This course explores the question "What does it mean to be human?" through a mix of literary, historical, and cultural readings, alongside essay writing, group projects, and class discussions. We investigate how the concept of "humanity" has evolved throughout history. The class is taught by Ms. Small.
An assignment that we had for humanities this year at Mass Academy was the satirical analysis essay which I enjoyed a lot as it helped me better my understanding of literature that uses satire. To prepare for this essay, we analyzed various satires line by line in groups and disected each for satircal devices in addition to creating a SPACECAT satirical analysis. For the essay, we had multiple prompts and could choose almost any satire we could find as long as it was appropriate and had enough writing to analyze. The prompt I chose was to analyze how the language and devices of a satire characterize society and how this characterization serves the satiric purpose. The satire I chose was "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift. Through the use of various rhetorical and satirical devices in the proposal, Swift both exposes and discourages the inequality between the small elite class and the remainder of the population.
Another one of the assessments for humanities in A term was the education essay in which we were able to create our own prompt. I personally chose to write about whether high school education should focus on teaching students equally or at different levels and advocated for leveled classes in high schools as they challenge students and provide them with the opportunity to set themselves apart. I liked writing this essay because it helped me explore educational ideology, a new and surprisingly interesting topic to me.