AP English Literature and Composition is one of the 11 full year English courses you can take at SHS. But, in recent years, the number of students taking the course has diminished significantly, according to Head of SHS English Department and AP Literature teacher Laura Fitch.

“I inherited four classes,” Fitch said. “There was a long period where we had seven sections…It’s been a long time since we’ve had more than two [classes]. We kind of toggle between one and two sections year to year. Pre-COVID even, we started to shrink a little bit.”

This reduction in the number of students taking this class is a massive loss not only for the SHS English department, but also for the general state of the humanities in academia.

AP Literature teacher Jessica Grondolsky said this drop in students, among other reasons, could be because of a larger undervaluation of the humanities in schools nationwide.

“I think that we focus a lot on STEM, which I think is valuable, and I, in no way, am I saying we shouldn’t,” Grondolsky said. “But I do think that the focus on the arts and on the humanities, sometimes, has gotten a little bit of the short stick.”

Humanities disciplines such as history, literature and philosophy are one of the most fundamental avenues we have in order to understand each other as humans. Unlike STEM disciplines like math and physics, the humanities help us understand who we are beyond the physical world.

What does it mean to be human? How do humans relate to each other? How can I connect to others through my experiences and identity? These are the questions the humanities, especially AP Literature, help answer.

“Humanity comes out in literature,” Grondolsky said. “Even if you like or don’t like a book, you can still learn a lot from it. Even if a work is difficult, sometimes, doing the work with the book becomes an achievement, and that’s valuable. I think it’s sort of a nice capstone experience for four years of studying English here. For students who like to read, or students who love to read, or even like to read a little bit, it’s a good way for them to hopefully have some fun with literature. And, it’s not as hard as people think.”

According to senior and AP Literature student Lilah Anders, even if you already have a strong foundation in English, AP Literature helps you go a step deeper.

“In the past years, whenever [teachers have] been like: ‘annotate this book, annotate this book,’ I’ve always been like: ‘ah, I don’t really want to, I don’t really get the purpose of it, it doesn’t help me understand it,’” Anders said. “But, something about the way that Ms Fitch teaches has had something click for me. And now, it’s like, yes, I want to annotate. Yes, I have actual thoughts now about the passages.”

The skills AP Literature helps students develop do not stop here.

“[Students] will definitely become better writers,” Fitch said. “The students who are going on to college are going to write, [and] they have no idea how much they’re going to write at school. The ability to write, it’s not authentic necessarily to write in a time setting per se, which is what we do, but I think that is a great drill for students that become really strong writers by the end of it.”

Not only do you write about, read and discuss compelling works of literature, you learn skills that extend beyond English class.

“The skill set that we focus on [is] deep critical thinking, reading and the ability to communicate the nuances and the subtleties, the complexities, if you will, of a work, a piece, whatever that might be,” Fitch said. “[This] is translatable to any subject. So that’s kind of at our core.”

The ability to think critically, draw conclusions from presented information and present your ideas clearly not only will make you a better thinker, it will help you later in life no matter what you choose to do.

The environment of AP Literature can help students develop these skills more strongly.

“[The class] very much has a college seminar feel,” Fitch said. “We run like a Socratic Seminar most of the time. People raise hands and things like that. The cliche way of saying it is: I am the guide on the side. I’m there to facilitate conversations between students about literature and poetry.”

The way that AP Literature is structured as a class creates a special atmosphere, one which I think is uncommon in a lot of other classes at SHS.

“Sometimes the group just gels in such a way that it feels like a classroom of real camaraderie,” Grondosky said. “The last couple years, I had really fabulous groups and just such a delightful class period every day. It was a joy to walk into the room, be with the kids. It felt like we were all enjoying the literature together. And I was guiding it, but they were really doing the hard work of it. Sometimes the things that would come out were just really enlightening. They really stay with you. It really sticks with you. When the kids are interested in the material, the whole room has a different energy.”

Although it is an AP class with thorough discussions and textual analysis, the work that students do is not profuse according to Anders.

“There is homework pretty much every day, but it’s not overwhelming in the slightest,” Anders said. “It’s like you have to read this poem, but we’re gonna talk about it more the next day. So, you don’t have to stress too much about trying to know everything before you come to class. The tests are, there’s not really a ton you can do to prepare for it, which is kind of relieving for me in a way, because I don’t have to worry about finding time to study for it. So it’s really an achievable way to have an AP course that doesn’t take up too much of your life outside the class.”

The value of taking AP Literature extends beyond just the course load and skills you will cultivate.

“Sometimes the students we get now are the ones who maybe love literature the most, which I think is wonderful,” Grondolsky said. “But in some ways, I think kids maybe decide not to take it, ’cause they’re afraid they’re not going to love all the works. [I think they’re] really depriving themselves of an opportunity to maybe fall in love with literature in a way that they didn’t expect, or even experience a work that might impact them in a way that they didn’t anticipate. So I do wish more kids would give it that chance again because it offers so many valuable things.”

People’s exposure to literature is sometimes lost in our ever growing online world, people need to challenge this phenomenon and actively work to discuss works and poems.

“[Take AP Literature to gain] an appreciation specifically of literature and poetry because where else in our lives do we take the time to do that?” Fitch said. “For students who are like: ‘yeah, I don’t know what to read or I don’t always read a lot on my own,’ that may seem counterintuitive to taking the class, but I think that’s the reason to take it. Be introduced to new literature and poetry that you wouldn’t find on your own.”