Course Catalog

Please select from the list of departments to see details about Lick-Wilmerding High School course offerings. 
 

Courses and Descriptions

English

The four-year English curriculum provides students with the skills and habits of mind to read, write, and speak confidently and competently about a broad range of texts. Each year, students hone their analytical skills by drawing on class discussions and independent close readings to craft thoughtful, subtle responses to literature from around the world. A focus on the writing process and revision skills is integral to every course. Classes are discussion and activity-oriented, requiring students to become respectful of multiple perspectives, compassionate for others, and confident in expressing their ideas. All English courses are UC eligible, and all English 3 and 4 classes are designated as Honors courses.

  • Creative Writing: Creative Nonfiction

    One definition of the term "creative nonfiction" is "true stories well told." In this semester elective, students will learn fictional techniques to help them tell true stories well. Students will read multiple kinds of creative nonfiction (personal essays, reflective essays, profiles, etc.) that document the experiences of the writer and the experiences of others. In addition, students will receive feedback on their creative nonfiction from their peers during “workshop” and use this feedback to revise. Reading models of published writing and keeping a journal will be integral parts of this course, but the focus of this elective is on generating original creative nonfiction rather than analyzing published pieces. The culminating assessment will be a portfolio of original creative nonfiction.

    This course is open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors.

    This course is open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors.

    Prerequisite: English 1

    This semester long course is offered Spring 2024. It is a UC approved course.

  • English 1

    The English 1 curriculum prepares students for the study of literature and writing at LWHS. Students practice the skills of careful reading, listening, and speaking as they encounter literature in a variety of genres. Students are also introduced to and practice the foundations of analytical writing—thesis statements, textual evidence, embedding, and analyzing text. Students construct knowledge and their understanding of their own values and perspectives as they read and write. In particular, students are asked to consider the ways in which expectations for reading and writing change in high school. Learning collaboratively is also a significant focus of class as students work in groups to construct theories, explore evidence, and ask questions.

    Prerequisite: None 

    This is a year long course. It is UC approved.

  • English 2

    The English 2 curriculum focuses on experiences and ethics in the context of world literature. Students will explore a series of core texts, reading and analyzing fiction, nonfiction, and film. The course will use essential questions to shape students’ critical thinking, discussions, and writing throughout the year. As they expand their skills for close reading literature, students learn to make thoughtful annotations, use the language of the text to make inferences, and craft interpretive questions for writing and discussion. Students frequently write analytical responses to literature, honing their skill at using relevant textual evidence and analysis to support a clear and specific main idea. Essays, creative pieces, and student led discussions allow students to explore literature in a variety of ways. Working both with their peers and teachers during writing conferences, students further build upon their revision skills.
    Prerequisite: English 1
    This is a year long course. It is UC approved. 

  • English 3 Honors

    The English 3 Honors curriculum focuses on reading and writing about literature from the United States. As students engage in careful reading and critical analysis of literature from the colonial period through the 21st century, the course develops awareness about how language and story construct American identities, both individual and communal. In particular, students advance their close reading, specifically their understanding of detail, diction, imagery, syntax, and structure. Students write in a variety of genres and continue to develop strategies for crafting sophisticated arguments supported by precise textual evidence and analysis. A focus on stylistic and grammatical clarity becomes increasingly significant in writing workshops. Both group activities and whole class discussions are central to the study of the course texts. Collaborative projects and presentations encourage students to take on greater intellectual leadership in the classroom.

    Prerequisite: English 2
    This is a year long course. It is UC approved.

