Academy to Offer New Courses

Four new classes have been introduced for next year’s course registration, including ENG460: Humor in Writing, ENG482: Literature in Popular Culture, SRS407: Agricultural Science, Practice and Policy, and SRS439: A Study of Sport in Society.The faculty is entirely in charge of the school’s curriculum, according to Director of Studies Laura Marshall. Departments and individual teachers propose new courses starting in November, and each proposal is discussed and voted on by department heads; if passed, the entire faculty will then vote. If successfully voted, the course is added into the Courses of Instruction. This process is completed by February.The number of new courses offered varies every year, but with new courses added, some have to be removed. “We need to make sure that we do not continue to add courses without removing others, or our curriculum would grow quickly and we need to make sure that we have enough students for our courses,” Marshall said. “Sometimes student interest is the basis for new courses as students talk with teachers about courses they would like to see offered.”Unlike prior years, rising seniors will have the opportunity to take English electives in the fall, winter, and spring terms so that four-year students will have another English credit in lieu of Junior Studies from their prep fall.Uppers were polled on which classes they were interested in taking in fall and winter term. Based on the results, Creative Writing, Novels Into Film, and Graphic Narrative/Literary Comics have been made available for the fall term. Winter term English electives will include Short Stories, Visions of Paradise? Utopias and Dystopias in Literature, Humor in Writing, and Short Stories.Two new electives developed by Matthew Miller and Christina Breen, Humor in Writing and Literature and Popular Culture, will also add to the change in next year’s English curriculum. As a result of the recent additions to next year’s course selections, other past English courses will not be offered.English Department Head Lundy Smith explained why the courses are changing. “Some of the electives that are on the books have been on the books for a long time and were written by people who are no longer at the school,” he said. “Sadly, some of those electives lose popularity and kind of fade away.”Humor in Writing will focus mainly on defining humor itself and how it is successfully used in literature. Its course description describes the elective as a class to “explore the art of humor and the seriousness of comedy.” Smith predicts that Mr. Miller’s class will be a huge hit among students. “We tend to do a lot of doom and gloom literature, so it will be fun for kids to get some humor,” Smith said.In Breen’s Literature and Popular Culture class, as defined by the Courses of Instruction book, “students will work towards locating themselves in their own time, viewing their world through a critical lens, and understanding the crosscurrent of influences that shapes not only popular culture but their own written creations as well.” This course will explore literature in many different mediums, ranging from art to television.With 21 English senior electives, most students have been able to pinpoint their interests and find a class that suits them. “I'm considering between a few, but I would like to take the Shakespeare class,” upper Maddie Firkey said. “After reading several plays throughout my years at Exeter, I have realized how much I actually enjoy Shakespeare and would like to be able to read some of the lesser known plays that I may not get the chance to in regular English class.”Changes have been made to several courses, according to an e-mail sent out to all students. Best-Selling Science will not be offered as a course option next year. Architecture, many Computer Science courses, Advanced Topics in Islam, and Spring Term Book Club have had revisions made to their course descriptions.Some course titles were changed as well; the descriptions remained the same, but the new titles better reflected the content of the course, according to Marshall.The architecture course has been changed to Architecture Now, and current Architecture instructor Scott Coruth will not be teaching the new course. “From my reading of the course description, the new course will focus less on architecture, and how buildings are designed, and will instead be more of a 3d design class, focusing on other things than architectural design,” Coruth said.