Starting this year, juniors and seniors are enrolled in mixed-grade English electives during the second semester, replacing the juniors’ full-year classes and the electives once exclusive to seniors. There are two ways to look at this issue: from the junior perspective and from the senior perspective. Both, however, are undesirable.

To give some context, juniors and seniors used to have mixed English classes in the past. In recent years, juniors have taken year-long English courses: AP English Language, AP English Literature or English 3: Rebels. But with the administration’s broader goals of replacing APs with honors classes and giving students more choice in their course selection, juniors now take a junior-only English course for the first semester and enroll in English electives along with seniors during the second semester.

Mixed-grade English electives sound promising at first glance: increasing course offerings, and as Upper School Director John Schafer told The Coat of Arms in 2019 for a story about senior projects, “the energy of the juniors […] buoy[ing] the low energy of the seniors” are good ideas. But mixed-grade electives don’t work in practice.

Addressing the 11th-grade perspective and Schafer’s first point — I found my junior year AP Lang course revolutionary. Through myriad timed writes, I improved my general writing skills, and thanks to fun take-home projects, I bettered my creative writing abilities. With a year-long class, I also bonded more closely with my teacher and classmates. Juniors no longer get to experience an unforgettable class like mine — the course material is condensed into one semester, excising fun projects and shortening the time needed to form tight bonds.

Juniors can still take rhetoric (honors) or literature (honors or non-honors), but they lose out on a lot — such as the satire and editorial projects from AP Lang — and must independently study for the AP test if they want to take it.

Now onto the seniors. As a senior, I have taken one more year of English classes compared to juniors, and I feel that my writing skills have improved significantly since last year. This disparity highlights the problem with combining juniors and seniors in English classes. Students at Menlo, for example, are divided into multiple math levels within each grade to accommodate varying skill levels. Mixing grades in English ignores these differences.

Additionally, as a second-semester senior, this is the last English class that I will take at Menlo, and my hope is that it is fun and not too stressful. I plan to enjoy the class bonding with my fellow seniors; having English classes with only seniors will allow me to make those connections most closely during our last semester at Menlo.

What’s more, the second semester of junior year is a demanding time, and I don’t think juniors and seniors have a compatible ‘vibe.’ Let’s face it: many seniors have an infamous disease called senioritis: the infected experience a severe lack of motivation. Just like other diseases, senioritis is contagious. Seeing seniors not doing the work can and will expose juniors to this condition. And no, adding healthy juniors to the mix will not heal the seniors — it will infect the juniors and jeopardize their most important semester of high school.

So, these mixed-grade English electives ignore each grade’s distinct motivation and skill levels and deprive juniors of the invaluable year-long English classes that taught me and my classmates so much. More choice and fewer APs aren’t a one-size-fits-all approach, and the previous English system should be reinstated.