With the imminent approach of another school year ahead, modifications to Kent’s academic curriculum were recently presented to students. One of the most significant changes is within the English Department.
Previously, juniors at Kent would take either Regular or Honors-Level English 3, while seniors would be able to enroll in term-contained English electives. To allow students to pursue a greater plethora of subtopics within English and develop various analytical and literary skill sets, the English curriculum for the 2025-2026 school year has been changed to allow both juniors and seniors to take diverse term-contained English electives. This has also resulted in the creation of an extensive list of brand new electives, taught by various teachers during different terms of the year.
The process of implementing these changes occurred over the past three years. The English Department came together as a whole to develop ideas during department meetings, analyze student input, discuss/compare systems with other schools, and dedicate time over the summers to evaluate the current curriculum and how to progress moving forward. Ms. Campbell, the English Department Chair, elaborates, “It’s been a long process, and at each step, we were guided by our English Department Mission Statement and by the Mission of the School.”
From these changes, the English Department hopes that students grow a greater love of reading and writing. Ms. Campbell explains, “I personally am excited for students to have the opportunity to take a wider variety of writing courses earlier in their Kent career – poetry writing, fiction writing, and nonfiction writing.” She adds, “We zeroed in on the fact that we want students to be able to analyze works of literature and recognize their significance in their own lives.” She, along with all other members of the English Department, hopes that these advancements to the English curriculum will enhance the quality of English course experiences at Kent, whether for passionate teachers sharing their interests and creativity in new literary subdisciplines, or for excited students broadening their English interests in pursuing more diversified courses that they personally find important.
In these ways, Kent’s academic curricula continues to progress each year, striving to improve student experiences starting inside the classroom in the form of unique course topics and enthusiastic faculty, working its way out to the broader community in the form of lively dorm discussions and genuine connections to other like-minded readers and writers. The addition of these electives creates an overall community anchored in collective academic enthusiasm and student-personalized pathways to success, as scholars, readers, critics, writers, and people.
