Humanities
Description
Humanities - or Hum, as everyone calls it - is taught by Ms. Small.
This course is built around the question "What does it mean to be human?"
It combines a traditional English and history class, but it is anything but traditional, weaving in psychology, sociology, the arts, and even some neuroscience.
We learn about a variety of really interesting topics through readings, essays, class discussions, and more!
We started off the year by reading Walden by Henry David Thoreau over the summer, then discussing it in class for a few weeks.
Then, during A term, we discussed the education system (both historically and present-day), which was really neat to learn about.
During B term, we discussed rhetoric and satire, writing essays and even creating our own satires.
Humanities is one of my favorite classes here because I love writing and we cover some fascinating topics!
Also, it's just really fun.
Ms. Small encourages everyone to challenge themselves, so no matter what, you will find yourself growing as a writer in Hum class.
Assignments
Education Essay: "If Students Are Not Learning to Fail, They Are Failing to Learn"
After several weeks of discussing historical and modern readings about the American education system,
as well as our own experiences with learning and school to this point,
we were ready to write an essay.
We were given the task of creating our own prompt based on a topic related to education we found interesting.
Then, we had to find sources and take a stance in order to write an essay synthesizing the situation and arguing for a particular viewpoint.
I chose to write about the role of productive struggle in education (especially math education), and how it fosters skills that students can apply to the real world.
I was very fond of this assignment, and I'm proud of how my finished work turned out!
My essay can be found here.
Walden Skits: "The Thoreauapist"
Our summer reading book, Walden, was... a tough book to get through.
Though he occasionally presents some insightful commentary or appeals to the nature-loving side of humanity, Henry David Thoreau is a tremendous hypocrite and extremely long-winded.
However, the skit assignment was one of the most fun assignments to date at Mass Academy.
We worked in groups to create a skit that conveyed a message about Walden or Thoreau.
I worked with Mary and Anh on this project.
We chose to portray Thoreau's hypocrisy by imagining what would happen if Henry David Thoreau was transported to the modern day and became a therapist.
We then performed our skit on the stage at the retreat to Camp Bournedale, which was my personal favorite part of the trip.
You can find the script here and some photos from Bournedale (taken by Mrs. Taricco) below.
