Starting the first semester of the 2025-2026 school year, students were required to take an English exam, along with their math, science, and social science exams. This new exam worked to ensure students retain the information learned in their English classes and urge them to keep up in class as the semester winds down.
Wesleyan has decided to add this exam to keep students ready for college, and to equally qualify them as other schools most likely have English exams as well. When asked why the exam was put into place, Head of High School English Department Katie Wischerth said “we are the only core content area that does not give an exam.” “The English department sees value in holding students to a standard that requires that they retain information and skills we are teaching,” This allows the department to get a better understanding of students writing without any influence of artificial intelligence. “We can better align our instruction with a clear end goal for each semester, and it helps with vertical alignment of our 9th-12th curriculum as well.” This gives students a reason to keep retaining their information from the semester.
With the new exam, students must prepare more than they have ever had to before. Students are beginning to come up with study plans, for each of their classes with exams, to be best prepared for all of them. When asked how he would prepare, Junior Matthew Boateng said, “Each day I have taken two of my classes that have exams, and study their units, so the first day I did math and bio, and I studied unit one for both. The next day I did math and English, and studies unit two for math, and the first book we read for English, and so on and so forth.” The new amount of work load is influencing some students to not apply themselves to their fullest potential.
Many students and teachers have very strong opinions on this new exam, and most were not particularly ecstatic. When asked how the new exam can be beneficial, not one student replied positively. Not all find bad in it though. English teacher Joesph Coooper expressed, “Sure it does create a little extra work for all of us, but looking at the big picture, English literature class is reading the four books and seeing themes and how they relate to the human condition. But go deeper, and apply all that we know from the class and even apply them to our lives, and the wisdom that you can get from that is far superior to any other class you will take an exam in.”
Although most students weren’t particularly ecstatic for the new exam, it gave students the opportunity to exercise and build upon their writing and English skills. Being a sufficient writer is an important attribute to have at every stage in life, and the English exam will help students hone these skills.
