From September 2023 to July 2024, I worked as a G11 and G12 English Language and Literature Teacher at WLSA Shanghai Academy, overseeing four English sections and a total of 80 students.
In my role as instructor, I sought to modernize and diversify the existing curriculum. Leveraging a broad knowledge of contemporary literature, art and media, I helped create a more engaging and inclusive educational environment. Here’s a bit about the experience:
G11 OVERVIEW AND HIGHLIGHTS
The objective of the G11 course is to prepare students for the AP Language and Composition Exam, to strengthen their ability to read and write about literary texts, and to prepare them for senior year.
The fall semester comprised five units: Rhetorical Analysis, Argumentation, Literary Analysis, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s "The Great Gatsby," and a short story unit featuring four contemporary short stories. The spring semester built upon these units, utilizing "The Language of Composition: Reading, Writing, Rhetoric" as a core text to prepare students for the AP Exam. Additionally, we delved deeper into literature through readings of short stories, essays, articles, and poetry.
Over the course of the short story unit - a favorite of mine - we engaged with one story per week for four weeks. Drawing on an extensive knowledge of the short story form, I influenced the syllabus by incorporating fresh and diverse voices. The selected stories included Octavia Butler’s “Bloodchild,” Samanta Schweblin’s “Headlights,” Bora Chung’s “Cursed Bunny,” and Karen Russell’s “Reeling for the Empire.” Each week provided an opportunity to introduce students to a new critical lens or framework, exploring themes such as Afrofuturism, posthumanism, mythology, magical realism, Korean revenge tales, folklore, Marxism, and postcolonial narratives.
G12 OVERVIEW AND HIGHLIGHTS
The G12 course aims to prepare students for the U.S. university classroom, and strengthens their literary foundation via a curriculum based on existentialism.
Over the course of the year we read Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club, and a selection of short stories and non-fiction pieces. For short stories we read John Cheever’s “The Swimmer,” Raymond Carver’s “Fat” and “Neighbors”, J.D. Salinger’s “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”, Tobias Wolff’s “A Bullet in the Brain”, Nikolai Gogol’s "The Nose", Kelly Link’s "Skinder's Veil", and Haruki Murakami’s "A Shinagawa Monkey.” For non-fiction we read Joan Didion’s “On Morality”, Leslie Jameson’s "52 Blue", George Saunders "The Braindead Megaphone," and Rachel Kushner’s "The Hard Crowd".
Something that I believe added depth to our practice (in both G11 and G12) was the incorporation of an interdisciplinary approach through a series of art “tie-ins". Over the course of the semester we introduced the students to number of visual artists whose work echoed the themes and ideas we were covering. Visual artists we explored included: Wangechi Mutu, Remedios Varo, Lee Bul, and Chiharu Shiota.