Two new English semester classes, to be taught by English teachers Jennifer Hankins and Leslie Miller, were recently approved for seniors to take starting the 2021-22 school year.

The classes were created by the English teachers in response to the large social justice movement during summer and fall of 2020, as well as student input about the lack of diversity in author and literature selection within the English department.

“The courses were met with a lot of enthusiasm because we’re really in the spirit of the social movements — our work with Dr. [Terry] Walker, our equity consultant, the student-led movement [and now] diversifying our narrative to add diverse voices to the English department,” Director of Curriculum and Instruction Dr. Jay Greenlinger said. 

The Own Voices English class will be taught by Miller, who said that the class will focus on works by authors who “haven’t been heard from very often, have been overlooked, have been pushed to the margins [or] have been silenced.” This includes authors with different ethnic backgrounds, gender orientations and other facets of identity.

The curriculum will focus on “very high interest, young adult novels,” according to Miller, such as “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe” by Benjamin Alire Sáenz, “Becoming” by Michelle Obama and “Reading Lolita in Tehran” by Azar Nafisí. With these books, the class will be structured in a book club and seminar fashion.

According to Greenlinger, new classes are created by adhering to California State Standards and creating similar guidelines for already approved courses from the UC Admissions Office. The outline of the class is then passed through Oak Park High School administration, site, curriculum council and Board of Education to be approved.

“Our teachers are pretty unique in the way that they find pretty innovative and creative ways of reaching those standards,” Greenlinger said.

Miller believes that storytelling is a powerful artform that transforms lives and helps people be more connected, empathetic and tolerant. With this class, she hopes the stories from different authors of color will further the impacts of storytelling to audiences.

“The hope for me is that people — students, seniors — read these different types of authors, hear these different types of stories, are exposed to different types of background and experiences, and are uplifted,” Miller said.

As a result of the classes, Greenlinger hopes that the district is one step closer to fulfilling their motto of educating compassionate and creative global citizens.

“One of the things that we look to do, especially with new courses at the high school and especially in senior courses, is to add an element of involvement in outward activism from our students,” Greenlinger said. “It would be a dream for every graduating senior to have done something in their community or school to instigate positive change based on something that they’ve learned to become passionate about at our school.”