Class of 2026: Senior Trip

Class of 2026 families-

As the first students to enjoy our new Senior Commons area, we would love to offer you the opportunity to select a piece of art to commemorate your student's legacy at Cicero Prep.

Please ask your student if they have a favorite piece of art that is currently hanging in the Senior Commons gallery, and we will create a customized plaque which will forever honor the effort and dedication of their time as a Centurion.

Reach out to our Community Engagement Officer for pricing and availability.

Dianne Kopernik

480-222-1505

Quarter 4: All quarter long, the senior HL students will be reading and discussing The Brothers Karamazov. 

Week of 2/24: Seniors in Humane Letters are reading and discussing Meditations on First Philosophy by Rene Descartes and Paradiso by Dante.

Week of 2/18: Students just completed speeches about HL topics ranging from Macbeth and Machiavelli to their senior thesis. We start Descartes on Thursday.

Week of 2/10: This week in 12th grade Humane Letters students are writing and preparing to perform speeches based on texts they have read this year, with a focus on imitating the style of Montaigne. 

Week of 2/3: Students read and discussed the essays of Montaigne.

Week of 1/27: This week in Humane Letters, 12th graders wrote an essay comparing and contrasting Machiavelli's philosophies in The Prince with the characters in Shakespeare's Macbeth. We then began reading and discussing the essays of Montaigne. 

Week of 1/21: Students continue to discuss a read-aloud of Dante's Paradiso. They also just finished Machiavelli's The Prince and are about to begin writing assignments comparing and contrasting it with Macbeth. Make sure to have Montaigne, The Essays: A Selection (Penguin Classics).

Week of 1/6: In 12th Grade Humane Letters, students are reading, acting out, and discussing Shakespeare's Macbeth. Students are also listening to a read-aloud of Dante's Paradiso and having mini-discussions on it.

Week of 12/2: Students are reading and discussing Dante's Purgatorio. 

Week of 11/4: 12th HL continues to read and discuss Dante's Inferno and the historical and literary context surrounding the text.

Week of 10/21: Senior HL is discussing portions of Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica.

Week of 9/30: This week we finished reading Augustine's Confessions and are currently writing essays on it.

Week of 9/23: This week in Humane Letters, students are discussing Augustine's Confessions and practicing narrative writing by imitating Augustine's style while reflecting on books that influenced them as children and high schoolers.

Week of 9/9: This week in 12th grade Humane Letters, we finished Paul's Letter to the Romans and are beginning Augustine's Confessions. 

Week of 9/3: This week we are discussing early Christianity in the Roman Empire based on our readings of the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John.

Week of 8/26: This week in HL we are finishing an essay on Virgil's Aeneid and then beginning the New Testament with seminars on the Gospel of Mark.

Humane Letters:

The Humane Letters course, as the name suggests, aims to cultivate the minds and hearts of students into more humane individuals; that is, more intellectually, morally, and aesthetically alive humans by directing them in the pursuit of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty through Socratic investigation of the great works of Western literature, history, and philosophy.

Literature invites students to reflect upon the human heart through the experiences of characters, and furnishes the imagination with words, phrases, stories, images, and paradigms to express truth more fully. Similarly, history provides an opportunity to contemplate the nature of human choices and consequences as well as admire and assess the rhetorical skill employed by the great leaders of the past. Philosophy, on the other hand, directly examines reality by probing into the nature of things (speculative philosophy) or inquiring into the good and happy life (practical philosophy). Literature, history, and philosophy, however, are each essential to the liberal arts education.

While twelfth grade Humane Letters continues to train students in the art of reading, listening, speaking, and writing, this course differs from ninth and tenth grade Humane Letters in that history is taught through the chronology of the texts. It is important to keep in mind, however, that even though the twelfth grade course spans from Rome to modernity and is particularly concerned with developing the idea of “the West”, it is not a “Western Civ” class. Rather, it is a course centered around the seminar, and concerned with the art of thinking well. 

As the capstone course, the twelfth grade Humane Letters seminar supplies students with the story of Western thought beginning with Vergil, “the father of the West,” and ending in the modern world of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. Unlike the other Humane Letters courses which focuses on a particular chapter of thought, the twelfth grade year aims to initiate students into “the great conversation” between Athens, Jerusalem, Rome.

Physics II:

Physics II is a continuation of the study of Galileo’s metaphorical “Book of Nature” that began in first-year physics. Students continue reading the book by developing cognitive and physical tools to describe, explain, and make predictions about nature.

Our approach to each topic starts with an experiment or demonstration, from which students will derive mathematical models to describe each phenomenon, which are then applied in practical situations, from word problems to practica. In Physics II, we study the extensions of the Mechanics fundamentals from Physics I, such oscillations, waves, and sound. Other areas of classical physics are introduced naturally, including electromagnetism and optics. These topics are complemented by basic concepts (system of units, scientific notation, dimensional analysis, etc.) that are reviewed as needed. Additional topics may be covered or further developed if time permits, including connecting each topic to Calculus.

Calculus II:

During the first year of calculus, students focused primarily on the definition of limits and how it led to the development of the derivative. During their second year of calculus, students review and expand their knowledge of derivatives, to include important applications of derivatives such as L’Hopital’s Rule, Optimization, and Graphs of Derivatives. 

From here we will shift our focus to the second “pillar” of calculus—Integrals. Students will investigate integrals such as the Riemann definite integral, indefinite integrals, improper integrals, and integrals involving exponential, logarithmic, inverse trigonometric, and hyperbolic functions.  

