History - Junior

AP U.S. HISTORY (111)

Grades 11-12:  Advanced Placement

(Year) 1.50 credits

Advanced Placement is intended for those students with a serious interest in history.  Students recommended should be able to identify relations in readings and show direction and change in long term trends.  Students need good writing skills since expository writing is an essential activity.  The course fosters a critical appreciation of American traditions and institutions, toleration of differing viewpoints and respect for history's complexities and ambiguities.

Advanced Placement is a chronological survey of American history since 1492 with emphasis on the post-Civil War period.  In addition to exposing students to the historical content, Advanced Placement will train students to analyze and interpret primary sources, including documentary material, maps, statistical tables, and pictorial and graphic evidence of historical events.  Students will learn to take notes from both printed materials and lectures or discussions to write essay examinations, and to write analytical and research papers.  They will be able to express themselves with clarity and precision and know how to cite sources and credit the phrases and ideas of others.  The course is also linked to the History, Geography, Economic and Civics/Government Strands of the Massachusetts Frameworks.  The above mentioned units should be completed by mid-May; thereafter, students will be working on special projects.

This course uses college level texts and readings, primary sources and selected audio-visual materials.  Written work constitutes an integral part of skill development.  Essay assignments are given to develop expository skills.  This is a student-centered course which emphasizes informed dialogue and the seminar format.  Students are expected to take the Advanced Placement Examination in May, and those who do so will be exempted from the course final examination.

CRIMINOLOGY (169/170)

Grades 10-12: Level 2 and Honors

(Semester) .75 credit

This semester elective is an introduction to the study of crime using multiple social sciences such as sociology, psychology, and political science as lenses. Students will understand the purpose of laws and analyze the many ways the government deals with and defines crime. Students will first understand the legal framework and then proceed to analyze a variety of statistics and theories behind criminal behavior. Students will be asked to interact with one of the many institutions involving crime and interview someone in a profession connected to criminology.  

Some of the many topics to be studied will include profiling the criminal mind, law-making and the court system, citizen rights and responsibilities, social institutions, criminal behavior, criminal law and criminal justice, policing, juvenile delinquency, and prisons.   Students will be expected to discuss assigned readings and complete efficient research. Teaching methods will include experimentation, discussion, Socratic seminars, reading analysis, lectures, role-playing, research and audio-visual presentations. 

Honors Option: Honors level work in an upper grade level class requires students to consistently exhibit strong class communication skills and high quality written work. Honors level students should expect to substantially contribute to all class activities, as well as being willing to personalize class concepts and take intellectual risks in applying sociological theories to real life. Honors level students will often have more homework and longer assignments. It is important that honors level students are also active listeners, able to consider and respectfully respond to other’s comments and always exhibit a reliable work ethic.

ECONOMICS (173/174)

Grades 10-12: Level 2 and Honors

(Semester) .75 credit

Contemporary Economics introduces students to key concepts and principles of the American economic system and relates these concepts and principles to students’ future economic roles.  Content includes the following: a survey of economic systems as societies decide what to produce, how and for whom; a study of the role of supply and demand, prices and profits in a market economy; and understanding of the organization and role of business firms in terms of how decisions are made as they respond to market structures.  Further topics studied in this course are an understanding of economic performance indicators, along with fiscal (taxation) and monetary (money and banking) responses to market failures and what these mean in terms of poverty, employment, and other quality of life indicators. World trade, exchange rates and Third World development are additional topics for study.  

Instructional methods include class discussion, inquiry, lectures, and audio-visual materials.  Skill development concentrates upon critical analysis and application of concepts to assignments and activities. Course materials include an assigned textbook, and reprints from contemporary economics journals as well as other readings.

ADVANCED PLACEMENT MACROECONOMICS (253)

Grades 11-12 

(Year) 1.5 credits

As part of the Advanced Placement Program, this course makes demands on students “equivalent to those of an introductory year in economics at the college freshman level.” Students enrolled in this will focus on a thorough understanding of the principles of economics that apply to an economic system as a whole. 

