Grade Twelve English; Necessity or Choice?

Specific word being highlighted on a page

We all have been in an English class in our lives. The alphabet is first introduced and one day we learn about Shakespeare and how "Thus with a kiss I die" through the love of Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare, 2018). English becomes natural over the years, but what happens if we took the course out of our university prerequisites?

Many of us have not experienced university first hand, myself included. The level of commitment and the intensity of the workload is only imaginable. Movies portray university students as workaholics who are constantly reading books and writing essays. From what I have seen, this seems to be true. When I was younger my mother went back to university, and my first memory is her writing long essays. She would be typing for hours straight and reading from her huge textbook. This was years after she endured grade 12 university level English, and she struggled for the first year. She had not read a textbook in years, forgot how to make citations, which resulted in her failing her first essay. This information  is an essential part of grade twelve university English, and is enforced vigorously throughout the course. 

While this is just one reason why I believe English is essential for University, there is evidence to back this up.

Literature read in a university English course

On the website for the University of Toronto, the first thing noted under the English department is that "English is the language of instruction and examination at U of T, and success in our degree programs requires a high level of English language proficiency" (U of T, 2017). While grade 12 English does not depict the ability to have high proficiency, it certainly makes it easier to be proficient. 

With all this in mind, English can be a hard course but, "All important things are hard" (Morrison, 2018). 

Works Cited

Morrison, Toni. “Toni Morrison Quotes.” Picture Quotes, 2018, 

     http://www.picturequotes.com/toni-morrison-quotes/2.

Shakespeare, William, and Daniel Fischlin. The Tragedy of Romeo                          and Juliet. OUP Canada, 2013.

U of T. “English Language Requirements.” Future Students.                             University of Toronto, 2017,                                                                               https://future.utoronto.ca/apply/english-language-                                                 requirements/.