  • English 4 Honors: Back to the Future: Time and Memory in American Literature and Film

    In this course, we will study stories in which authors play with time, memory, and narrative structure to toy with the reader’s sense of when and how things are supposed to happen. We will examine stories that disrupt the space-time continuum, rewrite history, and question the accuracy of human memory, all with the aim of exploring the ways that time folds back on itself when we try to control the present and envision future without reckoning with the damage caused by the past. We will contemplate how the historical past–and the way we can misremember it–has huge consequences on the shape of our futures, with a particular focus on the legacy of American chattel slavery and its echoes through American memory and present-day reality. Core texts may include Octavia Butler’s Kindred, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Anthony Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land, and various short stories by NK Jemisin, Ray Bradbury, Daniel José Older, and others. Works of film and television by directors Jordan Peele and Robert Zemeckis may also be included in our course curriculum.

    Prerequisite: English 3H

    This Fall 2023 course is UC approved.

  • English 4 Honors: Carceral Culture: Stories Histories Alternatives

    Michelle Alexander argues that with mass incarceration “we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.” Former Black Panther and prison abolitionist Angela Y. Davis argues that “[h]omelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy are only a few of the problems that disappear from public view when the human beings contending with them are relegated to cages.”

    This seminar will explore the American system of mass criminalization from the inside out. We’ll confront some obvious questions like why does the American system of punishment disproportionately target people of color? We’ll examine the role and power of language in the framing of who gets systematically targeted? And we’ll explore alternatives to the current practice of locking people up.

    We will center the voices and experiences of those directly impacted by carceral culture through podcasts and first-person narratives. Throughout, we will frame our work through an antiracist lens to affirm the dignity and humanity of all people, embrace historical truths (including the untold truths), and develop a critical consciousness around how dominant narratives dominate and perpetuate marginalization.*

    *Adapted from The Center for AntiRacist Education

    Prerequisite: English 3H

    This Spring 2024 course is UC approved.

  • English 4 Honors: Contagion and Regeneration; Midwives Zombies Vampires and Beyond

    What is the true cost of creating a more equitable world? As human beings, what are we prepared to give up? Wealth, status, humanity? Plagues and epidemics have been devastating populations around the globe for hundreds of years. Albert Camus pointed out that plagues expose existing fractures in societies. Indeed, a times of a global health crisis as we’ve seen , the diseases of capitalism and xenophobia are as deadly and as destructive as viral loads. So what can plague narratives tell us about the values and priorities of the worlds we inhabit? In what ways do large scale outbreaks expose what’s broken and offer up opportunities to shatter traditions and reimagine new, better, more equitable standards for living? This course looks at the ways social fractures brought about by contagion appear in fiction and film. We’ll examine the ways plagues allow us to shine a light on the ugly side of who we are; we’ll explore how far we are prepared to go as humans to preserve what we have, and we’ll venture into territory that requires us to ask what we are prepared to give up in the name of creating a more just and equitable world.

    Prerequisite: English 3H

    This Fall 2023 course is UC approved.

  • English 4 Honors: Contradictions & Healing: Intersections of Asian American Culture & Mental Health

    Why is it that the Asian American population is consistently growing in the U.S., yet Asian Americans are one of the racial groups that are least likely to seek out mental health services? In a dominant culture that actively supports the myth that, when “minorities” put their heads down and work hard enough, they can transcend race and attain dreams of success, what can unlearning perfectionism and self-advocacy look like? In a community where traumas linger, where survival and belonging is still not guaranteed, and where self-care can be seen as a frivolous luxury, what does it look like to destigmatize mental health and piece together an identity that honors both the richness of one’s heritage while also leaving space for creativity and joy? Through this course, we’ll explore how these contradictions and tensions impact mental health in Asian American communities. We’ll consider cultural frameworks and investigate historical narratives that have encouraged Asian Americans to take up as little space as possible. But most importantly, we’ll search for ways that Asian Americans are creating new narratives of healing. Possible texts that we’ll nerd out on include Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong, Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, ARRIVING by Asian Prisoner Support Committee, and Permission to Come Home by Jenny Wang. We’ll also learn from trans and queer Bay Area community movements, hear from potential guest speakers, and watch films like Saving Face, Never Have I Ever, The Farewell, and Everything Everywhere All At Once.

