Honors English IV will not be offered next year, leaving juniors to pick another English course. Over 100 seniors are currently enrolled in five sections of the class.
Other than Honors English IV, Dr. Lauren Katzman, Literacy and Performing Arts department head, says juniors have many more specific, semester long options for senior English courses.
“One of the philosophies the English department has for senior year is choice[…] In terms of choice, [Honors English IV] was the more standard English course that didn’t have a subject that was specific and was a year long,” Katzman said.
Every senior English course is a semester long except for AP Literature and Composition and Honors English IV. However, some students, like Melodi Magluyan, senior, do not want to choose a specific semester long English course and prefer Honors English IV’s multitude of topics.
“I think what drew me towards Honors English IV was the units, I knew that we were going to work on our college essay for the first few units and I knew I needed that knowing how busy I was going to be the next year. And it just worked out and it’s helping me,” Magluyan said.Along with allowing her to work on her college essay, Magluyan said that Honors English IV made the most sense with her schedule.
“I was already taking two AP classes[…] so I knew that [another AP class] was going to be too much AP workload,” Magluyan, who took AP Language and Composition last year, said. “I’m a little upset and confused as to why [Honors English IV is not being offered next year] because I know so many people in my honors English IV class are AP students and do take AP classes. They just didn’t take [AP Literature and Composition] because they already have so many [AP classes].”
Though Magluyan believes the decision was made partly to encourage more students to take more advanced courses like AP Literature and Composition, Katzman says this was not the case and that AP classes did not impact the decision.
“[Trying to get more students to take AP classes] wasn’t a factor. We’re not guiding students one way or the other. I think that’s a decision that students have to make for what’s best for them,” Katzman said. “It was a decision made to give [students] more choice. That seems counterintuitive to eliminating a choice but they’ll have more choice being able to take things per semester and there’ll still be honors courses for them to take.”
Honors English IV was the best class for Magluyan but she agreed that others might enjoy Public Speaking or Creative Writing more. Like Katzman, she said that student choice is the most important factor in course decision, but believed that choice was already present.
“If they keep [Honors English IV as an] option,” Magluyan said, “we would still have the option to choose [to take other available classes].”
