History
Humanities I: Foundations in Cultural Literacy 6.0 credits (3.0 History credits) AY 9 The 9th-grade Humanities program is co-taught and focuses on developing students’ reading, writing, and speaking skills. Students grow their reading skills through literature circles and build writing skills through practicing models of discourse. Within a thematic framework focused on broad cultural literacy, teachers introduce students to “big ideas” and how we create meaning with them. These big ideas include: What does it mean to be human? How does geography shape lives and society? How do belief systems and structures affect lives and societies? How do humans negotiate power? Humanities I provides a foundational framework for geography, migration, belief systems, and government structures. The historical timeline is built on student prior knowledge and covers the beginnings of human organizations and structures, ancient societies, and global development of nations with a focus on the 20th century. Humanities II: The Making of Modernity 6.0 credits (3.0 History credits) AY 10 Humanities II continues the literary and historical exploration commenced in Humanities I. The program focuses on developing thinking, reading, writing, and speaking skills through an exploration of the major historical trends leading up to “modernity”: globalization and colonization; the Enlightenment and its legacy of political revolution; and industrialization. Students explore what it means to be human by asking: what is the nature of Justice? What is the nature of Power? What are our roles in Society? US History: Cultural Calamity and American Resolve 3.0 credits AY 11 US History examines the cause and effect of five distinct periods of national unrest: The Lincoln presidency and the Civil War; The Great Depression, the presidential election of FDR and his New Deal; World War II, and the 1960’s. Further, we analyze the outcomes, the “collateral” implications and discuss its effect on the principles expressed in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights that have come to define the American nation, the American people, and American culture. This course provides time for and encourages digressions in the examination of particular issues. Unlike traditional survey courses in US History, these digressions can be fundamental to the topic or tangential, but they must be relevant and reveal insights that justify continued examination and discussion. For those students interested in earning honors credit, additional writing and reading is required, as well a one-on-one verbal explanation and defense with the instructor at the end of the year. DLI I, Too, Am America 3.0 credits AY 11, 12 In his poem, "I, Too, Am America," Langston Hughes addresses the issue of those who have been excluded from the promise of American ideals. In this course, students examine the history of the United States with an emphasis on amplifying the representation and lived experiences of groups who have been marginalized in the telling and examination of our history. Students deepen their understanding of the manner in which cultural identifiers such as race, gender, ethnicity and ability have shaped US ideology (economic, political, social, and judicial) while developing an appreciation of the resilience and genius of those individuals and groups who have fought to address inequalities in search of realizing the inherent rights of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Students draw on our relevant past to formulate actions to bring about change in the present and future.
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