Lawrence Academy students must take one English course during every term they are enrolled. Freshman, sophomores, and juniors take year-long, comprehensive courses that cover grammar, usage, syntax, literary genres, and the process of composition; however, in an effort to foster students’ passions and interests, the department offers a wealth of choice to upperclassmen through seminar-style courses and honors-level composition, literature, and writing courses.

LA’s ESL students work with many of the texts their mainstream counterparts use, but are simultaneously strengthening their grasp of the English language while learning the same content and skills as their peers. Students’ English reading, writing, and speaking abilities are critiqued and graded constantly, to stress the importance of clarity and precision in the classroom and while completing their work. By the end of their course of study, students will have been exposed to analytic and research-based assignments, and increased their English grammar and vocabulary proficiency.

Placement in ESL courses is not based on the number of years the student has been studying English or on a TOEFL score, but rather on the student’s academic and testing records, recommendations, personal interviews, writing samples, and input from Lawrence Academy’s ESL faculty.

Approximately 75 percent of LA’s international student population is enrolled in ESL courses at some point during their time on campus.
Students take a placement test when they first arrive at Lawrence Academy, and their work is reviewed during their first two terms on campus to ensure that they are making continued progress. As in the rest of LA’s classrooms, ESL teachers are able to tailor their assignments to each student’s learning needs and abilities.

Lawrence Academy’s language department believes in learning modern languages through immersion, with a goal of complete communication in the target language as early as possible and, eventually, aural, grammatical, and oral fluency. Students will make mistakes, of course, but immersion encourages them to take risks, trust themselves, and be vulnerable. In the Latin program, students learn to become comfortable reading and analyzing the works of ancient Roman authors by acquiring skills both by closely reading and by discussing the grammatical constructions of the language. In addition to learning a new language, students will also learn that language’s culture and, when possible, engage with teachers and peers who speak the language natively, with the goal of becoming more culturally aware.

We’re all members of this world, we’re all citizens of this world, and language is probably the most important way to facilitate interaction.

 

Language Department Chair, Mark Mucha

As they learn, they’ll gain confidence, expand their comfort zone, and grow by becoming comfortable with error. Students at Lawrence Academy learn a new language – Chinese, French, Latin, and Spanish – deductively; they must take at least two consecutive years of a language, though the majority take three years, and many take four. By graduation, Lawrence Academy hopes its students see themselves as global citizens, with open minds and a new perspective.

Lawrence Academy students are encouraged to do the intellectual work of historians and unlock knowledge of global events through investigation. By determining the meaning of an important idea or question for themselves, they are preparing to be active, engaged citizens in this global society; how they interpret that idea or answer that question will help them understand both the past and something about the human condition. The Lawrence Academy history department believes in bringing the material alive, rather than just giving students a fact to memorize. Teachers put an emphasis on active learning, inquiry and simulation, and focus on depth of knowledge over breadth. After all, history is not a spectator sport. Through their history classes, Lawrence Academy students learn how to acquire and think about knowledge.

In Lawrence Academy’s history courses, there’s a lot of space for open-ended discussion. That’s what you need if you want to cultivate a passion for academics: being able to connect what you’re learning to the real world through a discussion. It deepened my passion for history and learning in general.

 

Mickey Feeney, Class of 2019

They develop the critical thinking skills needed to formulate an articulate argument and present it well, as well as the research skills necessary to interpret primary sources and discern multiple points of view. Freshman begin with a global cultures-focused course, while sophomores take a class on conflict and change in society; U.S. History is required of all students as well, and a diverse list of options is available to upperclassmen.

In Lawrence Academy’s science classrooms, students will learn to think like scientists: to look at the world with both curiosity and skepticism. They’ll also discover that scientific reasoning – gathering information, putting it together, analyzing it, and evaluating it – is a skill necessary not just for scholarly pursuits but also for life in general in a day and age influenced by science and technology. Within Lawrence Academy’s science department, the focus is on understanding over memorization, and the scientific method as a way of thinking versus science as a collection of facts. Students will see how skills they have picked up in other disciplines come into play in the sciences as well. Lawrence Academy’s freshman-year physics course is a hands-on, conceptual class that teaches and uses engineering design principles.