Mass. Academy's Humanities course is a class that combines traditional English and Social Studies courses to explore nuanced topics like education, race and culture, rhetoric satire, and more to address questions like "What does it mean to be human?" and "How have the understandings of humanity changed over time?" To achieve this in HUM, we read a variety of literary, historical, and cultural readings along with traditional essay writing, fun group projects, and plenty of class discussions.
In the beginning of the year, we kicked off HUM with recapping our summer reading, Walden. Although it was quite a read, the skit that we made for Walden was a highlight to start the year off. Ranging from goofy and humorous to serious and introspective, the plays we made all portrayed or satirized a major theme, gripes, or character traits of Walden and Henry David Thoreau. After drafting and practicing our skit, we spent the day in WPI's Alden Hall performing these plays. Take a look at my group's skit on the right!
Besides activities like these, a large part of Mass. Academy's Humanities class is made up of essay writing. In my opinion, one of the most interesting topics that we covered was rhetoric and satires. In my satirical analysis essay, I compare and contrast how effective traditional argumentative writing vs. satirical writing is at conveying their points. Take a look at the type of writing that takes place in Mass. Academy.