    Prerequisite: English 3H

    This Fall 2023 course is UC approved.

  • English 4 Honors: Greek Tragedy

    This course centers on the dramatic genre known as tragedy that flourished in Athens, Greece in the 5th century BCE, a genre that remains culturally relevant and powerfully provocative to this day. Athenian tragedies rely on strong personalities and tortuous internal conflicts, yet they also invariably consider the two-way responsibilities between communities and citizens, a relationship that still engenders examination and contention. After considering these dramas first in their original context, we’ll then connect the issues they present of identity, responsibility, and justice to our lived experiences in the 21st century. Our study will consider the works of Aeschylus (The Oresteia), Sophocles (Oedipus the King, Antigone), and Euripides (Alcestis, Medea), as well as critics of those works and the tragic genre as a whole. Class activities will range from the traditionally analytical to the creative and interactive.

    Prerequisite: English 3H

    This Fall 2023 course is UC approved.

  • English 4 Honors: Myths and Legends

    Why are we drawn to tales of gods and heroes? What do our stories about the creation of the world and its eventual end reveal about our hopes, fears, and values? This course will examine myths, legends, and folk tales from a variety of cultures and time periods in search of answers to these questions. Close and broad reading of primary texts, background material, and theoretical texts will help us make sense of the patterns, overlaps, and divergences we find in our comparative study of world mythologies. Writing assignments will hone your analytical as well as creative skills, and the semester will culminate in a student-defined research project related to the course contents.

    Prerequisite: English 3

    This Spring 2024 course is UC approved. 

  • English 4 Honors: One Great Novel: Crime and Punishment

    What drives someone to kill in cold blood? What kind of society allows such evil in the first place? In our world, do the ends justify the means? This course will introduce students to Fyodor Dostoevsky’s 1866 masterpiece Crime and Punishment, an epic, sprawling text that follows Raskolnikov, a broke college drop-out, as he commits a heinous murder, faces his punishment, and ultimately explores the possibility of redemption. While Dostoevesky’s text—often called the world’s first psychological thriller—will have our hearts racing, it will also call up the deepest of questions, on topics like morality, the nature of evil, and justice, which we’ll respond to through analytical writing, group projects, and rich philosophical discussion. As we read this One Great Novel, we’ll also examine the positions from which we enter dialogues to better challenge the economic and cultural conditions underlying injustice and inequity, from 19th century Russia to the America of our time.

    Prerequisite: English 3H

    This Spring 2024 course is UC approved.

  • English 4 Honors: Pulling Up the Roots of Harm: Transformative Justice

    What are the systems you participate in that you know are broken systems? Why is change so terrifying? What does it actually take to redistribute power? What role do rage and pleasure play? What would it look like to respond to harm (especially in our own communities) in a way that doesn’t create more trauma and harm? In this course, we will practice filtering through the performance of resistance, and instead, really lean into the messiness that comes with clarifying what a compelling future looks and feels like. Through juicy conversations filled with principled struggle and generative debate, and of course, close reading, we’ll study transformative justice, centering stories of queer, BIPOC, and disabled folks. Possible texts include: Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider, Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower paired with Adrienne Marree Brown’s podcast “Octavia’s Parables,” bell hooks’ All About Love, stories of disability justice from Mia Mingus, lessons on naps and rest from Trisha Hersey, and poetry from Danez Smith. Ultimately, by the end of this course, my hope is that you emerge with practices that you can apply in your own life, as you explore what connection, healing, safety, pleasure, imagination, action, accountability, and resilience mean to you.

    Prerequisite: English 3H

    This Spring 2024 course is UC approved.

  • English 4 Honors: Shakespeare

    This course will introduce students to the humor, beauty, and complexity of William Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets. We’ll read Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, and Hamlet in order to better understand how the bard’s 400-year-old language remains, to this day, one of humanity’s best articulations of the human condition. Through Shakespeare, we’ll confront life’s richest topics: love, romance, suffering, truth, freedom, and death. We will perform plays in class, compose sonnets of our own, attend a live performance, and analyze Shakespeare’s everliving texts for their bottomless depth and joy.

