1. Reading the World
2. Thinking about Literature
3. Thinking about Argument
4. Thinking about Sources
5. Identity and Society

• What does "identity" mean?
• How is one’s identity formed?
• How do personal experiences affect our identity?
• To what extent does school emphasize conformity at the expense of individuality?

Central Text

George Orwell, Shooting an Elephant

Conversation:
Changes and Transformations

1. Jon Krakauer, The Devil’s Thumb (nonfiction)
2. Caitlin Horrocks, Zolaria (fiction)
3. Sharon Olds, My Son The Man and The Possessive (poetry)
4. William Shakespeare, Seven Ages of Man (poetry/drama)
5. James Joyce, Eveline (fiction)

6. The Carlisle Indian Boarding School (photographs)

Conversation:
The Individual in School

1. Alexandra Robbins, from The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth (nonfiction)
2. Faith Erin Hicks, from Friends with Boys (graphic novel)
3. John Taylor Gatto, Against School (nonfiction)
4. Horace Mann, from The Common School Journal
5. Theodore Sizer, from Horace’s School: Redesigning the American High School
6. Maya Angelou, from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Reading Workshop – Point of View in Narrative
Writing Workshop – Writing a Narrative

6 – Ambition and Restraint

• What are the qualities of effective and ineffective leadership?
• What are the benefits and dangers associated with ambition?
• Is ambition an innate or learned human trait?
• What are the rhetorical strategies used by effective leaders?

Central Text

William Shakespeare, Macbeth

Conversation:
Risk and Reward

1. W.H. Auden, Musee des Beaux Arts (poetry)
2. William Carlos Williams, Landscape With The Fall of Icarus (poetry)
3. Brian Aldiss, Flight 063 (poetry)
4. Jeffrey Kluger, from Ambition: Why Some people are Most Likely to Succeed (nonfiction)
5. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias (poetry)
6. William Shakespeare, from Henry VIII (drama)
7. Amy Tan, Rules of the Game (fiction)
8. Miguel Cervantes, from Don Quixote (fiction)

Conversation:
Voices of Rebellion

1. Martin Luther King Jr., I’ve Been to the Mountaintop (speech)
2. Nelson Mandela, from An Ideal for Which I am Prepared to Die (speech)
3. Thomas Paine, from Common Sense (broadside)
4. Malala Yousafzai, Speech to the United Nations Youth Assembly
5. Carrie Chapman Catt, Address to the Congress on Women’s Suffrage
6. George Orwell, from Animal Farm (fiction)

Reading Workshop – Combining Rhetorical Appeals
Writing Workshop – Writing a Persuasive Argument

7 – Ethics

• How do we know "right" from "wrong"?
• To what extent do age, gender, culture, and other factors affect our ethical decisions?
• What are possible consequences of making particular ethical choices?
• What causes us to cheat?
• Is cheating always wrong?
• Who gets to define "cheating"?

Central Text

Michael Sandel, from The Case Against Perfection (nonfiction)

Conversation:
Do the Right Thing

1. Gabriel García Márquez, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings (fiction)
2. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Cell One (fiction)
3. Nathan Englander, Free Fruit for Young Widows (fiction)
4. John Updike, A & P (fiction)
5. William Stafford, Traveling through the Dark (poetry)
6. Wisława Szymborska, A Contribution to Statistics (poetry)
7. Annie Dillard, An American Childhood (memoir)
8. Sam Harris, from Lying (nonfiction)

Conversation:
The Cheating Culture

1. Robert Kolker, Cheating Upwards (nonfiction)
2. Chuck Klosterman, Why We Look the Other Way (nonfiction)
3. Christopher Bergland, Cheaters Never Win (editorial)
4. Brad Allenby, Is Human Enhancement Cheating? (nonfiction)
5. Mia Consalvo, Cheating is Good For You (nonfiction)
6. David Callahan, from The Cheating Culture (nonfiction)
7. Doctored Photos

Reading Workshop – Argument by Analogy
Writing Workshop – Writing a Synthesis Essay

8 – Cultures in Conflict

• What defines "culture"?
• How does someone become part of or leave a culture?
• What causes cultures to come in conflict with each other?
• Who gets to tell the story of a conflict?
• How do cultures respond to change and to outsiders?
• What is lost and gained by assimilation into a new culture?

