SAIPAN INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL

G9: World Literature

Our overall class goals are to enhance our analytical and
critical thinking skills in addition to creatively expressing
ourselves through discussing, reading, and writing various forms
of literature. We have learned about annotations and started
delving deeper into figurative language. We will continue to engage
in discussions and activities to further explore themes and other
devices in literature. This will help us to gain a deeper
understanding of and learn to connect with literature in a new
way.

Ninth graders have learned about beauty ideals around the
world through reading a narrative by Fatema Mernissi, and
various articles related to the topic. They have written reflections
and essays making connections to the standards set around the
world. We have also covered various conflicts and crises around
the world. In literature circles, we read stories dealing with crises
such as Johnstown Flood by David McCullough, and The Race to
Save Apollo 13 by Michael Useem. We analyzed these stories by
identifying themes, author's purpose, and figurative language. We
then extended these lessons by not only writing our own fictional
stories dealing with crisis but also creating games based on these
stories. The students are now learning about conflict in
Afghanistan, researching famed Afghani author Khaled Hosseini,
and reading his novel, The Kite Runner.

Students have created literary blogs exhibiting opinions of,
and connections to literature they read both in and out of class.
G10: American Literature:

This course is broken into units based on time period. We
started with Native American myths and narratives and Explorer
narratives. After reading and research on what it was like to live
in the precolonial and early colonial periods, we wrote short
stories (historical fiction) from the perspective of someone alive in
that era. Students worked in literature circles as they analyzed
stories, worked on various activities and gave presentations. After
that, we moved on to Puritanism. We delved into studies on the
lifestyle and beliefs of Puritans and read poetry and biographical
articles on famous Puritan writers.

We used our annotations to help guide us through the
connotations and figurative language found in Puritan literature.
We created archaic language and inverted syntax charts to help
us understand the language used. We are currently reading The
Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, which is part of American
Romanticism. We have divided our notebooks into vocabulary,
journal, and note taking sections in order to help stay organized.
All students are learning to not only analyze stories, but also to
make inferences, draw conclusions, identify purpose, use context
clues, and make predictions. We answer journal
prompts every day, which helps us gain further
insight and think critically as we read this classic
novel. We are currently holding two Scarlet Letter
related debates. One debate is focused on the
characters' actions and inferences we make based
on those actions. Students refute or support that
Chillingworth's sin is worse than Dimmesdale's
(two characters).The second debate topic is
based on the public humiliation the main
character, Hester, faces throughout the novel.
Students must debate whether public
Shirice Bevas
humiliation is appropriate.
English