This course explores the general scope of economics. It explores the American enterprise system, economic principles, economics of supply/demand, labor and industry, the Federal Reserve System, governmental fiscal policies, and the comparison of economic systems of major countries and economics philosophies to develop an understanding of the impact of global trade.

EUROPEAN HISTORY (191/143)

Grades 10-12:  Level 2 and Honors

(Semester) .75 credit

In many ways, the modern world is a creation of Europe. This may not be politically correct, but it is essentially true. Politically, the world is dominated by liberal democracies, totalitarian dictatorships and nationalistic regimes, all of which emerged in Europe first and are grounded in the European Enlightenment and Romantic movements of the 18th and 19th century. Economically the world economy with its stock markets and driving consumerism has its beginnings with the Atlantic economy created by Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. The critiques of this system in the forms of Socialism and Marxism emerged in Europe in response to the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century. Socially, the artistic bedrock upon which the world judges art and music and allows for the importance of the individual artist, for the most part is a product of European cultural developments dating back to the Renaissance. The understanding of European history is very important, in order to understand the modern world. Beginning with Europe’s emergence from the political and economic chaos of the Middle Ages in the Renaissance and continuing up to Europe’s partial unification under the European Union following the Cold War, the class will examine the amazing six hundred years that forms the basis of so much of our world today.

Honors Option: Honors level work in an upper grade level class requires students to consistently exhibit strong class communication skills and high quality written work. Honors level students should expect to substantially contribute to all class activities, as well as being willing to personalize class concepts and take intellectual risks in applying sociological theories to real life. Honors level students will often have more homework and longer assignments. It is important that honors level students are also active listeners, able to consider and respectfully respond to other’s comments and always exhibit a reliable work ethic. 

PHILOSOPHY AND RHETORIC (153/154) 9- 10

Grades 9-12: Level 2 and Honors

(Semester)  .75 credit

Did you ever stop to wonder why you have to go to school? Perhaps you have always wanted to know why the things that you do are judged to be either right or wrong or good or evil? Perhaps you have noticed great conflict in our society of late and have been curious to know its source? If any of the answers to these questions are yes, then you are a potential student of Philosophy! Congratulations, this is the class for you!

Every semester the students and the teacher will use the Socratic Method to explore different philosophical debates and topics. We will examine not only eternal debates such as what the nature of reality is and our relationship to that reality, we will also connect these classical arguments to our own lives and the society that we live in today. We will also examine the various philosophers themselves over time, such as Socrates, Aquinas and Nietzsche, in order to understand not only their world view, but to make our own world view clearer as a result.    

The class will read original texts, debate philosophical questions, discuss important events, and learn how to grasp more clearly philosophical concepts by learning basic concepts of Rhetoric and Logic. The class will be assessed through a series of short papers, a small number of standard tests, a creative project and a final exam. Join us as we explore your mind!

PSYCHOLOGY (125/126)

Grades 10-12:  Level 2 and Honors

(Semester) .75 credit

This course introduces students to a wide variety of topics by examining individual and group behavior.  Psychology will allow you to better understand yourself and the world in which you live.  Contemporary problems and issues will be examined within a psychological framework. Unlike most other high school classes, your personal experiences and participation are relevant and important for successful active class discussion and analysis. 

Units and concepts include learning, perception, consciousness, cognition, child development, personality, psychological disorders, therapy and social psychology. Students apply psychological knowledge to questions such as "Why am I different from everyone else?" and "Why do people think and behave in a particular way?”  Dream analysis, free association and journal writing are utilized to access the subconscious.  Experiments are used frequently to examine topics such as ESP, conditioning, learning styles, right/left brain theories and your relationship with technology and food.

Psychology class fosters a critical appreciation for multiple theories of human development and how the human personality is shaped by the controlling mechanisms that surround them. Teaching methods include cooperative group work, experimentation, discussions, readings, lectures, role-playing, research and audio-visual presentations. 

Honors Option: Honors level work in a junior/senior heterogeneous class requires students to consistently exhibit strong communication skills and high quality written work. Honors level students should expect to often start and lead class and group discussions, as well as be willing to personalize and take intellectual risks in applying psychological theories to life. Honors level students will often have more homework and longer assignments.