    Prerequisite: English 3H

    This Fall 2023 course is UC approved.

  • English 4 Honors: Truth Building: Memoir and Media

    In this course, we will explore the idea that truth is not simply a list of facts to be told, but a story to be built and shaped by the person who experiences it. We will also explore the question of how true life narratives can shape, change, and influence culture. With an emphasis on intersectionality, queer and trans memoir, and LGBTQ+ representation in media, we will examine how artists use visual and literary details to portray memory and interiority so that readers and viewers can understand lived experiences in a deeper way. The course posits the idea that memoir and film are artistic forms that can do important cultural and political work, influencing the dominant society toward a deeper empathy for peoples and identities who have historically been pushed to the margins. We will explore the ways in which memory is subjective as we examine how memoir and film are crafted not only for accuracy, but for emotional truth. Possible texts include Redefining Realness (Janet Mock), Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (Gloria Anzaldúa), How we Fight for Our Lives (Saeed Jones), Firebird (Mark Doty), Paris is Burning (Jenny Livingston), Disclosure (Sam Feder), and excerpted works by Carmen Maria Machado, Alison Bechdel, and others.

    Prerequisite: English 3H

    This Spring 2024 course is UC approved.

  • Introduction to Fiction Writing

    In this semester elective, students will learn basic craft elements of fiction including plot, character, setting, fictional time, point-of-view, conflict, and dialogue; then they will experiment with these craft elements in their own stories. In addition, students will receive feedback on their stories from their peers during “workshop” and use this feedback to revise. Reading models of published fiction and keeping a journal will be integral parts of this course, but the focus of this elective will be on generating original fiction rather than analyzing published literature. The culminating assessment will be a portfolio of original fiction.

    This course is open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors.

    Prerequite: English 1

    This Fall 2023 course is UC approved.

  • Journalism PPP

    The Journalism class offers an opportunity for students to learn and work in a professional setting as a member of the press, the vital investigative branch of democracy. Students will plan, write, edit, and design the LWHS student print publication, the Paper Tiger, and the online Paper Tiger. Students will write in depth news stories, features, profiles, reviews, and editorials; they must write for all sections of the paper—news, politics, sports, arts & leisure, science & tech, and voices. To get the story, students will work in the field and in the newsroom researching, writing, discussing, and dissecting. The course will facilitate building critical and creative thinking and writing skills, investigative reporting, interviewing, understanding and designing the impact of rhetorical techniques, photography, and page and publication design. As members of the Paper Tiger staff students collaborate to run a small company. Students will consider both the ethics of journalism and the future of different news media. Students must learn Adobe InDesign to publish the paper.

    PPP requirements for the course will be satisfied by students identifying, investigating, and writing one long-form feature that highlights the work of a Bay Area community organization or a vital community issue. This feature requires research, investigation, and interviews off campus. The article will be published in the Paper Tiger and possibly in an external news outlet. In addition, students must write one op-ed and submit it for consideration, for example, to Youth Radio or KQED Perspectives.

    The course is open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Students may enroll in Journalism multiple times. 

    (Add/Drop at the semester by permission of instructor only.)

    Prerequisite: English 1

    This yearlong course is UC approved and fulfills the PPP requirement for juniors and seniors.
  • Academic Guidebook
    A reference to help navigate course selection including:

    • Graduation requirements
    • How to calculate GPAs
    • FAQs and more

LINKS

Faculty




Lick-Wilmerding High School

755 Ocean Avenue | San Francisco, CA 94112 | 415.333.4021
A private school with public purpose, Lick-Wilmerding High School develops the head, heart, and hands of highly motivated students from all walks of life, inspiring them to become lifelong learners who contribute to the world with confidence and compassion.