GDS HS English Classes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To bring some specifics to the table. Last year our 10th grader at GDS read the following in English:

Gospel According to Mark
Romeo and Juliet
Song of Solomon
The Great Gatsby
Giovanni’s Room
Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein
Interpreter of Maladies

Sustained focus on Romantic poets include Keats, Wordsworth, Shelley, Blake.

Several other novels and contemporary poets I can’t recall at the moment.

This was NOT the list shown at the Open House event I went to 4 years ago, not even close. So maybe they took a few steps back towards normal.

This is similar to what DD read in 10th grade at GDS 4 years ago. All teachers teach some core texts and choose others on their own.

Well - this list has at least 3/4 classics and the list I saw had one.

[Anonymous]

The GDS Course of Study is online. The books listed are what my 2021 grad read. https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1614633626/gdsorg/nkiemjllnejiz8sujsbz/GDS_HS_Course_of_Study.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The GDS Course of Study is online. The books listed are what my 2021 grad read. https://resources.finalsite.net/images/v1614633626/gdsorg/nkiemjllnejiz8sujsbz/GDS_HS_Course_of_Study.pdf

And I don't know what you're talking about teachers leaving - all my DC's English teachers are still there
https://www.gds.org/about/leadership-and-faculty/meet-our-faculty?utf8=%E2%9C%93&const_search_group_ids=&const_search_role_ids=1&const_search_keyword=&const_search_location=744&const_search_department=304

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It comes down to this: if you don't like the education your DC is receiving, go to another school. Most of the people responding to this thread are clearly not GDS parents, but, rather, are people with partisan axes to grind.

That's always the amazing part about parents who object to what is taught. None of this is a secret when they apply. They won't pull their kids no matter what because they worked too hard to get them in. And 10 other parents are ready to put thier kid in DC's place, so it's impossible to leverage any pressure on the school.

People who choose known outcomes lose their right to moan about persecution or surprises.

The people we know assumed it nailed it on all the academics and interwove some SJW. Now they see lack of transparency with parents (across all divisions) and it got more constant and more extreme during the recent BLM, lgbtqia2+, and CRT U.S. political movements.

Parents write a $50K check to an institution that will influence their kids for 35 hours a week for nine months, and they "assumed" what that institution did?

That's hilarious. But they still won't pull their kids, since it's one of the magically famous DC area privates.

Hey now, they heard it was “a good school.”

This is a mean spirited post so not sure if my response will do any good but the vast majority of students enter in Pk/K. It’s hard to get a full understanding of what each grade does. It’s different if you enter in 9th grade, you will be entirely focused on high school curriculum. It’s a great school and people use these forums to discuss anonymously if they should speak up about certain issues but there are other classes than English so many places for your child to step away from some of the heavier issues if they choose.

Exactly. 40 out of 140 = majority. Cue the required tutors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To bring some specifics to the table. Last year our 10th grader at GDS read the following in English:

Gospel According to Mark
Romeo and Juliet
Song of Solomon
The Great Gatsby
Giovanni’s Room
Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein
Interpreter of Maladies

Sustained focus on Romantic poets include Keats, Wordsworth, Shelley, Blake.

Several other novels and contemporary poets I can’t recall at the moment.

That’s an excellent list. I wish my public high school kid’s class did those.

Kids at BASIS DC, a public charter, read many of those in 8th and 9th.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To bring some specifics to the table. Last year our 10th grader at GDS read the following in English:

Gospel According to Mark
Romeo and Juliet
Song of Solomon
The Great Gatsby
Giovanni’s Room
Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein
Interpreter of Maladies

Sustained focus on Romantic poets include Keats, Wordsworth, Shelley, Blake.

Several other novels and contemporary poets I can’t recall at the moment.

That’s an excellent list. I wish my public high school kid’s class did those.

Kids at BASIS DC, a public charter, read many of those in 8th and 9th.

I am a professor of literature (with children at a Big-3), and it makes me crazy when I hear parents "bragging" about children reading texts at early ages.
I have PhD candidates who are writing dissertations on Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, and I assure you that with texts like these, the age at which someone engages in them tells me very little about their intellectual ability to analyze and contextualize what's on the page. Statements like yours tell me much more about a parents' understanding of literature (i.e., limited) than about the quality of the curriculum. High school is a perfect age to introduce the writings listed above, which grapple with complex issues of identity, fitting in, and acts of resistance against larger cultural/social/economic forces. There are very, very few 8th graders -and dare I say, even adults - who can understand the revolutionary nature of the Gospel of Mark, its relationship to the other Gospels, and historical-critical interpretations of Mark. Most 8th graders are not going to grasp in any profound way the works of Toni Morrison, much less have the understanding of US history required to appreciate her writing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not really; GDS is a school that is known to be woke from top to bottom. If you're good with that, it's the place for you.

So "woke" that they read the Bible and Shakespeare in English classes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not really; GDS is a school that is known to be woke from top to bottom. If you're good with that, it's the place for you.

So "woke" that they read the Bible and Shakespeare in English classes?

That sound you hear is the "anti-woke" partisans trying to sharpen their dull cudgels.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anyway, if anti-Trump sentiment bothers you, pull your kid out of GDS. Trump and his followers are putting our democracy in jeopardy.

BTW, there are a couple of Trump supporting families at GDS, but they keep it quiet. It's got to be terrible for their kids, but oh well...

O good grief. People like you suck. Seriously. Your last two sentences are quite revealing of a narrow mind. Grow up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anyway, if anti-Trump sentiment bothers you, pull your kid out of GDS. Trump and his followers are putting our democracy in jeopardy.