Concerning the application of integrals, students will use the concepts to find the area between curves, curve length, surface area, and separable differential equations.

All while preparing for our core objective of the class: completing the CLEP Calculus Exam.

Logic & Coding:

The art and science of computation predates the modern computer by centuries, and in fact is built upon the art of logic, going all the way back to authors such as Aristotle. The modern computer is a physical model of Boolean logic in the same way that the abacus is a physical model of numerical computation.

The goals of this course are to give students an opportunity (1) to learn the foundational elements of formal logic, (2) to build a foundation in basic coding, (3) to grasp the philosophical connection between formal logic and coding, (4) to begin to see the world through the lens of computation, (5) to understand the limits of formal logic and computation, and (6) to apply this to consider the appropriate place of computers in society and in the lives of individuals. All these are oriented toward the end of adding computational and algorithmic thinking to the students’ intellectual toolbox.

An important narrative of the course begins with the computer coming out of formal logic, but builds towards a sense of the power of the universal computer (an idea that develops through formal languages, regular expressions, deterministic finite automata, and Turing machines). However, the climax of the course occurs in the proof of the Halting Problem, demonstrating once and for all the limitation of algorithm, and therefore the objective limitations of computers, a discussion of which began with limitation due to complexity and speed, particularly for NP problems, and headed towards the use of heuristics when algorithms were not possible. This narrative ultimately highlights that the human mind has the ability not only to think algorithmically, but also to be struck with insight, which is not a function of algorithm. The computer, by contrast, has only the ability to perform algorithms. 

Thus, this thread raises strong arguments against the notion of truly creating “artificial intelligence” on the computer.

The focus of most of the course is on our programming of the computer, which can be seen as “man’s influence on the machine.” After following the arc of the course, students are in a position to consider the reverse: the influence of technology on man. The main thought leader for students in this is Neil Postman, but we also include a short story by E.M. Forster that deals with related themes.

Rhetoric:

While students are spending their senior year of Humane Letters studying the ideal of the West, beginning in Rome and tracing it through to Modernity, this class will be devoted to the study of a skill vital to the West's growth and development: rhetoric and oratory. Students will learn the skills. required to be, as Quintilian says, "a good man speaking well, by careful study of exemplary texts in the American rhetorical tradition and by guided practice in these skills. These include the five canons of classical rhetoric, the three modes of persuasion, and the five-fold form of rhetorical address. Students will study these skills as they are present in the example texts and perform exercises to practice their use. While this course is a close companion to Humane Letters, it has one substantial difference: the focus will be, not so much on the ideas presented in the texts, but rather the presentation of the ideas, how the presentation allows the author to communicate well, and how this can aid the student in their own writing and speaking.

Drama II:

The 12th Grade Drama course builds on the 11th grade Drama experience. Students work collaboratively to put on a production of a great work of drama, while deepening their understanding of the elements of stage production. They will build upon their skills in performance and learn the technical aspects of drama, including theater history, philosophy, and practice. They will also increase their familiarity with classical drama, giving them the ability to participate in drama on and off stage with a deep appreciation of the art and craft of storytelling.

Spanish IV:

In the Spanish IV course, the students continue their investigation of authentic literary texts in the target language. They will also deepen their understanding of grammar and vocabulary relevant to the literature being studied. At this level, we will be exploring readings at a deeper level, considering their linguistic constructions, styles, genres, vocabulary, as well as themes and meaning. In addition, we will continue learning how to apply techniques of literary analysis. Students will write longer essays about the readings; essays are from three to five pages in length. In addition, classes will be conducted entirely in Spanish and almost entirely in seminar style. The study of literary texts helps students develop reading techniques in the target language and understand literary conventions. Students are given the opportunity to discuss and write about the themes and ideas in these texts in class discussions, homework assignments, projects and essays. Since developing writing skills is an important aspect of the course, students are expected to complete at least one major essay per quarter. They should use the five-paragraph essay format used in the Humane Letters courses as well as use MLA citation style like in their Humane Letters curriculum.

Studio Art:

Within the three transcendentals, Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, the fine arts are situated primarily under Beauty. The fine arts are viewed as an essential human experience, as a key part of the liberal arts. They are to be taught in a way that is experiential and not professional: all are to participate in the fine arts, not just the professional.

At Great Hearts, we study fine arts to experience beauty; as a way to participate in beauty. We help students both create and encounter beauty by teaching the requisite skills of the discipline and pointing students to the aesthetic order around them and that which is depicted in the works of the masters. 

The Grade 12 Studio Art course begins where Grade 11 leaves off. In the first two units, students will review and demonstrate an understanding of previously learned drawing skills. Once the integrity of the students’ observational drawing skill has been established, they will work to expand their technical knowledge and artistic understanding of color theory, matching, and mixing. Students will complete intensive color charts and paint various objects from observation. Their study will culminate with two final projects, one collaborative and one independent, and a portfolio of work.

Throughout the Upper School Studio Art courses, students will be introduced to concepts and works of art that illustrate the principles behind composing beautiful pictures. Masterpieces are presented in class so the student may find awe and wonder in how drawing and paintings from the past connect to the tradition of picture-making. Great works of art from history serve as a starting place and are analyzed for how artists across centuries have employed techniques and principles. Inspired by this connection to the past, students will create their own studies, observational drawings, and paintings.