What does it mean to be human? Through a combination of English and History, Mrs. Small's Humanities class endeavors to answer this question, or get as close to answering it as one can, given about an hour a day over a single academic year. Starting in the summer with Thoreau's Walden, we cover a range of time periods and artistic perspectives to try and offer contentious debates the nuance and consideration they deserve.
This was the first formal essay we wrote this year. After studying the evolution of public education in the United States, we were assigned to create our own prompt and write a short (maximum of 5 pages, not including references) research paper responding to it. I went with: "Write an essay in which you evaluate whether core classes take precedence over the arts". As a musician and a STEM student, I've always been interested in the relationship between art and the so-called core classes. However, I wanted to explore other perspectives other than my and delve into the financial and logistical considerations that go into deciding what students have access to, especially in light of the post-COVID world.
After our satire unit, which consisted of both studying and writing our own pieces, we were tasked with writing a satirical analysis. Mrs. Small provided us with some pre-written prompts, but I chose to write my own: "Compare and contrast a Horatian approach with a Juvenalian approach. Find two sources (one Horatian and one Juvenalian) that address the same problem. Write an argumentative essay that addresses which of the two sources more effectively addresses the problem." I picked "The Lady's Dressing Room" by Johnathan Swift and "The Rape of the Lock" by Alexander Pope to dissect.