Philosophy: Question Everything – How do we make sense of the world?

Have you ever argued with someone and felt certain you were right, and then realize later that maybe you weren’t? Have you ever wondered whether you truly have free will? Have you ever asked yourself what it means to be human? If you are interested in questions like those, or if you are simply trying to understand how the world works, this course is for you. Through philosophical inquiry, we will question the assumptions that shape our beliefs about meaning, truth, and what it means to be human. We will read classic and contemporary philosophical texts, participate in thought experiments, analyze case studies, and engage in discussion and debate to challenge our deeply held ways of thinking. This course will help make philosophy relevant and meaningful to your life and the world around you. Expect to be surprised, challenged, and sometimes uncomfortable as you rethink what you believe and why, and discover that asking great questions is one of the most powerful ways to make sense of the world. The class counts as English credit. Honors and standard levels

Literature of Lies

What are our expectations for truth in memoirs and fake news? And how do we feel about unreliable narrators, lies within the story world, tall-tales, and satire? We will ask how lies are constructed narratively, and what we lose and gain when and if we stop trusting our stories. As we consider various types of narrative untruth, we’ll dive into some cognitive psychology to learn about the trustworthiness of memory (and how forgetting creates gaps that false information can fill) as well as our susceptibility to fake news. Together the class will allow us to ask what is “true” in our post-truth world. This class will have a particular focus on the skills of reading, analytical writing, and project design.

Zero to Hero: The Hero’s Journey to Character

What makes a life heroic? Is heroism found in extraordinary feats, or in quiet acts of resilience and moral courage? Are heroes born through destiny, or made through choices, failures, and growth? This course explores the values, challenges, and traits that define heroism across literature, film, and history. From The Odyssey to Spirited Away, from Antigone to Demon Copperhead, we will study how different cultures and eras have imagined courage, sacrifice, and integrity—and how those stories can help us reflect on the kind of lives we want to lead. The aim is not simply to analyze stories about heroes, but to use them as mirrors for self-discovery. Through close reading, discussion, film analysis, and creative projects, students will consider how heroic journeys illuminate the work of building character, clarifying values, and living with intention. The course culminates in a final project in which each student articulates a personal “code of character”—a framework for ambition, resilience, and purpose in their own lives. This class will have a particular focus on the skills of reading, analytical writing, and project design.

Madness to Mental Health

Who you callin’ crazy? How do we respond to those whose mental states diverge from the norm, and how do we tell stories about them? Starting with Greek tragedy, working our way through Shakespeare, and ending with student-chosen modern texts, we’ll explore the history of mental illness in Western literature. We’ll examine the language used to talk about mental health, how it has evolved, and how depictions differ across time and culture. Projects will involve options ranging from creative writing to psychology research, giving students opportunities to explore topics of interest to them within mental health narratives. This class will have a particular focus on the skills of reading, analytical writing, and creative writing.

Sports Literature

How can sports’ narratives illuminate human experiences? How have sports been used to establish and connect with shared and individual identity? And how can examining the role of sports-in both fiction and real life-give us greater insight into our society? These are just some of the questions we'll address through themes of triumph, determination, teamwork, pursuit of perfection, sacrifice, defeat, and identity. Digging into works that focus on various team and individual sports-from basketball to figure skating, swimming to soccer, baseball to rugby--we'll examine the words of athletes, coaches, and fans to explore sports as allegory, how sports history has shaped our contemporary understanding of place and self, and how storytelling in sports contributes to national mythology. From the allegory of the game to the ethical questions raised in our society, this course invites students to critically engage with the myriad ways sports’ narratives illuminate the human experience. This class will have a particular focus on the skills of reading and creative writing.

Crime Literature

Starting with the birth of detective fiction, one of the most popular literary genres, and moving to creative nonfiction, we will consider the appeal of stories about grisly murders and trace an arc from a more comfortable belief in the nature of justice to suspicion about police powers. Coinciding with this increased suspicion is a movement away from white detectives and white victims, to crimes targeting people of color, who were legally barred from giving testimony (and thus seeking legal redress) for much of the country’s history. Do stories give us cathartic release when a bad guy is punished? Is there some sort of poetic justice in exposing the inequities of the past even if the murderers have gone free? And what does crime fiction’s popularity suggest about our relationship to our criminal justice system, about our perception of its workings, and about the larger American tenet of equality before the law?

This class will have a particular focus on the skills of reading and creative writing.

