Humanities I

This course takes us back to the beginning of the universe. Through it we seek to understand the integrated history of the Cosmos, Earth, Life, and Humanity, using the best available empirical evidence and scholarly methods. The course spans 13.8 billion years. It weaves insights from many disciplines to form a single story that helps us better understand people, civilizations, and how we are connected to everything around us.

While the course content is expansive the skills developed during the course are simple:

  • Critical Thinking - students explore big questions as they seek understand complex topics such as scope, scale interconnections and their place in the universe and the story of mankind.

  • Close Reading - in this course student will often be asked to read content three times. From previewing to comprehension and extension.

  • Writing - students will learn the mechanics of forming strong claims supported by evidence.

Near the end of the year we'll switch gears and focus on Civics and the development of western democracies. The goal of this maneuver is to ensure students don't lose important information that was gained in their middle school years and hopefully deepen their understanding of our system of government. Below you will find course outcomes along with a calendar that covers the units of study.

Course Learning Outcomes

  1. Explain how thresholds of increasing complexity, differing scales of time and space, claim testing, and collective learning help us understand historical, current, and future events as part of a larger narrative.

  2. Integrate perspectives from multiple disciplines to create, defend, and evaluate the history of the Universe and Universal change.

  3. Deepen an understanding of key historical and scientific concepts and facts; use these in constructing explanations.

  4. Engage in meaningful scientific inquiry and historical investigations by being able to hypothesize, form researchable questions, conduct research, revise one’s thinking, and present findings that are well-supported by scientific and historical evidence.

  5. Critically evaluate, analyze, and synthesize primary and secondary historical, scientific, and technical texts to form well-crafted and carefully supported written and oral arguments.

  6. Communicate arguments to a variety of audiences to support claims through analysis of substantive texts and topics; use valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence through individual or shared writing, speaking, and other formats.

  7. Locate and understand how our own place, our community’s place, and humanity as a whole fit into and impact Big History’s narrative.

  8. Engage in historical analysis using the theories and practices from multiple disciplines, toward an integrated, interdisciplinary understanding of the history of the Universe.

Civics

  1. Understand key ideas that emerged during the Enlightenment period from philosophers such as: Hobbes, Locke and Montesquieu.

  2. Analyze the position and claims made by John Winthrop as he led settlers in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and how his position relates to America's founding ideals of: Liberty, Rights, Equality, Democracy and Opportunity.

  3. Compare the (3) distinct geographical regions of the original (13) colonies and discuss how they contributed to the dynamics leading up to the Revolutionary War.

  4. Identify the various events leading up the Revolutionary War as well as the leading figures of the Revolution.

  5. Identify the problems with the Articles of the Confederation that led to the framers desiring an entirely new form of government.

  6. Understand the debates that occurred during the Constitutional Convention and the related outcomes/compromises.

  7. Identify the (7) core constitutional principles of: popular sovereignty, limited government, separation of powers, checks and balances, judicial review, republicanism (classical), and federalism.

  8. Understand the basic organization of the Constitution.

  9. Understand the difference between enumerated and implied powers.

  10. Identify which powers were enumerated in the articles and how they are used for checks and balances.