Language Arts offers frightening new elective: American Horror Story

By Marissa Jacobs ‘25
In the new 2024-25 school year, Golda Och Academy seniors had a new choice when picking their Language Arts elective: American Horror Story. The course deeply explores the horror genre through various novels, short stories and films. 

From religious horrors like Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown to Stephen King classics like Carrie, students are exposed to physiological, ideological and physical horror that will make anyone quiver.
At the start of the semester, students analyzed horror pieces connected to religion. Their summer reading and watching materials, The Devil in Ohio and Carrie, were filled with divine superstition and religious wickedness. 
They have delved into new material related to religious horror, and have been watching The Witch, which follows the story of a family in 1630s England torn apart by dark magic, paranoia and religious scrupulosity. 
Senior Ari Jacobs says, “Watching The Witch in class is definitely entertaining. It also opens my eyes to different types of horror and paranormal topics that I have a newfound interest in now.” 
The curriculum will next shift focus to haunted house stories, with students reading The Haunting of Hill House. 
As their final subject of the semester, students will move into modern horror tracking the evolution of the horror genre. 
Students will gain a complete understanding of twenty-first-century horror through their study of many engaging and historical materials throughout the semester. 
Along with their course studies, students will supplement their interests with a semester-long project, a requirement of all senior language arts classes, but made unique to American Horror Story. 
Students have been beginning to research and brainstorm aspects of horror that are most intriguing to them to get started. Topics such as witches, vampires and ghosts are all options to write about.
Students also eagerly enjoyed their field trip to Sleepy Hollow in mid-October. The class trip was to the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, the final resting place of many famous figures, including Washington Irving. 
The trip was intended to be educational yet exciting and interesting, complementing their study of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (written by Washington Irving and set in Sleepy Hollow). 
Senior Noga Arieh said, “None of us seniors have gone on a field trip in so long. I am so excited to visit Sleepy Hollow!” The students have had a great start to their semester in American Horror Story and are enthused to learn more.