Humanities is a class taught by Ms. Small here at Mass Academy. The course primarily focuses on literature with a secondary focus on history. In class, discussions, essays, projects, and readings guide students to improve writing and analysis skills while drawing conclusions about society. Group-work is heavily emphasized, and it is the diversity of students here at Mass Academy that enhances our conversations. I view humanities as a valuable opportunity to synthesize two closely related disciplines to enhance our learning.
Our first major assignment of the year in Humanities was the Walden skit. The skit was a fantastic opportunity to analyze a difficult text and express our thoughts through a creative medium. The author of “Walden,” Henry David Thoreau, was eccentric and often hypocritical. Consequently, we had many ideas for the overall plot of our skit, but eventually settled on a story where Thoreau faces internal dilemma. The skit required a different skill set than a typical essay, and I found overcoming the several challenges that appeared along the way to be rewarding. Each group presented their skit during Bournedale, and I was blown away by the quality of production. Overall, I am proud of the final product our group created, and thought we made good use of our resources.
Following a unit on rhetoric and satire, this essay was one of the two main assignments to test our understanding. This assignment required us to analyze a piece of satire, and my topic was a comparison a rhetorical and satirical piece that each covered gun control. I decided to focus on improving on the areas of revisions that were highlighted in my previous essay. Although the essay is far from perfect, I feel that it is an improvement to my first essay of the year. If I were to revise the essay, I would focus on fixing the mistakes I made in my citations. Overall, I appreciated that this assignment provided a lot of creative freedom, and I also learned a lot about the process of writing an essay efficiently.