English Language Arts

Our ELA Program

The English Language Arts (ELA) program at Creators is designed to foster a deep appreciation for literature, critical thinking, and effective communication. Our sequential curriculum, offered from 9th through 12th grade, exposes students to a diverse range of texts, from classic novels and poetry to contemporary works that reflect modern society. Through in-depth analysis, engaging discussions, and creative writing assignments, students develop their reading comprehension, analytical skills, written and verbal expression and critical thinking skills.

Some of our ELA courses also offer Creators Academy students the opportunity to earn college credits with Bard, such as our Bard Sequence courses.

Current Courses

Intro to Literature (9th Grade) English Language Arts is a course that uses literature, nonfiction, and writing to build your reading, writing, speaking, and thinking skills. We’ll explore how stories — both real and imagined — shape the way people see themselves and the world. You’ll learn to read texts more closely, write with evidence and clarity, and share your ideas in different formats.
Journalism for All (10th and 12th Grade) Click here for More Information

For the 2025 - 26 School Year, Creators Academy was chosen as one of 30 pilot schools to be part of a City Hall initiative called Journalism for All. The program aims to increase the number of student run news publications across the city. It is a collaboration with the CUNY Newmark School of Journalism.

This course is an English Language Arts course where students don’t just study journalism — they become journalists. In this course, you will read, write, and analyze news and opinion pieces, while also creating content for a student-run publication. The class blends media literacy with real-world writing, so your work isn’t just for a grade — it’s for an audience.
Bard Seminar 1 (10th and 11th) Click here for More Information

The Bard Sequence offers students the opportunity to earn transferable college credits across a variety of courses taught by college faculty trained in early college pedagogy.

Bard Seminar 1 is a course within the Bard Sequence that will focus on the ultimate questions of human existence: What does it mean to be human? What connects us with the people who preceded us? How might our engagement with the past shape our future? To explore these questions this semester, we will be reading three foundational visions of the human experience: The Epic of Gilgamesh, Dracula by Bram Stoker, and Arabian Nights. The goal of ancient philosophy was not the transmission of information, but the formation of the self. In a similar spirit, our goal in this course will be to explore humanity’s cultural heritage as a meaningful opportunity for self-reckoning and self-discovery.