This is a 15 week course of 7 hours per week in which students are expected to improve reading comprehension skills and develop critical and analytical reading skills by studying a variety of literary texts including short stories, essays, a Shakespearean play, a feature film, and poetry. Students are supposed to develop proficiency in sentence construction and be able to revise texts in progress and to create critical and analytical responses to literary texts. The goal of the course is to foster “an appreciation of the significance and artistry of literature” and to facilitate a student’s ability to “understand and appreciate language and use it confidently for a variety of purposes and in a variety of situations for communication, personal satisfaction and learning.” (From the Program of Studies for Senior High School English Language Arts, 2003, Alberta Learning Curriculum Branch.)