The ESA English department fosters three core skills: active reading, critical thinking, and crisp writing. As an Episcopal school, we also endeavor to advance the ethical development of our students, and we consider the English department’s curriculum and teachers as vital components of that mission. Through a wide range of developmentally appropriate fiction and nonfiction reading and writing, students wrestle with moral and ethical questions. Teachers act as guides and facilitators who lead students toward logical and empathetic values in verbal and written expression. The foundation of the English curriculum in the Upper School is canonical texts. The ESA English department believes that great literature is a springboard and portal to timeless and ever-relevant questions of human development and behavior.