Course Description: History 9
Organized around universally applicable essential questions and themes, freshman humanities combines both English 9 and History 9 into a comprehensive course that develops critical reading & thinking skills. Students will be challenged to identify and link underlying patterns & meanings shared by literary works, as well as participate in activities that encourage students to think globally and make connections between literature and its social and historical context.
Our goal is to have students engage in meaningful and personally relevant activities, inspire thoughtful reflection about history and progress, and enhance student ability to read carefully and to make intelligent connections between apparently diverse texts. The center of this course is dedicated to laying a solid foundation of skills that will be the basis for subsequent high school and post high school English and History courses. These skills include extracting meaning, interpretation, and coming to understand the ways that all stories converge around—and reinterpret—universal themes. Additionally, students will be provided with a strong set of study skills including note taking and keeping organized binders.
The History portion of the curriculum will focus on mirroring the texts with relevant historical content. The texts that are taught in English class will lend themselves to a historical period that is pertinent and varied. The historical content will be an appendage of the English texts. In addition, the basis for skills significant with historical thinking and analysis will be taught connecting the content. The analysis and interpretation of primary sources will be facilitated to help the student begin using the skills necessary to succeed in subsequent history classes. The connections between the skills in English class will allow the students to begin thinking critically and help them learn to love the pursuit of historical assessment.
