This course will use the writing process to teach middle school students creative and critical thinking techniques and editing skills to produce finely wrought pieces of writing in various academic genres such as persuasive essays, personal essays, speeches, podcast scripts, literary analysis, and timed writing. Students will do writing exercises during class and for homework. Lessons will feature one-on-one conferences with the teacher to discuss each student’s work-in-progress. 

Part One will focus on thinking skills, helping students come up with fresh and insightful ideas for their writing. It will also cover how to avoid plagiarism while doing research.

Fall High School course 

This course is designed to help you gain a deeper understanding of literary analysis, introduce you to assignments and lessons similar to those in IB / AP courses, and your standard English Literature curriculum. It includes texts from a wide range of genres and literary periods, aiming to improve your skills in organizing, writing, and editing essays and other writing assignments.

We will delve into three captivating books:  Of Mice and Men, 1984 and The Crucible.

Each of three literary works has been adapted into a movie, providing not only additional engagement for readers but also opportunities to compare various narrative techniques.

This semester, we’ll focus on topics relating to moral responsibility, free will, identity, 
discrimination, and criminal liability. These metaphysical and political-philosophical topics will 
complement the previous semester’s focus on ethics and political philosophy. 
 

Become a Better Writer Part Two (lessons 13-28) will focus on revision skills, looking at structure and style in various genres. Students will improve their organization of ideas, sentence structure, diction, rhetorical and literary devices, grammar, and punctuation. During the course, they will write four essay drafts (persuasive, synthesis, personal, and literary) and get feedback from the teacher on each. They will write three content tests and one grammar quiz. They will finish the course by revising one of their essay drafts, showcasing what they’ve learned about structure and style.

Fall High School course 

This course is designed to help you gain a deeper understanding of literary analysis, introduce you to assignments and lessons similar to those in IB / AP courses, and your standard English Literature curriculum. It includes texts from a wide range of genres and literary periods, aiming to improve your skills in organizing, writing, and editing essays and other writing assignments.

We will delve into three captivating books:  Of Mice and Men, 1984 and The Crucible.

Each of three literary works has been adapted into a movie, providing not only additional engagement for readers but also opportunities to compare various narrative techniques.

This course will provide high school students with an intensive introduction to the craft of qualitative research. Students will learn both the logic of qualitative research in the social sciences and humanities, as well as how to implement a variety of the most common methods. The final project will be a research proposal which will prepare students to write their own original research and submit it for publication in a student journal.

In part one of the class, we will discuss the logical foundations of qualitative research, the sorts of research questions one can answer with qualitative data, and how qualitative data can be useful to quantitative or STEM-oriented students and professionals. After reviewing the foundations, we will discuss research design and literature reviews.

In part two, we will discuss commonly used qualitative research methods in industry and academia. This includes interviews, archival & library studies, content & discourse analysis, ethnography & field work, and finally comparative methods & case studies.

The final part of the class will serve as a workshop where students develop their own research proposals on a topic of their choosing. Students will meet individually with the instructor to receive feedback and develop a plan for how to complete their project. Lastly, students will participate in peer-review and learn how to assess the value and quality of qualitative research.

This course is designed to help students participate in the Harvard International Review’s Academic Writing Contest. The HIR writing contest invites students to write an original essay between 800 and 1200 words about a relevant topic in international affairs. HIR supplies students with broad themes or trends to talk about, but students are responsible with finding a specific topic regarding politics, economics, war and peace, science and technology, culture, the environment, and much more. For more information on the contest itself, click here. 

During class time, students will learn through in-class skill lectures, one-on-one discussions with the instructor, mini writing assignments, and review of successful submissions from years past. Out of class, students will be assigned with finding sources to support their arguments, writing draft sections of their paper, and applying instructor feedback to their essays. 

A rough draft of the paper will be due by week 7 of the contest, and by the end of the class, all students will have a polished essay ready for submission to the contest. 

Fall MS course 

This course is designed to help you gain a deeper understanding of literary analysis, introduce you to assignments and lessons similar to those in IB / AP courses, and your standard English Literature curriculum. It includes texts from a wide range of genres and literary periods, aiming to improve your skills in organizing, writing, and editing essays and other writing assignments.

We will delve into three captivating books:  The Giver, Ghost by Jason Reynolds, A Wrinkle in Time.

Each of three literary works has been adapted into a movie, providing not only additional engagement for readers but also opportunities to compare various narrative techniques.

