Get a taste of college life as a real college student.

Experience an intensive program of preparation for higher education in English Literature.

Sharpen your critical thinking skills through practical application and experience.

Participate in guided seminar-style discussions of diverse works of a diverse array of American literature, including memoirs, essays, poetry, fiction, and public addresses.

Cultivate critical skills such as close observation, contextualization, point-of-view, and storytelling through engagement with literature.

Develop the college-level writing skills that will support your academic success in the United States.

Study under the guidance of renowned scholar, Professor Thomas Augst, from a top 30 college in the United States.

Along with 6 – 12 classmates and 1 professional teaching assistant

Conducted 40 in-class contact hours 

Spread over 15 days 

Complete daily reading assignments and group reading and annotation exercises

Keep a daily course journal and respond to writing prompts

Draft, revise, and complete a 4-page, double-spaced formal piece of personal narrative

1 big can’t-miss summer camp in Taiwan if you are aiming for a Literature major

Enhance your English communication skills and discover the various ways life-writing can be used for public speaking, political advocacy, and artistic expression.

Create and revise a final project, a personal narrative that can be developed for writing competitions.

A personalized letter of recommendation might be offered by the professor – which can be of great help if you are aiming for applying to colleges abroad!

Teaches courses in American literature and culture at New York University

Author of The Clerk’s Tale: Young Men and Moral Life in Nineteenth-Century America & co-editor of Institutions of Reading: The Social Life of Libraries in the United States and Libraries as Agencies of Culture   

National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship

Finalist, Prize for a First Book of the Modern Language Association

Honorable Mention, Ralph Gabriel Dissertation Prize of the American Studies Association

Helen Choate Bell Dissertation Prize in American Literature, Harvard University

July 3-July 21, 2023

3 weeks, 40 hours, 1 project

G9 – G12

– Esmerelda Santiago, excerpt from When I Was Puerto Rican

– Patty Smith, Just Kids, excerpt

– Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self Reliance”

– Henry David Thoreau, Walden, excerpts

– Emily Dickinson, selected poems

– Additional selected poems by Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Frost, among others

– Abraham Lincoln, “Gettysburg Address”

– Critical contexts: Scholarly essay, Jonathan Lear, “Gettysburg Mourning”

– Martin Luther King, “I have a dream”

– John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address [Jan. 20, 1961]

– Daily writing workshop: Students will draft and revise formal writing using Google docs [ 4-pages, double-spaced, or 1200 words]

– Individual final project consultations; Peer reading and discussion

– Final project presentations