The English Department at Burlington High School wants to provide students with the best learning atmosphere, so there have been changes and will be future improvements within the department.
The English Department focus is to “unify what we teach in our writing component, increase our grammatical study in grades 9 and 10, introducing new texts across all four years at BHS, and providing better support for students who request more assistance with reading and writing” stated Department Head Mr. Lally.
With a new school year, there is always a change. Mrs. Ford and Ms. Graham have returned from their maternity leave absences. Unfortunately, Mr. Field, a Public speaking and Creative Writing teacher, retired at the end of last year. After the long use of Word Wealth and the Sadlier Oxford books, this year freshmen are being introduced to an online vocabulary textbook. Also, the vocabulary textbook in in the process of being translated into an iTunes app was released called Exploros, and this text will be extended to the sophomore classes starting next year.
Also, there has been a variety of books added to the core classes. Some of the books included are Hamilton’s Mythology ( gr 9), The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (gr 10) and Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck and Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer (gr 11) as well as units on Media Literacy and Eastern European Fiction to our British and World Literature class (gr12).
The core courses offered at BHS is Introduction to Literature I during Freshmen year, Introduction to Literature II during Sophomore Year, American Literature or AP Language & Composition during Junior Year, and British and World Literature or AP Literature & Composition.
The English Department is the largest department at BHS. The Department itself has 16 teachers. Also, it is one of only two departments that requires all four full years to graduate. The first two years focus on a broad range of literary styles, with a greater stress on grammar and vocabulary acquisition, while the last two years are studies in American Literature during junior year, and British/World Literature during senior year.
There will be two new classes in January, Young Adult Fiction and Creative Writing: Poetry. The Creative Writing Course has existed at BHS for many years, but it has never had a class dedicated entirely to writing poetry.
If students want to focus their studies in the subject of English, they can take electives or clubs along with their current English course. The English electives and clubs offered here at BHS are Collab, Idle Hands, Poetry Club,Debate Team, Future Teachers of America, and Factahalon.
Collab is a national award-winning literary magazine published by the students of BHS, Idle Hands is BHS Improv Club, Poetry Club is where students can make poems and recite them, Debate Team is where students prepare for and participate in formal competitive debates and sponsors forums and open discussion to the student body, Future Teachers of America is where students explore careers in education , and Factahalon is where volunteer students make teams of four to compete, using a quiz show format.
The upcoming events for this year is Poetry Out Loud, and Collab writing contests for seniors “For the first time, the Poetry Out Loud finals will be treated as an in-house field trip for all seniors,” explained Mr. Lally, the head of the English Department. In the past, a lot of seniors were not able to see the entire final round because of schedule conflicts. This year, BHS will invite all senior down to watch the finals in their entirety.
Overall, the English Department is creating new changes to improve students here at BHS, Lally states “ The English Department is a pleasure working with such a dedicated and energetic group of peers.”
