited about it,” he said.
The idea checked all the boxes for district curriculum director Jona Hall.
“It’s the whole student engagement piece. Some students have a topic they connect to or a teacher they really like, that’s what keeps kids engaged,” she said.
It also brings out the best in teachers.
Gwynette Mayer has taught for 23 years at Marietta High School, and the curriculum change has given her the opportunity to share with students her interests in the Civil War.
“I’m a Civil War re-enactor, and now I can bring my passion for that into the classroom,” she said. Mayer’s course offerings will include “A Soldier’s Heart,” a short novel by Gary Paulson about a 15-year-old who enlisted with the Minnesota volunteers for the Civil War, a story about the lasting trauma of combat. She also will use “Gods and Generals,” a work of historical fiction by Jeff Shaara about the Civil War leading up to the battle of Gettysburg, focused on the characters of opposing generals Robert E. Lee and Winfield Scott Hancock.
The course will be project-based, with students picking a topic of interest, such as the role of women or the state of medical science, during the era, she said.
“I hope we’ll be able to dabble a bit in ancestry, too, helping them choose a second project - if you had been alive during that time, what role would you play?” she said.
Maredeth Bidwell will offer creating writing, some of the lesser known works of Shakespeare, and Dystopian Literature to her students.
Bidwell, now in her sixth year of teaching, wants to examine the creative process of writing poetry, drama, short stories and novels to provide tools for her students to unleash their own creativity.
“It’s just something I was drawn to, how people write and tell stories, the creative process,” she said. “I want to give students a chance to tell their own stories. We’ll start with writing poetry, then move into short stories, write scenes for a play, explore several different genres, find out what tools are used by poets, playwrights, novelists, writers of any kind.”
Her Shakespeare course will focus on works of the bard that are overshadowed by his more prominent plays. They will include The Tempest, Henry IV – Part 1, and King Lear, rather than the usual high school works such as Romeo and Juliet or Macbeth. On themes of more contemporary interest, Dystopian Literature will examine Orwell’s “1984,” the short stories of Ray Bradbury and “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood, all of which have received renewed attention recently as predictors of current social trends.
“Dystopia has become a big market for young adults, with series like The Hunger Games, Divergence. It’s always the unique question of what constitutes a perfect, ideal place, and how does it go wrong,” she said. “There are so many to pick from.”
When teachers and students are engaged in course studies, the effect in the classroom is magical.
“As a teacher, when I’m excited, the enthusiasm is contagious,” she said. “When the students and I are excited and passionate, that’s when the good and real learning takes place.”
The new curriculum also holds better chances of success for students who are marginal or uninterested readers.
“Some of our students really don’t like English, that’s just being realistic,” Mayer said. “But when they look at what’s being offered, I’m pretty sure they’re going to say, hey, I can survive a semester of this.”
Rinard said the courses fit in well with requirements.
“Fortunately, these are not tested subjects in grades 11 and 12, we just had to match up the content standards,” he said. “The English department has done a wonderful job reshaping these courses.”
Changes to the English curriculum at Marietta High School
• Instead of courses based on English 11 and 12 textbooks, students can choose elective courses in reading and writing.
• New subject offerings are Civil War Literature, Women in Literature, American Film, Mythology, Early Works of Stephen King, Death Penalty Literature, Science Fiction/Short Story, Poetry of Springsteen and Friends, Dystopian Literature, Sciences of Art and Research, Creative Writing.
Source: Marietta City Schools.