A Walpole High School English teacher gave the committee a tour of recent student work across grades and courses, from freshman additions to Taming of the Shrew to AP portfolios and a journalism field trip to the Boston Public Library.

The teacher said the department still emphasizes essay writing while broadening tasks to include multimodal projects and digital portfolios. “I still think that writing essays is our strength,” the presenter said, describing examples such as sophomore analyses of The Great Gatsby, freshman Shakespeare scenes written in Shakespearean style, and a two-sentence horror-story imagery challenge in which students paired short creative writing with AI-generated images.

Juniors in some classes worked on projects related to Just Mercy and practiced locating credible digital sources for social-justice topics, the teacher said. AP Language students maintain digital portfolios with reflective pieces that track writing growth; the department sees reflective metacognition as one of the most impactful writing practices.

The journalism class recently visited the Boston Public Library; students researched architectural, historical and art aspects of the library and produced summary brochures.

Committee members praised the examples as concrete evidence of student learning; the presenter also acknowledged colleagues and younger teachers who contributed materials.