Offerings

The Write Spot is a year-round program of online writing sessions for students (in grades 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12) that are offered as one-on-one tutorials and small-group classes. Students will learn the following and more:

•how to write a good sentence
•the nine points of syntax
•the seven types of sentences
•the four types of paragraphs
•vocabulary building (for the SSAT, ISEE, SAT, and school generally)
•the format and qualities of the standard or empirical essay

Students will also receive instruction in some of the basic rules of spelling, punctuation, and writing with style.

Ready, Set, Read is a kindergarten readiness program that focuses on early childhood language acquisition, literacy, and mentorship grounded in the following principles:

i) Reading to develop the capacity to read.

ii) Reading to learn information and skills indispensable to academic proficiency, intellectual growth, and personal fulfillment.

iii) Reading to learn the best conventions of “good” writing, to cultivate an appreciation for writing, and to be motivated to write for school and for oneself.

iv) Reading to cultivate an appreciation for storytelling as a form of cultural reflection, engagement, and preservation.

By setting self-improvement as an equitable outcome for each child, Ready Set Read aims to better prepare children for the primary stages of their academic journey and to inspire them to develop a healthy personal identity around reading and writing.

Reading & Writing with Corey: The Online Funshop is an internet literacy program in a multimedia format, designed to build literacy skills into a first-grader’s knowledge base. The Funshop features art, reading, seeing, saying, rhyming, writing, and “soul language,” which is a form of physical movement that gives embodiment to letters, words, and even sentences–imagine your child acting, dancing, or choreographing what it’s like to be the letter Z, the word skedaddle, or a sentence such as the following: Sasha sells seashells along the sunny, Sumatran seashore. The Funshop incorporates auditory, oral, visual, tactile, and kinetic activities, which support and encourage children in learning how to read, write, spell, and recite.

The abecedarian A Is For Afro: Reading Is Power (by Corey Olds) will be used as one of the learning resources for the Funshop. Other resources will include customized activities and exercises for each student.

Funshop Activities

Sounding: Listening to and repeating aloud the forty-four unique sounds in English, which are formally known as phonemes (e.g., c, k, ea, oi, etc.). 

Reading: Reading aloud the primary sentences (pages 6-31 in A Is For Afro, hereafter, AIFA).

Memorizing: Reciting from memory the secondary or sight words (pages 6-31 in AIFA).

Spelling: Learning to spell the primary and secondary or sight words (pages 6-31 in  AIFA).

Rhyming: Identifying and reciting words that rhyme (pages 6-31 and 37-40 in AIFA). With or without the help of parents or older siblings, students will also compose at least one poem that consists only of two, four, six, eight, ten, or twelve words that rhyme.

Dancing & Choreographing: Expressing through physical movement or instructions given to family and friends what it’s “like to be” each letter from A to Z (pages 6-31 in AIFA).

Writing Seven-Word Stories: Choosing the primary and secondary or sight words (pages 6-31 and 37-40 in AIFA) to compose a story that consists of at least seven words.

Prompt 1 for Seven-Word Stories: With or without the help of parents or older siblings, students will compose a seven-word story that only uses words that begin with the same letter.

Prompt 2 for Seven-Word Stories: With or without the help of parents or older siblings, students will compose a seven-word story that uses any seven primary and secondary or sight words (e.g., play, friend, picture, make, would, etc.). 

In this course, students will explore American literature by reading four novels that demonstrate the human diversity and multilayered motifs that define the “American experience.” Such experience stems from the intersection of individuals and groups negotiating the realities of gender, class, race, colorism, subservience, nationalism, freedom, immigration, patriarchy, privilege, cynicism, alienation, and dystopia. Besides learning how to perform “close readings” of literary texts, students will learn how to style their observations and interpretations into inductive reasoning that supports critical reading, thinking, and writing. At the course’s conclusion, students will be able to scrutinize the myth of the Great American Novel.

Kid Scribes fulfills the “A” or “Arts” in STEAM in that it introduces students to the art of storytelling by focusing on such elements as character, setting, plot, conflict, point of view, and theme, which are the building blocks of any fictional story or book. Furthermore, the narrative triangle, with which students will also become familiar, is a literary or narrative structure that helps readers identify “where they are in a story.” This basic structure, dating back to the Greek philosopher Aristotle (d. 322 BCE) who wrote a book on poetics, is not only used in fictional and nonfictional books, but also in films and TV dramas. Finally, students think more analytically about the art of writing when they are given creative opportunities to assemble their own story elements, which is exactly what Kid Scribes does. Students will use such knowledge to complete a draft of a fictional story, which will be considered for publication through Excelsus Foundation.

Former United States Representative John Lewis (1940-2020), along with cowriter Andrew Aydin and artist Nate Powell, published an award-winning trilogy memoir entitled March (2013-2016). This graphic-novel series documents the struggle of African-Americans and their allies for equal rights and civil liberties. Book One chronicles social and political events from Lewis’s upbringing in rural Alabama to the birth of the Nashville Student Movement in Tennessee.