Honors level students should also be active listeners able to consider and respectfully respond to other’s comments and exhibit a reliable work ethic in all class assignments. Honors level students must be motivated to do work that is of excellent quality.

AP  PSYCHOLOGY (119)

Grades 11 -12:  Advanced Placement

(Year) 1.50 credits

This is a college-level class for juniors and seniors interested in rigorous study of the human mind and behavior.  This course will develop critical thinking, study skills and analytic habits of mind needed in college, and students will take the AP exam in May. Students are exposed to psychological facts, principles, and phenomena associated with each of the major subfields within psychology and will perform experiments, test theories and question conventional wisdom about human and animal behavior. The major content areas covered are as follows: history and approaches, research methods, biological bases of behavior, perception, consciousness, learning, cognition, emotion, motivation, child development, personality, intelligence, abnormal behavior and treatment, and social influences. Teaching methods include lecture, experiments, group discussion, video excerpts, and internet research. Students will be assessed with tests, essays, presentations, discussion, behavioral journal writing, and experiment creation and write-ups.

WORLD WAR II AND THE HOLOCAUST (150)

Grades 10-12: Level 2

(Semester) .75 credits

What brought Europe to experience the rise of the Nazis, the Holocaust, and countless millions dead, all in thirty years? This course will examine this and other questions by looking at the social, cultural, and political aspects surrounding the World Wars and the Holocaust. Students will study the rise of radical and reactionary governments in Europe such as Hitler’s Germany, the causes and effects of World War I and II, the evolution of the Holocaust, and what this era means for Europeans and the world. 

The period of the World Wars provides us with valuable lessons on the human condition.  Compassion, cruelty, anger, forgiveness, responsibility, our constraints and capabilities, will all be considered as we analyze individual and group choices then and now.  In addition, the class will explore issues of government and the importance of democracy.

This class will utilize various texts, film, class discussion, debate, period propaganda, accounts from perpetrators and victims, individual and group projects, political cartoons, as well as current technology. Students will be expected to critically analyze material with a mature, empathetic attitude.

DEBATE (134) 

Grades 10-12:  Level 2

(Semester) .5 credits

This course introduces students to the principles and practices of debate. It is highly recommended that students have already taken Communications. Employing cooperative learning and seminar format, Debate emphasizes the development of skills in critical thinking, organization, leadership, responsibility for teamwork and creative investigation of selected topics.  No prior experience in debate is required.

The short-term goal is to enable students to thoughtfully analyze a topic/issue from opposing viewpoints, develop an argument in a carefully designed framework and practice teamwork skills.  The long-term goal is to enable students to transfer skills acquired from debate to practical, real-life situations.  Through hands-on activities, students learn to use library indexes and the internet to research, locate and use government documents and understand how and why current laws are enacted.

Concepts include:  debate format, basic elements of debate process and types of propositions.  Topics are chosen mutually by the teacher and students to reflect current issues and concerns.

Attitudes fostered are an appreciation for differing viewpoints, courage to defend a position and open-mindedness as the basis for reasoned thought and opinion.  

In the class, a heavy emphasis will be placed on examining the evolution of the political, economic and social philosophies that emerged in Europe as well as their influence not only on the course of events in the time period but on the modern world today. The students will be examining the evolution of the arts, both visually and musically, and their impact on modern culture today. In addition students will read and discuss primary source documents as well as examine how historians assemble history from such sources.

BUSINESS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP (654)

Grades 10-12 Level 2 

(Semester) .5 credits

Students explore qualities of individual enterprise. They develop skills needed to advance in an ever changing work environment. Specifically, students develop competencies in decision making, long-range planning, effective communication, accountability, responsibility, and continuing education. This course is designed for students who wish to concentrate on strategies for career development through ownership/management of their own businesses. Although individual skills are emphasized, the focus of the course is on development of a business plan, including the following: determination of the type of business enterprise, legal considerations, location selection, financing, steps in getting the enterprise started, marketing strategy, and interaction with successful entrepreneurs.