The English Department at Seattle Academy prepares students for college and life through the practice of essential communication skills. Our curriculum is based first and foremost in writing, and students are asked to practice writing everything from analytical essays to personal narratives, creative pieces to research papers, speeches to expository compositions. Special emphasis is placed on crafting, communicating, and defending arguments utilizing well-chosen evidence, as well as paying careful attention to voice and tone. Additionally, the department also stresses the importance of close reading as a critical skill and as a means of appreciating the world’s literature. Lastly, we ask students to live the Culture of Performance and offer them opportunities to perform their knowledge and demonstrate their skill mastery in class discussion and presentations. Fundamentally, the English Department recognizes and embraces the fact that students come to the study of English with different educational experiences in the humanities; disparate skill sets as readers, writers, speakers, and thinkers; and varying levels of interest in the material. Taking this into account, the English faculty are dedicated to meeting students’ differentiated needs, offering an appropriate level of challenge relative to students’ skills, and providing students opportunities for academic growth, progress, and success, broadly construed.
Students learn to speak confidently and to create presentations that are original, content-rich, and organized. While giving a presentation to the class or during a seminar discussion about a literary text, we ask students to practice combining disparate skills in moments of action.
Students take on leadership roles and help one another understand the ideas, issues, and values reflected in a text or topic through group discussion. They practice how to listen to one another, to make meaning, and to find common ground while participating in conversation.
Students learn how to apply their abilities and knowledge to the world beyond the classroom. They learn how to think from other perspectives, how to grapple with dilemmas in real-time, and how to solve challenges that real institutions face. By developing traditional literacies within projects that promote problem-based learning, we ask students to consider the past, present, and the future.
The English department at Seattle Academy aims to prepare students for college and life through practice of core communication skills: reading, writing, researching, presenting, listening, and critical thinking. We want students to operate with confidence in the academic world but also to be able to use the skills and competencies developed through their English education in their everyday lives.