BTW, there are a couple of Trump supporting families at GDS, but they keep it quiet. It's got to be terrible for their kids, but oh well...

O good grief. People like you suck. Seriously. Your last two sentences are quite revealing of a narrow mind. Grow up.

Not a narrow mind, just one that isn't afraid to face the reality of the fragility of our democracy. Do you read real newspapers? Were you actually in DC on January 6? Being an adult means acknowledging the responsibility that we have to sustain our society. And, of course, your response lacks any substance, just name calling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anyway, if anti-Trump sentiment bothers you, pull your kid out of GDS. Trump and his followers are putting our democracy in jeopardy.

BTW, there are a couple of Trump supporting families at GDS, but they keep it quiet. It's got to be terrible for their kids, but oh well...

O good grief. People like you suck. Seriously. Your last two sentences are quite revealing of a narrow mind. Grow up.

Not a narrow mind, just one that isn't afraid to face the reality of the fragility of our democracy. Do you read real newspapers? Were you actually in DC on January 6? Being an adult means acknowledging the responsibility that we have to sustain our society. And, of course, your response lacks any substance, just name calling.

Again, none of this is relevant to the thread. Take it to the politics forum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To bring some specifics to the table. Last year our 10th grader at GDS read the following in English:

Gospel According to Mark
Romeo and Juliet
Song of Solomon
The Great Gatsby
Giovanni’s Room
Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein
Interpreter of Maladies

Sustained focus on Romantic poets include Keats, Wordsworth, Shelley, Blake.

Several other novels and contemporary poets I can’t recall at the moment.

That’s an excellent list. I wish my public high school kid’s class did those.

Kids at BASIS DC, a public charter, read many of those in 8th and 9th.

I am a professor of literature (with children at a Big-3), and it makes me crazy when I hear parents "bragging" about children reading texts at early ages.
I have PhD candidates who are writing dissertations on Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, and I assure you that with texts like these, the age at which someone engages in them tells me very little about their intellectual ability to analyze and contextualize what's on the page. Statements like yours tell me much more about a parents' understanding of literature (i.e., limited) than about the quality of the curriculum. High school is a perfect age to introduce the writings listed above, which grapple with complex issues of identity, fitting in, and acts of resistance against larger cultural/social/economic forces. There are very, very few 8th graders -and dare I say, even adults - who can understand the revolutionary nature of the Gospel of Mark, its relationship to the other Gospels, and historical-critical interpretations of Mark. Most 8th graders are not going to grasp in any profound way the works of Toni Morrison, much less have the understanding of US history required to appreciate her writing.

Exactly right. I taught at and tutored students at a BASIS school and had to help them through Julius Caesar in 6th grade and Macbeth in 7th grade.

It's ridiculous. No one that young remotely has the emotional maturity to grasp the grand emotional themes and issues in those works. BASIS just wanted to punch the ticket that they started kids on serious Shakespeare earlier than anyone else.

My own HS experience long ago being force-fed classics was basically getting turned off by the whole process. Only when I chose to go back and reread some of the works later in life did I start to appreciate them. Especially when I could digest them at my own pace, not "60 pages by tomorrow" learning.

[Anonymous]

Look, you will almost always learn more from a book than you do when you read it again later after reading it first in 7th or 8th grade. That doesn't mean it's wrong to read some of these in middle school. It can still be good to challenge your kids with these books. Get them thinking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look, you will almost always learn more from a book than you do when you read it again later after reading it first in 7th or 8th grade. That doesn't mean it's wrong to read some of these in middle school. It can still be good to challenge your kids with these books. Get them thinking.

Sure, but it's downright stupid to brag that your charter/public school kid read Henry V in 7th grade and are therefore more advanced or better taught than private school kids who read it in their senior year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To bring some specifics to the table. Last year our 10th grader at GDS read the following in English:

Gospel According to Mark
Romeo and Juliet
Song of Solomon
The Great Gatsby
Giovanni’s Room
Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein
Interpreter of Maladies

Sustained focus on Romantic poets include Keats, Wordsworth, Shelley, Blake.

Several other novels and contemporary poets I can’t recall at the moment.

That’s an excellent list. I wish my public high school kid’s class did those.

Kids at BASIS DC, a public charter, read many of those in 8th and 9th.

I am a professor of literature (with children at a Big-3), and it makes me crazy when I hear parents "bragging" about children reading texts at early ages.
I have PhD candidates who are writing dissertations on Mary Shelly's Frankenstein, and I assure you that with texts like these, the age at which someone engages in them tells me very little about their intellectual ability to analyze and contextualize what's on the page. Statements like yours tell me much more about a parents' understanding of literature (i.e., limited) than about the quality of the curriculum. High school is a perfect age to introduce the writings listed above, which grapple with complex issues of identity, fitting in, and acts of resistance against larger cultural/social/economic forces. There are very, very few 8th graders -and dare I say, even adults - who can understand the revolutionary nature of the Gospel of Mark, its relationship to the other Gospels, and historical-critical interpretations of Mark. Most 8th graders are not going to grasp in any profound way the works of Toni Morrison, much less have the understanding of US history required to appreciate her writing.

Sounds like you are the one bragging, "professor of literature (with children at a Big-3)."

Actually, I totally agree with you that 8th or 9th (or even 10th grades) are not going to get as much out of these works as a Ph.D. candidate or college professor and they are not going to "grasp in any profound way."

However, some kids are most advanced than others. And introducing some great works of literature to, say, 8th graders even if they fully don't understand them is a hardly a bad thing.