The study of English at Palmer Trinity School seeks a point of balance between the broad, pragmatic use of language as a tool of communication and the humanistic, values-based appreciation of works that are, in Matthew Arnold’s words, “the best that has been thought and said.”

Upon graduation, the student of English should be able to:

• Read with mastery of comprehension and of critical insight across a variety of genres — and with an eye towards one’s own improvement as a writer (Reading Skills)
• Write across a range of academic, practical, and creative forms with the understanding the effective writing — as well as speaking and research — comes out of a process of many stages (Writing Skills)
• Think with an open mind across an array of cultural frameworks with mastery of the higher thinking skills of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation (Thinking Skills)
• Understand that literacy extends to visual and digital media — particularly with respect to narrative and persuasion — in both the ability to create and evaluate materials (Media Literacy Skills)
• Cultivate the ability to question; to listen; to communicate clearly, confidently, and aptly; to be sensitive to the importance of language, and to seek connections between classroom learning and the real world (Social Communication Skills)

Members of the English Department are mindful of the ways in which knowledge can be a product of worldview and culture; nevertheless, the student who has completed the department’s curriculum should know:

• A broad range of canonical and emerging texts from a variety of genres and cultural contexts — selected for quality, for appropriately challenging students, and for keeping with the school’s values and mission (Textual Knowledge)
• A rich and varied college-ready vocabulary with attention paid to roots and etymology, to pronunciation and degrees of formality, and with concern for fostering an ongoing sophisticated and concise use of language (Vocabulary Knowledge)
• A practical array of terms related to rhetorical devices and strategies and to literary analysis and periods (Analytical Knowledge)

All courses reflect the recognition of a degree of practical preparation in the study of grammar and vocabulary relevant to the ACT, SAT, and other forms of standardized testing. With the exception of Advanced Placement courses, however, instruction is primarily focused on reaching departmental learning objectives— from which such testing skills should emerge.

With regard to placement in the Upper School, for students studying at the college preparatory, honors, and Advanced Placement level, the department considers the level of mastery a student demonstrates in the skills and knowledge domains described above. In the high school, at the college preparatory level, students will show developing or sufficient performance across the range of learning domains; at the honors level, students will have shown sufficiency or mastery across those domains; Advanced Placement students should show mastery across most domains.

Outside of the classroom, the Department of English seeks to support students in their pursuit of reading, writing, speaking, and publication through a variety of co-curricular groups, clubs, and activities: the Center for Writing, book clubs, visiting writers, participation in school assemblies, the literary magazine Green Sky Blue Grass, the Raptor yearbook, digital journalism through PTSFalconer.com, and Arts and Literature Night, and student entry into a variety of writing contests and selective writing programs.