We need a wider variety of English electives

STORY Milo K. GUEST WRITER

English is the most overlooked discipline at Nueva by far, and senior seminars are not the solution. Rather than one core English class every senior takes, they are instead placed into one of eight senior seminars instead. These classes, created based on the individual teacher’s interest, serve as a way for students to culminate their learning, for teachers to teach about subjects they are passionate about, and for non-seniors to challenge themselves with a more difficult class. These classes provide an opportunity to dive deeply into niche topics, such as Victorian literature or memoirs.

As someone who has taken one, they are fantastic classes where the passion of the teacher, sophistication of discussion, and uniqueness of the curriculum all shine through. The assigned texts, essay prompts, and environment are all challenging but not impossible for both seniors and the juniors that are enrolled. They serve their intended purpose as a culmination really well.

However, the seminars are not immune to criticism. For seniors, not being allowed to decide which seminar they are interested in diminishes the value of these unique curricula, causing them to feel like another core English class rather than the unique and specialized culmination they are intended to be.

While juniors can experience a similar problem, taking a senior seminar in junior year introduces separate challenges.

incredible, they shouldn't be the only option

Because these seminars are supposed to be a full English curriculum, students participate in two separate, full English classes with high expectations for both reading and writing. I personally struggled with burnout due to the quantity of reading in both classes together, and had to ask for extensions due to essay deadlines being too closely aligned with each other.

Unfortunately, the quantity of senior seminars is not matched by the quantity of general English electives. According to Kevin Dineen, the director of scheduling at the upper school, a junior has four potential English electives available to them, and underclassmen have only three, due to not being able to take a senior seminar. Compared to the 10 history electives, 20 computer science and ILab electives, and 15 science electives offered in a year, the quantity of English and literature electives are lacking.

This however, is not because of a lack of interest. Creative writing has three separate blocks due to demand, cinema studies has around 15 students each semester, and journalism is consistently an elective with around 20 students, where freshman and sophomores are often unable to get in due to this demand. Last semester there were no freshmen and three sophomores within the class, despite interest. There is a desire for English electives, and more specific ones such as playwriting or contemporary literature could attract even more audiences to the English program, but unfortunately due to the lack of free blocks for teachers, further opportunities to create English electives are severely limited.

With the current amount of English staff at the school and the requirement for four full years of an English core curriculum, creating additional electives for interested students becomes more of a challenge. However, senior seminars increase the difficulty of this. Senior seminars require eight separate teachers to plan a full curriculum both semesters, and to devote a block of time to teaching it. This amount of time is approximately equivalent to teaching an elective, meaning that without the requirement of senior seminars, electives would be much easier to create.

On the scheduling side, eight blocks of senior seminars are necessary. Because of the unique challenges senior scheduling has — six electives are difficult to implement in one schedule — having the consistency of eight senior seminars is necessary. This is why seniors no longer pick the seminars that interest them. But because seniors can not pick what seminar they are placed in, the variety is less necessary, and would be better served in an elective environment. If some of the time dedicated to planning senior seminars were instead dedicated to creating more elective opportunities, the senior seminar program would not be severely affected, and the English program as a whole would become more accessible and robust.

I remember hearing someone say once that if you want to be invited to places or to be a part of a conversation, you basically have to forcefully insert yourself without being asked. I don’t know if I’d advocate for that exactly, but maybe something along those lines: you have to push yourself and be there if you want to be. Find an in into a conversation with a new group of people or make it clear you’d like to hang out more and then initiate plans. You never know until you try.

Sometimes it ends up being really awkward or uncomfortable, and part of the process of learning about yourself is either acclimating in those moments, or, accepting the discomfort, trying your best, and then letting yourself move on.

Comparison, especially of social lives (I think, enviously, all the time "how can that person have the time to be on top of their academics, extracurriculars, and have time to hang out with their friends?") can be detrimental. We go to a school that requires a lot of our energy and time, so it seems impossible to me that some people can use their weekends and afternoons to do fun things with their friends. At the end of the day though, just saying or acknowledging that such a mentality is useless doesn’t actually change anything (although of course it is useless), unless you’ve tried whatever you think you’re jealous of.

It’s okay to know that comparison and the feeling of being left out are ruling your life, but you don’t have to let it stay that way.