Freshman Year Sophomore Year Junior Year Senior
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
FRESHMAN SOPHOMORE JUNIOR SENIOR YEAR YEAR YEAR YEAR Ancient World, Middle Ages to the Modernity and The American Western Civilization Greece and Rome, Renaissance & Experiment Reexamined to the Middle Ages Reformation Humanities Literature Homer, Plato, Dante, Cather, Dickinson, Twain, Plato, Aristotle, Virgil, Thoreau, Ovid, Beowulf, Shakespeare, Melville, Dickens, Machiavelli, Milton, Shakespeare, Shelley, Swift, Emerson, Fitzgerald, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Chaucer, Dostoevsky DuBois, Booker T. Voltaire, Cather, Marx, Castiglione Washington, MLK, Dostoevsky Shakespeare History Thucydides, The Rule of St. Tocqueville, The Federalist, Christopher Dawson, Niall Herodotus, Benedict, Jefferson, Lincoln, Ferguson, Wilfred McClay Plutarch, The Chronicles of the Marbury v. Madison, Dred Heliand Crusades, Burke Scott v. Sandford Philosophy Logic Political Economics & Catholic American Civics, Plato, Cicero, Philosophy Social Thought; Constitutionalism, and Social Justin Martyr, Pico della Winthrop, Hamilton Pluralism; Augustine; Mirandola, Aristotle, Cicero, Machiavelli, Locke, Rousseau Hobbes, Kant, J.S. Mill Theology Hebrew Bible, New Hebrew Bible, Hebrew Bible, New Hebrew Bible, New Testament, Testament, Justin New Testament, Testament, Leo XIII, Augustine, City of God, Martyr, Origin, Aquinas, Ockham, “Rerum Novarum,” Fr. Aquinas, Paul VI, Humanae Augustine, Luther, Ignatius John Courtney Murray, We Vitae, Janet Smith, Humanae Confessions, C.S. Loyola, John Paul Hold These Truths, John Vitae: A Generation Later, Lewis, The Four II, Letter to Paul II, Familiaris John Paul II, Centissimus Anno, Loves Women Consortio, von Hildebrand, Benedict XVI, Regensburg The Privilege of Being a Address, C.S. Lewis, The Woman Abolition of Man Language Latin I Latin II Latin III Latin IV *selection of modern Latin III Latin IV Greek I Greek II language based on French I* French II* French III* French IV* demand German I* German II* German III* German IV* Spanish I* Spanish II* Spanish III* Spanish IV* Natural Philosophy Mathematics Geometry/ Algebra II/ Precalculus/Calc I Calculus I/II Algebra II Trigonometry Science Biology Chemistry Physics I Physics II Fine Arts Fine Arts Music, Visual Arts Poetry, Music, Visual Arts Poetry, (performance, Drama/Forensics (performance, Drama/Forensics appreciation, appreciation, theory, theory, history) history) Humanities Seminar The Humanities Seminar is a two-hour daily interdisciplinary examination of the core texts of Western Civilization. Incorporating elements of lecture and tutorial instruction, the Humanities Seminar prepares students to develop the skills of independent self- directed lifelong learning. Students will be prepared to read carefully and incisively, to speak clearly and persuasively, and to write with precision and eloquence. The burden on the student is to demonstrate understanding of the texts and their claims rather than to grapple with questions outside the scope of the text, such as authorial intent, historical context, etc. Where necessary for elucidation, the teacher will introduce extra-textual considerations, but student attention will be devoted to critical reading for understanding. The order of seminars is generally, but not rigidly chronological. To rebut the notion, implicit or otherwise, that later texts, ideas, and conceits necessarily supersede those that precede them, the senior seminar will revisit the totality of the scope of Western Civilization. Thematically appropriate plays from Shakespeare and documents of the Church are also incorporated into all four years of study without specific reference to chronology. 9th Grade – Examination of great texts of the Ancient and early Medieval world will explore fundamental questions of anthropology, including the relationship of man to the Divine. Students will begin to develop a precise vocabulary of philosophical and theological terms that emerge from their study. Writing will emphasize a regard for articulating both general and narrowly specific characteristics of particular works. Representative Texts: Homer, Iliad; Odyssey; Thucydides, Peloponnesian War; Herodotus, Histories; Plato, Apology; Euthyphro; Plutarch, Lives; Ovid, Metamorphoses; Hebrew Bible; New Testament; Augustine, Confessions; The Heliand; Beowulf; Shakespeare, King Lear; Addison, Cato; The Song of Roland; Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales; Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier 10th Grade – The sophomore Humanities Seminar will explore the mature Middle Ages, the Renaissance, Reformation, and the emergence of Modernity, with particular regard for views of man’s relationship to Nature/Creation and Grace. Students will engage one another with written and oral presentations. Representative Texts: Pico Della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man; Dante, Divine Comedy; Austen, Pride and Prejudice; Shakespeare, Henry V, Othello; Shelley, Frankenstein; Swift, Gulliver’s Travels; Locke, Second Treatise on Government; Rousseau, Discourse on the Origins and Basis of Inequality; Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (selections); Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities; Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment. 11th Grade – The junior year Humanities Seminar gives careful attention to the animating spirit of the American Experiment, its tensions, pluriform conceptions, continuities, and contradictions. Writing assignments will invite deliberate interdisciplinary reflections and the comparison of texts across literary genres (literature, history, philosophy, and theology). Discussions will require leadership and initiative from students to facilitate the investigation of texts. Formal presentations and debates of select questions will be facilitated in class. Representative Texts: Winthrop, “A Modell of Christian Charity;” Bradford, Of Plimoth Plantation; Dickinson, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania; Hamilton, Report on Manufactures; The Federalist Papers; Jefferson and Madison, The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions; Tocqueville, Democracy in America; Lincoln, 2nd Inaugural Address; Cather, My Antonia; Twain, Huckleberry Finn; Melville, Billy Budd; Washington, Up from Slavery; DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk; Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; Wilder, Our Town; Shakespeare, Macbeth. 12th Grade – A recapitulation of the history of Western thought, with a specific concern for law, virtue, and human social identity and relationships. A capstone course, the Senior Humanities Seminar will serve to integrate all of the material that has been studied throughout high school. Students will be introduced to the foundations of Catholic Social Thought (Subsidiarity, Solidarity) through an examination of literary, philosophical, and theological works. Seniors will write, present, and defend a thesis, interdisciplinary in scope, that considers a central question of human nature and experience. Under the direction of a thesis advisor, in conversation with curricular and non-curricular texts, the senior will offer an account that responds to the seminal discussions of the thesis question. Representative Texts: Benedict XVI, Regensburg Address; Plato, Republic; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics; Cicero, De Officiis; Virgil, Aeneid; Augustine, City of God; Aquinas, Summa Theologiae; Machiavelli, The Prince; Luther, The Freedom of a Christian; Milton, Paradise Lost; Shakespeare, Hamlet; Voltaire, Candide; Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop; Thoreau, Walden; Marx, The Communist Manifesto; Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. .