Philosophy: The Meaning of Life through Ethical Dilemmas

Have you ever wondered what the meaning of life is or if a decision you made was the right one? Have you ever played the game, “Would you rather…?” Then you have done philosophy! Philosophy equips us with critical thinking and logic to navigate the world around us. Every day, we are faced with taking a stand on difficult moral questions and accept judgment on how we should lead our lives. You want to learn why people think, debate, love, hate, have emotions, and make (sometimes bizarre) decisions; or why people follow religions, search for truth, vote conservative or liberal; or you just want to learn how to make difficult decisions and how we should live our lives. Then this is your class. Be prepared to tackle challenging, real-life situations, consider alternative perspectives, understand how our brain makes decisions, and rethink your notion of morality, right and wrong, and what we ought to do to find the meaning of life. Take a class and discover not just what is, but also what could be! This class counts as English credit. Honors and standard levels

Student Directed Project – SDP

A Student-Directed Project empowers students to do an in-depth exploration of a topic of interest throughout the term.

The student designs, plans, and leads their research project in collaboration and with the guidance and support of a coach (faculty advisor). It allows students to delve deeper into their passion and to be the designer of their own learning. There is a wide range of Student-Directed Projects; they are multi-disciplinary, non-linear, and most importantly, student-created and led.

That’s what makes them so interesting.

Here are some examples of past projects:

• Creating an architectural model using 3D architectural software
• Through their eyes: Photo and interview series of veterans
• Robosub electromagnetic linear accelerator
• Acoustic pinger for Robosub
• Virtual Reality game for visually-impaired persons
• Creating a concept album
• Dispute: Landlord-tenant board game
• Multimedia journalism: Producing a podcast series
• Perplex: English and Theater Study
• Sensors and fiber optics: Building a fiber optic dress
• Haptic technologies: Force-Feedback Virtual Reality
• Applications of integrals to analytical continuation of functions

Storytelling Workshop

In this course, students will expand their creative capacity and explore their voice through learning elements of writing craft and engaging in a workshop community. Students will identify what elements of storytelling matter most to them and will produce fiction, poetry, memoir, or oral stories. They’ll learn workshop protocols and engage in revision processes to refine their work. We will read writing about writing and mentor texts to inspire and inform our writing. Students will end the term with a social action project, using storytelling to create cultural change within their communities. Learn to own your voice, recognize its power, and use it for impact in your community. This class will have a particular focus on the skill of creative writing.

Great Books

When was the last time you were responsible for picking your reading for a course? At the beginning of this class, you will generate a list of books you want to read, and then you will campaign for your favorite; after the campaign season ends, you’ll vote, and several books will win. We’ll spend the term reading them, examining them for character, theme, structure, style, and message. How does choosing the text intersect with investment in the reading? Is the text a great book? Ultimately, you decide whether the books deserve spots on the shelf and how you go about choosing your next read. You will respond to the reading in various forms of writing, class discussions, projects, and presentations. Previous winners: 1984, Room, Lolita, Brave New World, Catch-22, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Lord of the Flies, The Scarlet Letter, Little Women, On the Road, The Kite Runner, Gone Girl, Fight Club. This class will have a particular focus on the skills of reading and analytical writing.

Literature and Film

Did you like the movie or the book better? Is this a sensible question, or are we being asked to compare unlike genres? In this course we will investigate these two art forms, comparing the narrative possibilities — and limitations — of each. How do these modes of storytelling differ in terms of their effects? What can film achieve that a novel or play cannot, and vice versa? What is lost in the translation of literature into film, and what makes a “good” adaptation? We will read novels and plays, and we will study a film based on each. You will think and write critically about how these stories are told on the printed page and on the screen, analyzing the cultural impact of each medium. This class will have a particular focus on the skills of reading and analytical writing.

English 10: American Literature

What does it mean to be American? From the perspectives of indigenous people to the revolution that defined our independence to slavery and its legacy to the very cases contended today in the Supreme Court, we address the range of Americanism, the beautiful and the sordid. Students write, read, debate, create, reflect, act, film, craft, and present as ways of asking big questions, answering the questions with specific evidence, and acknowledging the complexities of those answers. Readings include fiction, non-fiction, memoir, poetry, and drama, and writings ask students to question the literature, its language and its purpose. Students hone their thesis development skills, practice finding and incorporating meaningful, interesting evidence, and build their analytical reasoning, and they bring these skills to all of their work.  Myth and Meaning in American Literature  In this course, we turn to great American writers whose work articulates contemporary America, and we use these writings to ask the questions: What does it really mean to be American? What are the myths about America and how do they show up in literature? How do those myths shape our understanding of characters and their actions? How do these myths evolve? How are they being disrupted? How do authors create characters and narratives who wrestle with America’s past? How do these characters and narratives help us face their futures? Identity in American Literature How does love show up in the world? How do self-love and friendship and romantic love and love of place show up in our world and in literature? What happens when love isn’t there? How does love help us understand ourselves better? There are myriad tangible and intangible ways that love helps us define ourselves and our world -- from large scale identifiers like nation and religion, to the little things, like choosing what shoes to wear in the morning. In this term, we look at America through a range of lenses, and all of these lenses ultimately help inform our own perspectives of who we are and why we believe the things we do.