As high school ELA teachers, it is our goal to provide challenging and stimulating materials in order to prepare students for college and careers. We aim to develop the students’ creativity and critical thinking skills of through a variety of reading, writing and spoken language tasks focusing on original thought and critical thinking instead of regurgitating information. We want to ensure that all students are given the opportunity to flourish. Therefore, we study a range of texts from a variety of different eras and countries and encourage all students to complete tasks in range of different mediums. As a department, we cover both fiction and non-fiction extensively. Fiction reading includes novels, short stories, plays and poetry. Non-fiction nonfiction readings include essays, journalism, political writing, science writing, nature writing, autobiographies/biographies, diaries, history, and criticism. We emphasize philosophy, psychology, and moral reasoning in conjunction with all of our texts.