Through the format of the graphic novel, this class will introduce students to cultural diversity, civic responsibility, and social issues. Furthermore, students will learn about such language usage as idioms and slang as well as such literary devices as metaphor, simile, and hyperbole. Critical thinking skills, particularly inference, will be applied to the visual imagery in March: Book One. Students will also explore how images are used to relay simple and complex messages with and without accompanying text.

In subsequent offerings, The New Social will explore other memoir-style, graphic novels, namely, Maus (1980) by Art Spiegelman and Persepolis (2000) by Marjane Satrapi.

This course introduces all students to African-American history and art through a vivid narrative accompanied by an impressive array of artwork by African-American artists. The survey of topics begins with life in Africa prior to the transatlantic slave trade and ends with hip-hop culture (1980-2004). In between, students learn the fundamental events, ideas, issues, and personages that shaped slavery; the lives of free Blacks during slavery; Civil War, Emancipation, and Reconstruction; segregation; the New Negro; Radicals and Democrats; World War II and internationalism; civil rights; protest and revolution; and the Black power movement. Course work will include a series of short, analytical writing assignments, in-class debates, and a final art or multimedia project.

This course introduces all students to African-American literature over the past 250 years, beginning with the works of Lucy Terry (b. 1730), Jupiter Hammon (b. 1711), Phillis Wheatley (b. 1753), George Moses Horton (b. 1797), and Harriet Jacobs (c. 1813). Unlike other courses, this one is not limited to the genres of fiction and poetry, but includes autobiography and essay, history and journalism, drama and oratory. The works of Zora Neale Hurston (b. 1891) and Nella Larsen (b. 1891), Langston Hughes (b. 1902) and Ann Petry (b. 1908), W.E.B. DuBois (b. 1868) and Lorraine Hansberry (b. 1930), Ralph Ellison (b. 1914) and Michelle Obama (b. 1964)–her 2021 Democratic National Convention speech. Course work will include a series of short, reader-response assignments, in-class debates, and a final comparative essay on two or more of the works to be studied. 

These tutorials thoroughly prepare students for the verbal portion of the SSAT or the ISEE, depending upon which test is scheduled to be taken. Students are instructed in  four major areas: vocabulary, reading comprehension, verbal reasoning, and essay writing. By learning word parts–prefixes, roots, and suffixes–students will possess the ability to unlock the meaning of more than 10,000 words (if they master 30 word parts) and of more than 100,000 words (if they master 50 word parts). Concerning reading comprehension and syntax, students are taught various strategies of critical analysis. Students also receive instruction in the four modes of writing (i.e., expository, descriptive, narrative, and persuasive), in addition to learning the finer points of grammar and style.  For students who wish to improve the overall quality of their writing, these tutorials are indispensable.

These tutorials thoroughly prepare students for the verbal portion of the PSAT and the SAT, depending upon which test is scheduled to be taken. Students are instructed in four major areas: vocabulary, reading comprehension, verbal reasoning, and essay writing. By learning word parts–prefixes, roots, and suffixes–students will possess the ability to unlock the meaning of more than 10,000 words (if they master 30 word parts) and of more than 100,000 words (if they master 50 word parts). Concerning reading comprehension and syntax, students are taught various strategies of critical analysis. Students also receive instruction in the four modes of writing (i.e., expository, descriptive, narrative, and persuasive), in addition to learning the finer points of grammar and style. Finally, students learn the essential elements of and become proficient in writing a college-level empirical essay. For students who wish to improve the overall quality of their writing, these tutorials are indispensable.

Getting to Know U.S.: Exploring the United States is an introduction to the territorial outlines, capitals, and fact files (e.g., date of statehood, square miles, and state flag) of all fifty states.

The purpose of Getting to Know U.S.: Exploring the United States entails familiarizing students with the overall cartographical outlines and state borders that comprise the United States of America. The unique geography of the United States has contributed to its isolation from conflict, development of farmland and other natural resources, vibrant trade, and westward expansion.

Learning in this class will assume the form of a question-and-answer format whereby students consult their own set of CardDia™ flashcards in preparation for a series of trivia-style, gaming activities. 

This course is designed for adults (i.e., those eighteen years old and above) who seek to improve their speaking and writing skills in English, whether for business or personal communication.

Students will build their English language proficiency in five core areas: grammar (including punctuation and spelling), sentence construction, rhetorical style, vocabulary, and literary appreciation. This objective will be facilitated by the reading of a diverse range of key texts (e.g. , The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation, The Elements of Style, How to Write a Sentence and How to Read One, 100 Most Important Words, Random House Webster’s Pocket Power Vocabulary, and Let Me Tell You What I Mean).


The Art of English is offered in intervals of eight weeks.