Camila Reyna

With the spring breeze comes a special time at RCDS: course selection. Each year, freshmen, sophomores, and juniors speak with their advisors, college counselors, and teachers in regards to what classes fit them best for the upcoming school year. This year’s course offerings  are especially unique: multiple new classes have been added in the Humanities (soon to be History and Social Sciences) Department as well as the English Department. These options, mainly geared towards juniors and seniors, will provide a myriad of opportunities to deeply study specific topics, such as Shakespearean plays or the Civil Rights Movement in the 20th century. 

Ms. Bell, Upper School English teacher and Chair of the English Department, remarked upon the new options for the English seminars. She stated that these new options were added for multiple reasons, one of which was because of the new English teachers “who want to bring their interests into the seminar program. We always have teachers who just want to teach something new and have a new idea.” Not only have there been several new semester-long courses added in this department, such as The Anti-Hero in Literature and Media and Mystery and Meaning, but a year-long seminar has also been introduced. This seminar, known as Honors English Seminar: Extended Inquiry will be specifically focusing on Labyrinths in Literature and Architecture. Ms. Bell said, “We love our one semester seminar model…But one thing we have found with one semester seminars is that sometimes when we want to study some bigger topic[s] or do a longer extended project you don’t have a lot of space…so we want to have an extended inquiry or year long seminar to accommodate topics that need more time and space to develop.” She also stated, “We want to create more time and space for students to study something and work on their own independent project.” Next year has various promising seminars, both new and returning, that are sure to be interesting for the students enrolled.

The Humanities Department has also added a number of new courses, such as Environmental Economics and Policy and China & India Since World War II. Ms. Everett, Upper School Humanities teacher and Chair of the Humanities Department, cited various reasons for the decision to add new courses. She stated, “We are always trying to make sure that we are updating and adjusting our curriculum so that it can be the best educational experience for our children.” She also noted that the Humanities Department wanted to ensure that the 4 years of Humanities courses required in order to graduate are spent well. RCDS is currently moving away from Advanced Placement (AP) classes, which was a significant factor in the decisions to offer certain courses in the History Department. Ms. Everett noted that there are some gaps in what is being taught, such as no Latin American history offering. However, she states that the process of adding new courses for future years is not yet complete. 

Students in the Upper School seem to be content with the new changes in the curriculum. Emma Camillo ‘27 said, “I actually really like it. I like the idea of a year-long seminar mainly because I have an interest in English.” She added, “I like the other types of seminars they have because I feel like they are a little more specific and people who might have a specific interest in those or might not know anything about those subjects would totally take the class.”

The new changes in the English and Humanities Departments’ curriculums seem to be promising, and are making the time of course selection more interesting!