Entwined in the DNA of Portland’s Northwest Academy is a regard for students developing proficiency—demonstrating their learning—rather than merely “passing the test.”

And that led to this: Grace, a senior, has recreated her bedroom in the back corner of her Senior Thesis class. Collages, posters, and album covers plaster the walls. She’s one of four girls, friends for years, sprawled over the bed and floor, clad in their pajamas, surrounded by stacks of incomplete journals and padlocked diaries. Grace stands up, turns to the audience of classmates, teachers, middle and high school students, and presents her thesis. It’s an historical and critical survey of women’s diaries as an internal, feminine literary tradition forging its way in a masculine, externally directed world.

“I wanted my final project here to be the emblem of my seven years of learning and growing,” says Grace. “Women have long been encouraged to write down their innermost thoughts and feelings, but rarely encouraged to share them with the outside world; I wanted to celebrate diaries, not hide them away.”

Other fall thesis topics featured the use of baseball as a tool of imperialism and generational shifts in attitude toward space exploration. Spring semester’s capstone projects will include the construction of a robotic piano and the recording of a jazz/folk album of original compositions.

“This ‘Artistic Response’ to new learning,” says Head of School Chris Schuck, “is part of the academic experience we offer across disciplines, keeping alive the variety of ways to express understanding of new information and skills—and their implications—for both students and teachers.”