Last year, the English department introduced a new program to RCDS: the Honors English seminars. This new course, launched at the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year, would replace the AP Language and LIterature classes as the more advanced English class for juniors and seniors; the AP classes would become the regular track. AP review sessions would be held in the spring to prepare students still planning to take the AP exams. Students were surveyed in the spring of 2021 to determine which courses they would like to take, then were assigned to one of their top three choices for the first semester. 

A driving force behind the decision to create the English seminars was the narrowness of the AP curriculum. Student choice, a defining aspect of the seminars, allows a broader range of topics to be covered among the different courses. “Embedded within student choice [is our desire] to include as many voices as we can,” said Mr. Pollock, chair of the English department, “and make sure students are at once pushed to understand experiences that are different than their own, but then also to see themselves reflected in the curriculum.” In one year, an English course can cover about six books. Between the two AP courses, only twelve books can be chosen as part of the curriculum, but the capacity of books the department can teach has tripled with dozens of seminars. While moving away from the AP classes leads to a loss of standardization, Pollock asserted that “there’s so much good literature [to be discovered], and exposing our students to that wider range is worth the loss of standardization.” 

Pollock also noted that the AP English exams are different from the AP Biology or US History exams in that the student does not need a specific knowledge-base to take it. Any student from a seminar could potentially be prepared to take the exam just by learning the necessary writing skills. Some students feel unprepared for the AP exams after one semester of the seminars, and one student noted that “English last year (my junior year) was more about exam prep. We still read interesting books, but our essays were made to fit the AP exam mold.” Breaking free of this mold, however, is exactly the point of the seminars. “We have such bright students,” Pollock continued. “I just see them hungering to dig deeper.” 

The anxieties over AP and March exams, however, are still present for RCDS students. Despite enjoying the seminars, some students still prefer the old English classes, particularly the AP English course, because they felt more prepared for these exams. Many students question the logic behind a March exam for the second semester of the English seminars; a second student commented that “it makes no sense to have one when you take drastically different seminars.” 

Institutional parameters like the March exams or scheduling conflicts are unfortunately a reality with no easy fix. Schedules in particular have proven a difficult obstacle, The number of students in each class can range from six to seventeen, the result of limited options that fit within students’ schedules. While many students were able to find a seminar they were excited to take, a large number of students either had to change their schedule to take the class they wanted or settle for a class they were not necessarily enthusiastic about. Pollock maintained that “The reason for doing this is, at base, student choice. But there are institutional parameters [that can inhibit this.]”

These issues, aside from the limits of a student’s schedule, are mostly logistical. Students enjoy the freedom to study a topic that interests them more deeply than the broad range an AP class might present. “[The seminars] make students more engaged in English by giving them something to be passionate about,” wrote a third student. A fourth student reflected: “I feel more drawn into what I’m studying and learning about.” 

Student participation, the constant focus of the RCDS teachers, was truly affected by these seminars. “The enthusiasm that my students had on a daily basis,” Pollock said, was his favorite part of the course. “The conversation felt [so much richer] because the students had chosen to be in the class and were excited about the topic.”

Students and teachers may still be reflecting on the first semester of Honors Seminars, but these courses have clearly tapped into a side of students that the standard AP curriculum could not. “I think we’re still refining the timing [and other difficulties],” Pollock concluded, “but from talking to students and teachers, it seems like people appreciate the system and understand what we’re doing. The depth of thinking [I saw this semester] confirmed my sense that RCDS kids are ready to go deeper and push more.”