In January, three sophomore English classes will be sitting for the NYS English Regents. In previous years, students only took the English Regents in January of their junior year. This year, the English Department decided to pilot having some sophomore classes take the Regents during their sophomore year. Should the pilot go well, all students will take the English Regents in their sophomore year moving forward.
Sophomore English teacher and Classic advisor Brian Sweeney is preparing two of the three sophomore classes taking the exam. He explained that the proposal came from Junior English teachers.
“Since all juniors take AP English, junior English teachers felt that it was taking too much time out of the AP curriculum to prepare students for the Regents around late December or early January. They made a persuasive case that many students have taken the English Regents in middle school and have been fine, and sophomore year doesn’t quite have a curricular burden that would prevent students from preparing for the Regents,” he said.
Junior English teacher Christine Duffy took a prominent role in the decision-making process. “There are a lot of schools where they give the Regents in sophomore year,” Ms. Duffy said. “We are also an Honors school, so a lot of our students come in having already taken the English Regents.”
Ms. Duffy said that planning for this change has been in the works since before the pandemic. She explained the thorough consideration the THHS English Department put toward refining the process. “There was discussion about what years [the exam] could be given and the possibility of having students take it their senior year, but it’s not great if you leave it to senior year because of the possibility of failing and having to retake it,” she said.
“I think it’ll take two years to adjust to the logistics of the process,” Mr. Sweeney said. “At a certain point, we’ll have two grades taking it at once. After a while, it’ll be something only the sophomores take, unless this year’s sophomores have such a problem with it that we feel that they need to be juniors to do as well as they can.”
Sophomore English teacher Ryan Dunbar, who is preparing the third sophomore class to take the Regents, expressed utmost confidence that his students will excel on the exam. He said, “I’m very confident in the sophomores’ ability to take the Regents exam. Other schools do have sophomores take the Regents, so this is by no means unprecedented. Based on the work I’ve seen from my sophomores already this year, I have every confidence that they’re going to do really well on it.”
“The first writing piece I collected, I crafted the prompts to be inspired by part three of the Regents, and after I collected it, I read over their responses and was like, ‘they’re all ready,’ without me teaching them much yet. Anytime I’ve challenged them with Regents-level material, they’ve exceeded those standards,” said Mr. Dunbar.
Despite working with students in their junior year, Ms. Duffy believes that sophomores are fully capable of doing well on the English Regents. She said, “I think that they will still be very well prepared. We have an extra English class that all freshmen take, so they already kind of have two and half years of English, which is more than they would get from a different high school that doesn’t have such a focus on English.”
Students in the sophomore English classes taking the Regents this January expressed varied perspectives on this initiative. Sophomore Kanon Banno in Mr. Dunbar’s English class said, “I was overwhelmed by it at first because I thought that it wasn’t really fair. If other people are allowed to take it in junior year and I have to take it during sophomore year, then wouldn’t the progress or the results be different? I could have had more preparation.”
Sophomore Katherine Torres, also in Mr. Dunbar’s English class, explained her contrasting thoughts, stating she wasn’t worried about the Regents since her strengths lay in the humanities-based subjects, with English being a part of that category. “I don’t really care whether I take it this year or in junior year. If anything, it’s just going to be one less thing for me to do as a junior. I know I’ll be busier next year anyway, so I’m fine with just getting it over with now,” she said.
With the increase in the workload from sophomore year to junior year, some Harrisites expressed how they would have preferred to take the Regents during their sophomore year to minimize stress from AP exams. Junior Thaseena Anjum said, “I can’t speak on behalf of my other classmates, but I was not nearly as overwhelmed sophomore year as I am this year. This year I just have too much on my plate, and I know a lot more people with plates stacked twice as high, so I would have felt much more at ease taking it last year and probably would have scored better.”
Sophomore Kayleen Capitulo, who will not be taking the Regents in January, said that she would have preferred to be in one of the classes taking the exam. She further expressed that she viewed this as a beneficial opportunity. She said, “Junior year is very exam heavy and anything that can be done to lighten the workload, such as this would be extremely helpful. If I knew about this last year, before I chose my English elective, my choices would most definitely be different.”
“I’m […] confused [as to] why only three classes are taking it. I don’t really know what’s on the test or how much of an impact taking it this year would have besides giving me another Regents exam to take, so I don’t mind not having to take it this year,” said sophomore Kareena Ramsoomye.
Freshman Aniqa Islam took the English Regents during her eighth grade at her middle school. She said, “When I took the Regents, I felt okay, but I was a little nervous because I could have felt more prepared. I was [also] nervous about time management. If I had a choice between taking it in middle school and taking it junior year, I would have taken it my junior year because even though I was happy with my score, I still could have gotten [an even higher grade] with better preparation,” said Aniqa.
The three classes taking the exam were chosen because Mr. Dunbar and Mr. Sweeney volunteered to run the pilot with their classes, according to Mr. Dunbar.
