The Edina High School English department recently underwent drastic curriculum changes and course overhauls to include new course options for each grade level, add in College in the Schools courses, and notably, the breakup of AP US Literature and Language.
These changes were driven by a curriculum review each department engages in every seven to 10 years. EHS APULL teacher Heidi Degener represents the English department as a member of the curriculum committee, alongside teachers Sarah Burgess and Theresa Bademan. “We work with the district people and then we work with our department as a whole to make decisions,” Degener said. One of the curriculum committee’s major decisions was to split up APULL, a course available to EHS juniors for many years.
APULL combines aspects of two separate classes offered by the College Board, AP Literature and AP Language. Due to this, APULL prepared students to take two separate AP tests in May requiring students to write six essays in total. Many high schools that offer AP Literature and AP Language do not combine the two classes because of how dense and demanding the courses are on their own. Minnetonka High School, comparable in size and rigor to EHS, does not merge AP Literature and AP Language.
In the past, students have felt dissuaded from taking APULL because the class seems too challenging to take alongside other APs. “Sometimes APULL seems like it takes up too much. It’s too much of a commitment and a student might feel like they can’t do the other things they want to do. So by splitting them up, we feel like more kids will have more access to it,” Degener said. “[With] junior year being such a heavy academic year, [there were] some concerns for kids who are taking four or five or six AP exams,” APULL teacher Kristin Benson said.
Juniors will now have the option to take AP Language alone, a new course to EHS that draws and expands upon the non-fiction and rhetoric components of APULL. “There will be a primary focus on language and nonfiction. But there will still be some fictional work, or maybe narrative nonfiction, and also some poetry pieces, because we can’t neglect all of those things that are still part of our standards for the course,” Benson said. AP Language was ultimately chosen as the AP English option for juniors because the department felt it was an easier course than AP Literature, which will be offered to seniors next year. “I think that the Lang exam is easier than the Lit exam, and we’re making sure kids know that … AP Lang could be a stepping stone to AP Lit, but it could also be the one AP English course a kid takes,” Degener said.
Changes to the curriculum have resulted in more opportunities for personalization. “Part of the redesign was to create more choices for kids. We looked at our elective choices against other comparative schools, and we just didn’t have as much choice for kids, especially in the upper grades,” Benson said. Students are now able to earn college credit through the University of Minnesota by taking new courses CIS Writing Studio and CIS Intro to Literature. CIS Writing Studio is open to both juniors and seniors, while CIS Intro to Lit is only available to seniors. “We wanted more on-ramps for college-level work as opposed to just having APULL junior year and then AP World Literature. We now are creating opportunities for college in the schools,” Benson said.
In redesigning the curriculum and separating APULL, the EHS English department hopes the new curriculum will become more accessible to students. “I certainly [have] a lot of pride in this course that I’ve been a part of for a long time. And that has served a lot of kids really well. So I have some mixed emotions, but mostly [am] very positive towards the way this will serve more students,” Benson said.
