An approach to a language, literature, and composition curriculum designed to help students develop both an ability to think and an appreciation of themselves is summarized. Materials include (1) a listing of the main features of a communications curriculum from elementary through secondary school, (2) a rationale for the curriculum, which indicates that the high school student be required to fulfill a certain number of English credits, yet be allowed to elect from ungraded, 3-, 6-, or 9-week units, (3) an annotated student catalogue of more than 100 course offerings (one-third of which are offered each semester), including such units as a 3-week unit on humor and language, a 6-week workshop on classroom leadership, and 9-week units on the classics, poetry of the 1960's, and the existentialist and society, and (4) two sample 6-week units for upperclassmen--one on the sentence and paragraph which uses transformational generative grammar techniques to develop a sense of sentence structure, and the other, a drama workshop which provides general and specific unit objectives, week-by-week unit plans, and suggestions for ways to handle a basic plot germ, conflict, setting, dialogue, and play analysis. (JB)