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The Ninth Grade English curriculum spurs students to consider journeys, homecomings, and homegoings through the lens of literature; in so doing, they apprehend the human condition and consider what it means to belong to a place, and likewise for a place to belong to us. This curriculum attempts to engender empathy and awareness while imparting a global perspective by considering what it means to seek refuge, to journey, to discover roots, and how home, or the idea of it, drives people. Using the course texts—The Odyssey, by Homer and translated by Emily Wilson; Exit West, by Mohsin Hamid; and Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison—the goal of the course is to help produce compassionate, informed, articulate, and effective exponents of critical thought and positive change, skills which supplement and parallel the Ninth Grade capstone Poquonook Solutions Project.

The Eighth Grade English curriculum places a greater emphasis on critical reading, writing, and clear communication through the study of literature, vocabulary, and various forms of creative, analytical, and artistic expression. Persuasive writing skills and literary analysis are integrated throughout the various units, alongside creative and visual projects, as well as opportunities for public speaking. Year-long themes of social and individual identities are explored through the course’s core texts: When the Emperor Was Divine, by Julie Otsuka; Maus I & II, by Art Spiegelman; The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros; and The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger. Units may be supplemented with poems, short stories, video clips, and other forms of media. The goal of the course is to develop and nurture critical thinking and writing skills through student-centered discussions and analytical and personal writing.

Students must have fully completed Algebra I and Geometry and need a teacher recommendation to be placed in Algebra II. This is a rigorous and competitive course that contains some of our top math students. The focus is on polynomials, operations and simplifying rational expressions, working with the graphing calculator and other graphing devices to explore functions and transformations. Students engage with radians and degrees, connecting the unit circle and the graphs of periodic functions to one another. Working both independently and cooperatively, students seek to solve word problems and other challenging material.