MISSION: The mission of the English Division of Oak Park and River Forest High School is to provide a nurturing, challenging, and equitable learning experience to ensure that all students develop into critical, creative, and empathetic readers, writers, speakers, and thinkers.

VISION:
We envision
Students who

  • read literature with insight and passion and thereby develop empathy, imagination, and facility with language;
  • with dexterity and precision for various purposes and audiences;
  • employ critical thinking, speaking, reading, and digital literacy skills as responsible, effective agents in the world; 
  • develop creativity and personal voice;
  • cultivate and maintain a rich interior intellectual and emotional world;
  • recognize, analyze, and question socially constructed roles including race, class, gender, and sexual orientation;
  • actively listen to multiple perspectives with compassion and a commitment to justice.

English classrooms where

  • students experience an interdependent learning community in which they work collaboratively with classmates and teachers to make meaning;
  • the classroom culture is process-oriented and growth-minded and supports multi-modal learning;
  • the demographic makeup of the students is representative of the school as a whole and achievement is not racially predictable;
  • choices of texts reflect awareness of the multiple identities and needs of students;
  • both traditional and emerging technologies facilitate student engagement and expression;
  • reading and a love of literature and language are cultivated and intrinsically valued.

An English Division that

  • collaborates as a nurturing community of teachers, scholars, and learners committed to best practice and reflection;
  • supports ongoing professional growth and participates in the broader educational arena;
  • designs and maintains a purposefully aligned course sequence and curriculum that meets the needs of all students and ensures consistent outcomes within a grade level and across grade levels;
  • works intentionally to eliminate systemic barriers and inhibitors to success and growth.