Central Text

Julie Otsuka, from When the Emperor Was Divine (fiction)

Conversation:
Stories of War

1. Kamila Shamsie, from The Storytellers of Empire (nonfiction)
2. Wilfred Owen, Dulce Et Decorum Est (poetry)
3. William Shakespeare, St. Crispin’s Day Speech (drama)
4. Vu Bao, The Man Who Stained his Soul (fiction)
5. Katey Schultz, Deuce Out (fiction)
6. Kevin Sites, from In the Hot Zone (nonfiction)
7. Brian Turner, 2000 lbs. (poetry)
8. Karim Ben Khelifa, My Enemy, Myself (photo essay)

Conversation:
Displacement and Assimilation

1. Jean de Crevecoeur, from Letters from an American Farmer (nonfiction)
2. Anna Quindlen, Quilt of a Country (nonfiction)
3. Li-Young Lee, For a New Citizen of these United States (poetry)
4. Nola Kambanda, My New World Journey (memoir)
5. Stephen Colbert, On Immigrants (satire)
6. Amit Majmudar, Dothead (poetry)
7. Maira Kalman, from And the Pursuit of Happiness (graphic essay)

Reading Workshop – Analyzing Character and Theme
Writing Workshop – Writing a Thematic Interpretation　

9 – (Mis)Communication

• What factors lead to effective or ineffective communication between people?
• What role does culture play in effective and ineffective communication?
• How do changes in technologies affect how we communicate?

Central Text

Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac (drama)

Conversation:
Language and Power

1. Frederick Douglass, from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (nonfiction)
2. Sandra Cisneros, No Speak English (fiction)
3. Ha Jin, Children as Enemies (fiction)
4. Mutabaruka, Dis Poem (poetry)
5. Kory Stamper, Slang for the Ages (nonfiction)
6. Firoozeh Dumas, Hot Dogs and Wild Geese (nonfiction)
7. Marjorie Agosin, English (poetry)
8. W.S. Merwin, Losing a Language (poetry)

Conversation:
Socially Networked

1. Clive Thompson, Brave New World of Digital Intimacy (nonfiction)
2. Sherry Turkle, from Alone Together (nonfiction)
3. Tim Egan, The Hoax of Digital Life
4. Sherman Alexie, Facebook Sonnet (poetry)
5. Robbie Cooper, Alter Egos: Avatars and their Creators (photographs)
6. Alexis Madrigal, Why Facebook and Google's Concept of 'Real Names' Is Revolutionary (nonfiction)
7. Leonard Pitts, The anonymous back-stabbing of Internet message boards
8. Jason Harrington, Do you Like Me? Click Yes or No (fiction)

Reading Workshop – Understanding Irony
Writing Workshop – Writing a Close Literary Analysis

10. Utopia and Dystopia

• What are the qualities people want to have in a "perfect place"?
• What are the factors that make a perfect society unattainable?
• Why do people view places differently?
• How do we measure and determine "happiness"?
• Does money lead to happiness?

Central Text

Jamaica Kincaid, from A Small Place (nonfiction)

Conversation:
The Pursuit of Happiness

1. Ursula LeGuin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
2. Nikki Giovanni, Nikki-Rosa (poetry)
3. Wisława Szymborska, Utopia (poetry)
4. Jane Shore, Happy Family (poetry)
5. Pico Iyer, The Joy of Less (nonfiction)
6. Jon Meachem, Free to Be Happy (nonfiction)
7. Katy Steinmetz and Heather Jones, The Game of Happiness (infographic)
8. Chinua Achebe, Civil Peace (fiction)
9. Kurt Vonnegut, Harrison Bergeron (fiction)

Conversation:
Our Robotic Future?

1. Isaac Asimov, Robot Dreams (fiction)
2. Margaret Atwood, Are Humans Necessary? (nonfiction)
3. Kevin Kelly, from Better than Human (nonfiction)
4. Mike Konczal, Robots and the Future of Unemployment (nonfiction)
5. Richard Fisher Is it OK to torture or murder a robot? (nonfiction)
6. Arthur House, The Real Cyborgs
7. Francis Fukuyama, Transhumanism

Reading Workshop – Analyzing Diction and Tone
Writing Workshop – Writing a Rhetorical Analysis