In the Summer 2020 Volume of Hallmarks Squared, Head of School Elizabeth Miller alluded to the work we do “to ensure that every young woman who attends Lauralton feels welcome, known and loved.” We have since launched DEI@LH, our diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative. Professionally-facilitated activities held this fall included a virtual town hall for alumnae and virtual focus groups for current LH students who are women of color.
Among the wishes expressed by alumnae was that our curriculum reflect diverse voices. We would like to share just some of the components of our English curricula—reading selections in place long before our formalized DEI@LH initiative—which represent diversity not only of race but of thought, culture, religion, and gender.
For example, all freshmen study works by Latina authors including the novella House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros and Before They Were Free by Julia Alvarez, “Woman Work” and/or “New Directions” by African American author and poet Maya Angelou, “Harlem” and “Thank You M’am” by African American author and poet Langston Hughes, “Cinderella’s Stepsisters” by African American author Toni Morrison, and “Daily” by Naomi Shihab Nye, the Palestinian American poet.
Sophomore curriculum includes The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins about a female protagonist who challenges and subverts gender norms, and The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd about the female protagonist’s search for independent identity, racial discrimination and violence, and civil rights struggle.
Juniors at Lauralton study Native American myths including “Sky Tree” and “The Earth Only,” works by African American freed slaves including the “Narrative of the Life of Frederik Douglass” and “Ain’t I a Woman?” by Sojourner Truth, works by groundbreaking female authors including The Awakening and “Silk Stockings” by Kate Chopin and House of Mirth by Edith Wharton. Students also examine themes of xenophobia and social and gender inequality in The Crucible by playwright Arthur Miller.
Seniors examine gender inequality and female subordination in Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess” and social isolation, profiling, and application of Marxist theory in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Collegelevel courses delve into themes of racism from the “I Have a Dream” speech and “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King, Jr. to “The Color of Love” essay by Danzy Senna. Students also examine historic works by women including “Here Follow Some Verses Upon the Burning of our House” by Anne Bradstreet and “Speech to the Troops at Tilbury” by Elizabeth 1 as well as minority perspectives in the novel Woman Warrior: Memoir of a Girlhood among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston and early feminist works such as “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Literary themes also include the emotional scars of slavery portrayed in Beloved by Toni Morrison and the toll of war, violence, and poverty in The Kite Runner by Khaled Hossein.
“We are fortunate at Lauralton, as an independent school, to have such autonomy and flexibility in designing our curriculum,” said Pamela Boynton, chair of Lauralton’s English Department. A teacher at Lauralton for eighteen years as well as parent of three LH alumnae, Ms. Boynton added, “Our curriculum also includes many traditional literary canons whose works contain themes of xenophobia and marginalization.” She cited as one example the theme of economic marginalization of poor migrant workers in the classic The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. “We continually revisit the curriculum as we strive to educate our young women about the world and to teach them to examine contemporary themes and human struggles through a literary lens.”