By Jennifer Zhang

Originally published on January 7, 2016

The administration will no longer offer ninth grade English Honors classes starting this spring semester in an effort to increase equity and access to junior and senior AP English classes.

Assistant principal of curriculum Dacotah Swett said that the removal of the class will allow for more students to be able to take AP English in their junior and senior years without being held back by not taking an honors class freshman year.

Up until this school year, freshmen could enroll in English honors in the spring semester if they were selected based on a placement test they took during the first semester, their fall semester English grade, and a teacher recommendation. The students could continue taking honors English sophomore year and then AP English junior year.

In 2013, 200 out of 666 freshmen took the honors placement test and 134 were accepted into honors English, according to English department head Meredith Santiago.

But students who did not take honors freshman year could still get to AP English through other paths. All sophomores have the option to take a transition course, English 71H, followed by AP English junior year. Seniors who never enrolled in an honors English class also have the option of taking a special AP Language and Composition class.

Lowell traditionally offered two 71H classes each spring semester. Until five years ago, when English 71H was changed to open enrollment, sophomores needed a teacher’s recommendation and a minimum B-grade in their first semester English class to enroll. Student enrollment in English 71H has doubled in the past five years without the elimination of English honors: student interest in the class increased last year, so the school began offering three 71H classes, and this semester, the school is offering four 71H classes.

Swett said that eliminating the freshman English Honors course could benefit emerging writers at Lowell who want to take AP English classes later on, but might be discouraged by not taking freshman English Honors. “AP English is hard, we all know that,” Swett said. “I do not want the path to AP English classes to be closed to any student after only one semester at Lowell.”

Although Santiago does not consider the removal of freshman English Honors necessarily the best way to promote greater equity, she is keeping a positive outlook about the effects of the decision. “I’m not angry about the change, and I’m aware of the problems this will cause,” she said. “It’s going to be a shift in thinking for the English department that will take a couple years for us to get accustomed to the way we’re going to do things, but I think we can do it. I think allowing more students to take AP classes is a positive thing.”

The school administration sees no point in offering an honors English class if it does not help boost students’ grades. Unlike usual honors classes, freshman English Honors is not weighted.

Freshmen who wanted to enroll in English Honors were required to take a placement test in which they wrote analytical essays about a poem. English teachers administered and graded the tests, which required additional funds from the Parent Teacher Student Association, according to Santiago.

English teacher Nicole Henares, who taught ninth grade honors for four years, disapproves of the class being no longer offered. “I think it’s a complete and utter disservice for students who want to study literature at a higher level and want to be challenged a bit more than regular classes,” Henares said. “The honors program does a lot of frontloading to prepare students for AP, and without those honors programs, how are students expected to survive an AP class?”

Henares believes Lowell’s English honors placement test was good. “It was meant to be inclusive; we aren’t trying to keep anyone out,” she said. “The honors class should be for students who really want to take honors English — not their parents, but them. Not having it is just unfair.”

Henares also said that the way her regular and honors classes are taught are very different since texts discussed in honors are more difficult. In order to accommodate for not having ninth grade English honors next semester, Henares said she will be keeping the focus about writing across the curriculum and that the writing will be more argument- and theme-based expository writing rather than literary analysis.

Freshman Aerin Young initially thought taking away honors was unfair but does not mind the change. “I personally do really like English so I’d be interested in taking honors,” she said. “I’m still learning a lot in regular English though, so I don’t feel like I’m missing out. I’m not upset.”

Sophomore Scout Mucher, who took the honors placement test freshman year but did not pass, thinks that freshmen should have the opportunity to take honors English. “If they don’t get in, then it doesn’t matter, but if they do, it might make a big difference in their English skills and writing,” she said. “Not getting into honors English never discouraged me. I still want to challenge myself by taking honors now and AP later.”

But taking honors sophomore year, as Mucher is, may become an impossibility in the near future. The removal of ninth grade English Honors has also sparked the issue of whether or not tenth grade English honors should also be removed, because sophomores are currently required to take honors before taking junior AP English.

The big question is how the English teachers will prepare their students with skills to take AP later on without honors classes, according to Santiago. “The issue right now is I don’t know exactly how it’s going to be done,” Santiago said. “We’re still working that out.”