In February 2025, AP Literature and Sci-Fi and Fantasy teacher Justin Worley began planning a trip to England for DVHS students. The trip will take place during the summer of 2027, and Worley, having taught high-school English for over 12 years, intends for the trip to serve as an immersive dive into British literature.
“[This trip] is something I wanted to do since I first started teaching at Dougherty, and now that my kids are older and it feels like less of a crazy thing for me to take a bunch of high schoolers for 10 days to another country, I think I can do that,” Worley explained. “It’ll be fun.”
According to current travel plans, the itinerary will focus on areas across England with strong cultural and historical ties to many of the novels covered in the AP Literature curriculum. While it won’t be limited to students who have taken or will take the course, Worley believes that they are who the trip will have the most significance to.
“If you’ve taken the course, I think you’re gonna get a lot out of it. Or if you’re taking it the summer before, [as in] you’re going to take that course, I think you probably get the most out of it,” he stated.
While the exact details of the excursion are still being ironed out as students sign up, Worley has created a general blueprint that focuses on covering historical sites, along with the opportunity to participate in creative programs.
“We’re going to start in the Lake District, where a lot of Romantic poets were. Then we’re going to go over to Yorkshire, where the Brontës lived, and then kind of cut through the middle of the country and go to Oxford and Stratford-upon-Avon, where Shakespeare was born,” Worley described. “Then Bath, where there’s these cool Roman ruins that are…baths, and Jane Austen was over there. And then end with three days in London and see a show in the Globe Theater – which was Shakespeare’s theater – and then participate in an acting workshop inside there.”
Worley is planning in partnership with Education First Tours, a touring company utilized by staff who’ve organized international trips in the past, including librarians Kerri Knapp and Allison Hussenet.
“I’ve taken kids to England…all over Europe. I’ve done a trip to South America, to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands,” Knapp said, describing both her and Hussenet’s previous experiences with EF tours. “And then I’ve done two trips to Japan, and one of those trips also had South Korea, and we did that together.”
Knapp went on to explain the reasoning behind Worley’s decision to cap the journey at 40 students.
“Well, 40 is perfect because it fills a bus. That’s what we told them,” she said. “We’re like, ‘fill a bus and then don’t go into a second bus.’ It just makes it harder to have two buses to coordinate.”
Additionally, Hussenet elaborated on the underlying educational philosophy behind opportunities for international travel.
“We are both on the same page where we want students to have fun, but it’s not a spring break party trip,” Hussenet commented. “We also want to have educational value out of it.”
Knapp echoed similar sentiments. “We’re just huge believers that travel is the best education,” she said. “There is so much you can learn through experience…somehow, you’ve got to roll with the punches when you travel, and that’s a big thing to learn, and so [is] being able to do that without your parents there.”
Many of Worley’s AP Literature students have expressed interest in the trip, with junior Aiden Jiang viewing it as a unique moment to associate with his teachers.
“I think you get a chance to see teachers outside of an academic environment, since a lot of times…you’ve seen [your classmates] outside of school, but…there’s sides to the teachers that you don’t really see, and it establishes more personal connection with the teacher,” he elaborated.
Jiang also discussed how many of the literary landmarks the excursion covers relate to what he’s learned this school year, adding another layer to his understanding of the novels.
“Since we’re visiting a lot of the places where the authors were born, for example, like Shakespeare… you get to see kind of how the culture of the time and how the historical and geographical location impacted the way that they wrote,” he remarked. “And you can also just see, ‘oh, you know, I’ve seen that in the book before’…parallels between the literature and the real world.”
While trip costs are nearly $4,500 per student, Worley detailed how EF Tours helps reduce prices along the way.
“The cost includes everything. So that means flights, meals, a full-time tour director, guided tour, admission to all the places we’re going to,” Worley stated. “What’s cool too is that you don’t have to pay all that upfront, since there is a monthly payment plan.”
To Worley, the chance to experience traveling abroad is also worth it, especially considering how much he feels there is to be gained from global exploration.
“I think it just helps you be a better, more mature person, as well as the cultural experience of just going somewhere you’re not from and kind of figuring out how they do things there,” he expressed. “I think everybody should travel, but basically in the same way that people always say everybody should be a waiter at some point in their life or do some sort of service job… just to kind of round you out as a person.”
