The importance of emphasizing literary instruction in math and science, as well as the humanities.

At South, academic success is often synonymous with excellence in advanced math and science. Humanities and social science classes, however, enhance literacy and critical thinking, skills essential to every subject.

“The linking thread between all subjects is literacy,” South English teacher Madison Billings said. Whether it’s dense textbook readings for science or novels in English class, reading comprehension is critical for success. 

In Oregon, literacy rates have been in decline, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2024, according to the Oregon Department of Education, 40.6 percent of eighth grade students performed at or above a proficient level of reading and comprehension. Since 2018, this measure of proficiency has dropped 15.5 percent, dramatically decreasing during the pandemic.

“I feel like literacy and writing should be happening in every single classroom,” Billings said, elaborating on how these critical skills for all classes are only really taught in a limited way. “It’s not like there is no emphasis on literacy in any classroom except ELA,” Billings continued. Rather, she sees a lack of literacy instruction happening in STEM classes.

Without these skills, students are more likely to struggle across a wide range of disciplines, not being able to fully grasp meaning from required texts for certain classes. Literacy instruction shouldn’t be limited to one class.

“I think that all teachers could benefit from having more instruction on how to teach kids to approach dense technical texts,” Billings said.

One way that this can be achieved is through connection between multiple disciplines.

“There have been conversations that I’ve had,” South social studies teacher Jacob Clark said, focused more on “common themes that we’re trying to hit. But there hasn’t been a lot of cross curricular collaboration.”

While there isn’t widespread collaboration, some teachers are working to increase connection between classes. 

“We collaborated on Letter from Birmingham Jail,” Clark said. Billings’s AP English students practiced rhetorical analysis with the letter, a core document of the AP U.S. history and U.S. Government curriculums. This collaboration helped students understand the text in more depth, and teachers hope to do more like this in the future.

Billings spoke about how many of her AP Language and Composition students are taking IB Physics with Asher Tubman and AP Government with Clark. These shared groups of students have the potential for connection, which some teachers feel is missed.

“I am a firm believer in cross curricular collaboration,” Clark said. “In other districts I’ve been in, we call them PLCs — Professional Learning Communities. And when the PLC model is used and done properly, amazing things happen.”

Professional Learning Communities are groups of educators who work together to improve student learning and create a unified system of support. These communities intentionally focus on learning rather than teaching, working collaboratively, and being accountable to fit students’ needs.

“In order for it to be used and done properly, teachers have to be trained, and administrators have to be trained, and then there has to be accountability,” Clark said. “When those things all come together, it’s incredible.”

Clark testified to the importance of these communities by describing the effect PLCs had at Central Linn High School. During his time teaching there, the English and social studies departments prioritized cross curricular planning; in a year, Central Linn juniors who passed the state writing assessment went from 33 to 66 percent.

There are also instances when individual classes can apply interdisciplinary learning.

“I feel like in Environmental Science, it’s kind of a no brainer,” said South science teacher Julia Harvey. “I’m tying in all the sciences and math, and then looking at the social, societal issues at the same time as learning to process all this information that’s out there, which would fall under the English part.”

South offers many difficult classes across various subjects. What is it that leads student perception to value some above others, or to place certain courses higher in terms of difficulty?

“I think the biggest difference between all of them is there’s at times a feeling that the social sciences are more of a soft science as compared to biology or chemistry or something like that that’s a hard science,” Clark said. “It’s a lot harder at times to prove why things are the way they are in social sciences, than they are in your more hard sciences, because in the social sciences you’re dealing with human behavior.”

Michael Leahy, a counselor at South, spoke about the perception of science at South, and APs in general. 

“We know there are students who are super passionate about science,” Leahy said, citing the numerous students who double up on AP sciences as upperclassmen. 

In addition to that, Leahy explained that, “the vast majority of our AP classes are full,” showing there’s a demand.”

Many students don’t limit APs in their schedules to specific areas of interest, like planned college majors or aspired careers.

Rory Young, a current senior, plans to major in history next year at Carleton College. Though her focus lies in the humanities, she has taken AP classes across all disciplines.

Through high school, Young’s APs have included Chemistry, Calculus, World History, and English Language and Composition. 

Young described APs as “a unique type of class … a lot less focused on the actual material and more just getting through everything.”

Within these courses, Young has often felt math and science classes are “valued more” and “seen as harder” compared to their humanities or “soft” science counterparts.

“Math is hard,” she said. “I’m not denying that, but it’s been put on such a pedestal that I think people just undervalue – which is not a surprise – the importance of history and English and how difficult it can be to interpret things.”

Without an emphasis on literacy, it’s easy for all subjects – not just English – to become unreachable. Literacy instruction helps students improve reading comprehension, writing skills, and critical thinking, preparing them for future classes across all disciplines. 

Connecting across subjects is a valuable strategy shown to dramatically increase student success. And, while many feel the South culture leans toward science and math, it’s critical to ensure the humanities and social studies are prioritized as well.

Article by Jada Jones & Aria Lynn-Skov