English 4 will no longer be an option for seniors next year to align all the high schools to have the same classes. This will leave students with more variety in their English classes and more of an opportunity to choose a focus of a class they are interested in.
“In order to make sure all the Parkway high schools were alike, we wanted to make sure we’re all offering the same types of courses. English 4 is what was offered at North and one other school, but the other two high schools did not have it,” English chair Mark Bannecker said.
Instead of choosing English 4, future seniors will have to choose an English elective to fulfill their fourth credit of English required by the state.Some of the choices include Film Studies which focuses on critical thinking about films and the larger context that it may hold; another choice would be Debate as it is designed to practice organizational and public speaking skills.
“Students will still pick another English class. That will just replace English 4. Right now, we know we don’t have that many sections of English 4…Instead, [we’re going to] give students a bigger variety of classes, choices, mostly electives, while still offering some traditional choices as well,” Bannecker said.
These changes will be in place as soon as the school year ends and re-opens up for next year. With students having recently chosen their classes, this closes a choice they had but opens up other opportunities.
“I am probably just going to take creative writing,” junior Angeline Miller, who is thinking about taking Creative Writing and Film and Composition next year, said. “I think we should get more TV and Film classes – script writing.”
Since courses can be a full year or a semester long, a change in the schedule or disruption of classes won’t be as huge with English 4 coming and going. Students will also be able to explore different interests in different semesters.
“I’m not going to take English 4 next year…I was considering various electives for next year,” junior Alex Beck, who is thinking about taking AP literature and Composition, said.
Unfortunately, since the Parkway District offers many electives in the English department, not all of the electives can be offered every year since there is not enough staffing.
“There were a few electives. I think one of them was sci-fi composition, something along those lines that I don’t think was going to have enough staffing for next year, so hopefully in the future that has enough staffing to be an actual course,” Beck said.
This is not the first time the high schools have decided to align in their plans. Academic Labs and the overall daily schedule has been changed in the past to align with the other high schools.
