The South English department underwent many changes prior to the start of the 2025-2026 school year, one of these changes being to the school’s AP English Literature and Composition class. After being taught by Kristina Sherry for the past few years, Madison Billings has taken the position for the next two years, while Sherry is now teaching AP English Language and Composition.
Admin made the switch when Billings brought the large number of students forecasting for AP Lang in 2025-2026 to their attention. The same anomaly had occurred the year before, but nobody predicted it would happen again.
“We had to come up with a solution, because I can’t do another year with four sections of AP Lang,” Billings said. “If you do it right, [teaching the class is] very hard, and I was burning out.”
This solution was to adopt a system many other 4j schools have had implemented in their own English departments for quite some time: The AP Lang and AP Lit teachers will switch on and off every year, so as not to be overwhelmed with the amount of grading work each class gives the teachers, as well as to have the opportunity to teach a different subject every so often.
For South, this year is a transition period into the new system. Billings is currently teaching both AP English classes, while Sherry gets the hang of teaching AP Lang. In the future, once both teachers are well adjusted to switching classes so often, there are hopes of there being multiple AP Lit sections so more students will have the opportunity to take the class.
Billings is using her single section of AP Lit as a sort of guinea pig, in her own words. She has some exciting plans for her class this year; because the change was so sudden, admin did not give any specific set of rules the class has to follow, so Billings has been able to build her own curriculum, in line with AP standards, from scratch.
“I’m really letting us guide the class,” Billings said when asked about her plans for this year, “After we get these bootcamps under our belt, the poetry and short stories, I really want our choices to guide [what we do].” She also talked about plans of having the class read a play, as most are a quick read, but rich in material.
Although this fresh approach to the class is exciting, Billings stated how she feels that there are a lot of things working against the class, which has made parts of it frustrating. Still, she continues to value her passion for the subject and desire to teach the students.
“I feel like we can kind of do anything in here. [Seeing] young people be interested in these things [is] really heartwarming,” she said.

Article by Abby Ketchum