Our courses focus on four key components: Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking. Beginning in grade six, we help our students develop rich and varied reading lives – to develop lifelong reading habits that include analyzing, discussing and comparing books and using quality texts as models for their own writing.  Individual assessment informs instruction: students are guided in their independent reading and required reading.  As writers and speakers, BCS students learn to state opinions and support them with evidence, to recognize and describe literary devices, and to connect text (fiction, drama, poetry, and non-fiction) to history and culture.  Assignments in writing teach process – planning, drafting, conferring, editing, revision  – and include instruction in voice, craft, organization, grammar, and conventions.  As they go up through the grades, assignments become more complex and culminate in Performance Based Assessments in Literary Analysis. Our goal is for BCS students to leave us ready to read, write, and speak confidently in their college classes.