Humanities is taught by Ms. Small and centers itself around the overarching question: “What does it mean to be Human?”. Mass Academy students explore this through studies of rhetoric, satire, American history, and the development of cultures around the world. Timed writing and long essays mark this class’s experience, where all struggle is treated as #Growth. Students participate in various humanities-driven competitions such as NYT’s “Growing Up With AI” Multimedia challenge and the Race Card Project.
An Essay on AI:
Our first
Humanities unit was on education, where we explored the history of
education and what we expect its future to be. Because AI is very
influential and significant in the development of future educational
programs, we culminated A Term with a timed write responding to the
question of to what extent AI tools should or should not play a role
in the classroom. If you are having trouble viewing the essay, click
here!
A Satirical Analysis on The Princess
Bride:
Did you know that satire is the use of comedy and
rhetoric to challenge a belief and push for a specific belief or
opinion? In Humanities, satire and rhetoric are largely explored
during b-term where we read various texts and compare argumentative
strategies. For our final essay, we used rhetorical and satirical
analysis strategies to argue how one or more texts uses satire to
make an argument. I explored how the film, The Princess Bride, used
satire to criticize the prevailing fairy-tale genre through
role-reversal and its moments directly speaking to the audience.
If you are having trouble viewing the satirical analysis, click here!