The Great Writing provides clear explnations, academic writing models, and focused practice to help students write great sentences, paragraphs, and essays. Every unit has expanded vocabulary building, sentence development, and more structured final writing tasks.

Content:
Unit 1 Paragraphs
Unit 2 Features of Good Writing
Unit 3 Types of Paragraphs
Unit 4 Classification Essays: Moving from Paragraph to Essay
Unit 5 Cause-Effect Essays
Unit 6 Comparison Essays
Unit 7 Problem-Solution Essays

 Frankenstein Course Outline 

Written over 200 years ago when its author was only 19,_ _Mary Shelley’s _Frankenstein is one of the most significant and enduring novels in English. In every age, and ours in particular, we come face to face with our own Creature, the offspring of our deeds and technology, with the potential to save or to destroy us. What many people do not realize is that Mary Shelley's Creature is an articulate and feeling being, and the novel contains as much philosophy as horror.

In this course, we will examine the novel and its background in the Romantic period. We will discuss and debate the issues it raises with respect to ethics in science and technology. Students will also be introduced to approaches to literary scholarship and criticism. The culminating assignment will be a passage-based essay.

Please note: The text for this course is the 1818 edition of the novel. There are significant differences between this edition and later ones. An electronic version can be found here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/41445/41445-h/41445-h.h

A print version has been published by Penguin: Frankenstein: The 1818 text

Schedule

1 Background, letters

Homework – _read to end of Ch. 3; paragraph writing

2 Ch. 4 in class; discuss ethics and science

Homework – _read to end of Ch. 6; close reading assignment

3 Ch. 7, discussion, debate prep

Homework – _Read to end of Vol. 2, Ch. 2; Debate prep

4 Vol 2., Ch .3 Debate #1

Homework – _read to end of Vol. 2, Ch. 4; test

5 Vol. 2, Ch. 5, Paradise Lost excerpts

Homework – _read to end of Vol. 2, Ch. 8; writing assignment

6 Vol. 2: Ch. 9 discussion and debate #2 prep

Homework – _read to end of Vol. 3, Ch. 3; debate prep

7 Vol. 3, Ch. 4; debate #2

Homework End of Vol .3, Ch. 6; creative writing

8 Vol. 3, Ch. 7; scholarly essays

Homework - rest of book; prep for essay

9 Discussion, essay prep, scholarship

Homework: Essay

10 Frankenstein in media and academe

Note: Course time : Sep. 13， 20， 27, Oct. 11，18， 25  （no class on Oct.4）
Nov.8， 15， 22， 29（conferencing)-No class on 11.1 , and Dec.6

Class 1: Intro to Invitational Format & Case Construction Basics:
Overview of the TKEthics Invitational format (teams of 3–5, 4 rounds, Q&A format)
How to build an ethical case (thesis, reasoning, counterpoint, reply)
Practice with two cases

Cases Covered:
Case 1 – FTX’s Charitable Donations
Case 2 – Orphan Drugs

Class 2: 
Case 3 – AI Detection Software in Education
Case 4 – AI Law Firms
Discussion, + practise rounds

Class 3: 
Cases Covered:
Case 5 – Mars Colonization
Case 6 – No Platforming (from 2026 Ethics Cup set)
Discussion, + practise rounds

Class 4: 
Cases Covered:
Case 7 – AI Friendship
Case 8 – Rhinoplasty and Ethnic Heritage (from 2026 Ethics Cup set)
Discussion, + practise rounds

INVITATION
CASE SET

 

2025 TKE Fall Invitational Prep
Time: Oct 11, 2025 08:30 PM to 10:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Every week on Sat, 4 occurrence(s)

1. Oct 11, 2025 08:30 PM
2. Oct 18, 2025 08:30 PM 
3. Oct 25, 2025 08:30 PM
4. Nov 1, 2025 08:30 PM

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87527088877?pwd=uKBt55BgDf07qyziE2sFlKZbJs3G7S.1

Meeting ID: 875 2708 8877
Passcode: 123456

This course will use the writing process to teach middle school students creative and critical thinking techniques and editing skills to produce finely wrought pieces of writing in various academic genres such as persuasive essays, personal essays, speeches, podcast scripts, literary analysis, and timed writing. Students will do writing exercises during class and for homework. Lessons will feature one-on-one conferences with the teacher to discuss each student’s work-in-progress. 

Part One will focus on thinking skills, helping students come up with fresh and insightful ideas for their writing. It will also cover how to avoid plagiarism while doing research.