Liberty Common High School has a deep commitment to reflective engagement with the classical literary tradition and the life such reflection promotes. Students are required to take an English class every year. The curriculum fosters careful reading, patient observation, and intelligent expression. By providing historical and canonical context and by inviting serious discussion on the greatest works of literature, Liberty’s English program requires students to grow in skill and understanding.

The English Department offers courses in western literature, British literature, American literature, composition, speech, debate, technical writing, and other electives. The department also offers AP English Literature and Composition and AP English Language and Composition.

In concert with Liberty’s emphasis on character education, the study of literature deals directly with the human condition and the importance of moral responsibility. Indeed, the intellectual humility required to submit oneself to the great writers of the past is itself a step toward forming good habits of heart and mind. The English Department incorporates the school’s capstone virtues, but virtue is recognized as more than a definition. Virtue is rightly ordered affections, and we help our students order themselves by confronting beauty and ugliness. Teachers want students to viscerally grasp Wisdom as their northern star, not just memorize Aristotle’s concept of it.

The English Department developed a now essential program called Grammar Launch. Each class, including required literature courses, begin with a crash-course on grammar, especially that which will be needed for the course. Each year builds off the prior.  The Grammar Launch program substantially reduces instances where curriculum instruction and discussions are interrupted for an ad hoc grammar lesson. Instead of teaching grammar piecemeal over a year, teachers preempt grammar-related challenges and disruptions at the beginning of the year with grammar instruction. New students are encouraged to enroll in a short grammar booster program during the summers. This class is not for a grade, but vital to preparing students to succeed in the rigors of the English Department.

English instructors are required to possess and to grow in knowledge and expertise. The combination of excellent faculty and rich curriculum has helped consistently produce top scores on the ACT, SAT, and AP English exams, along with Colorado’s various standardized assessments. More importantly, students graduate from Liberty with knowledge of the classics and high levels of verbal fluency and rhetorical skill. It is our hope that they also depart with greater wisdom, empathy, and good humor.

English Department Head Mr. Jared Dybzinski on sequencing the curriculum: “School and department leaders should be deliberate when sequencing the curriculum. Liberty students are given a huge range in Western Literature from the ancient Greeks and Romans, the Hebrews, and everything in between. By the end of that year, they’ve come to Shakespeare in Macbeth. Their sophomore year, they’re leaping from that into British Literature, covering another wide range within that specific aspect. And then, as juniors, they get a full gamut of American Literature. Notice the sequence: to understand American literature properly, you need to understand the birth of the English language in Britain. And Britain fits under the wider scheme of Western civilization. We start wide and hone in. Each graduate every year should be able to recall the same books from all four years, and so there ought not be random readings as dictated by any one teacher. You need coordination within a grade level and among the grade levels.