The mission of The English Department at Park East High School is to create independent and critical thinkers. We seek to prepare students for the challenges of college level work and encourage them to explore the world and their place in it. We offer a four-year sequence of ELA courses aligned with Common Core standards.
Students will read diverse and rigorous texts to develop their understanding of themselves and the world around them. Through our intensive writing program, students will develop the ability to build and sustain logical arguments, understand and synthesize multiple sources, and to write creatively.
As a department, we believe students benefit from exposure to both classical and contemporary texts. We work closely with the history department to make sure students are reading texts that compliment the ideas they are exploring in their history courses, whether it be chronologically or thematically. Freshmen and sophomores study global texts and issues and juniors go on to study American literature. During their senior year, while they are taking government and economics classes, ELA students use classical lenses to explore the challenges of the contemporary world. Along with our four-year cycle we offer AP Language and Composition to juniors and AP Literature and Composition to seniors. We also offer rotating English electives like A Survey of Shakespeare, Social Justice, Literary Drama, Yearbook, Poetry, Research and Technology, and Literature and the Seven Deadly Sins.