At Mass Academy, we don't take separate English and history classes, but rather a singular class dedicated to humanities as a whole. Humanities is taught by Mrs. Small and it is very discussion driven. Humanities is a class that has forced me to think and ask questions more than any other English or history class has in the past. The most interesting aspect about humanities is that everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Mrs. Small fosters an environment that allows open discussion and for everyone to voice their thoughts. Each reading, discussion, and essay is designed to challenge and further our knowledge of humanity.
My personal favorite unit that we have completed so far is the satire unit. Satire, in short, is the use of humor to point out issues with politics, society, the earth, or anything. The best satires are so well written that anyone, no matter their political views, would read the entire piece. Some satires are so well crafted, that you begin to forget that it is a satire. Towards the end of the unit, we were able to create our own satires. My partner Nevin and I chose to satirize politicians in general; specifically, we satirized their inability to connect with their constituents and their huge egos.
The other main assignment for the satire unit was an in-class satirical analysis where we, well analyzed the rhetorical devices within a satire. Mrs. Small is always very open to prompt ideas if you have one, but given prompts included a persuasive essay on why satire fails. I chose to compare a piece of satirical writing and a more traditional piece of writing. In class, we read the Cherokee director of the American Indian Program at the Smithsonian Rayna Green’s “The Museum of the Plains White Person.” This speech satirized the Indigenous American displays that were created in museums across the United States. For the more traditional writing, I chose an Shrewsbury High School from CBC that includes the interview of Nigerian art historian and Princeton professor Chika Okeke-Agulu. What separated this essay from the ones I have written in the past is that we were only given two days in class to write this essay. At the end of the first day, I was really worried because I had only written or rewritten my intro paragraph (at the bottom of the PDF you can see one iteration). In the end, though, I am happy with the results of my first-ever in-class essay.