Course Catalog — My Student HUB | Academic Support & Resources for Students (2024)

• This freshman-year English course engages students in literary analysis and inferential evaluation of great texts both classic and contemporary. While critically reading fiction, poetry, drama, and literary nonfiction, students will master comprehension and literary analysis strategies. Interwoven in the lessons across two semesters are activities that encourage students to strengthen their oral language skills and produce clear, coherent writing. Students will read a range of classic texts including Homer’s The Odyssey, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game.” They will also study short but complex texts, including influential speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan. Contemporary texts by Richard Preston, Julia Alvarez, and Maya Angelou round out the course.

• This freshman honors English course invites students to explore a variety of diverse and complex texts organized into thematic units. Students will engage in literary analysis and inferential evaluation of great texts, both classic and contemporary. While critically reading fiction, poetry, drama, and literary nonfiction, honors students will master comprehension, use evidence to conduct in-depth literary analysis, and examine and critique how authors develop ideas in a variety of genres. Interwoven throughout the lessons are activities that encourage students to strengthen their oral language skills, research and critically analyze sources of information, and produce clear, coherent writing. In addition to activities offered to students in core courses, honors students are given additional opportunities to create and participate in project-based learning activities, including writing a Shakespearian sonnet and creating an original interpretation of a Shakespearian play. Honors students will read a range of classic texts, including Homer’s The Odyssey, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” and Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game.” Students will also read Sue Macy’s full-length nonfiction work Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way), and will study a variety of short but complex texts, including influential speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan. Contemporary texts by Richard Preston, Julia Alvarez, and Maya Angelou round out the course.

• Focused on application, this sophom*ore English course reinforces literary analysis and twenty-first-century skills with superb pieces of literature and literary nonfiction, application e-resources, and educational interactives. Each thematic unit focuses on specific literary analysis skills and allows students to apply them to a range of genres and text structures. As these units meld modeling and application, they also expand on training in media literacy, twenty-first-century career skills, and the essentials of grammar and vocabulary. Under the guidance of the eWriting software, students also compose descriptive, persuasive, expository, literary analyses, research, narrative, and compare-contrast essays.

• This full-year course focuses on five critical areas: relationships between quantities and reasoning with equations, linear and exponential relationships, descriptive statistics, expressions and equations, and quadratic functions and modeling. This course builds on the foundation set in middle grades by deepening students’ understanding of linear and exponential functions, and developing fluency in writing and solving one-variable equations and inequalities. Students will interpret, analyze, compare, and contrast functions that are represented numerically, tabularly, graphically, and algebraically. Quantitative reasoning is a common thread throughout the course as students use algebra to represent quantities and the relationships among those quantities in a variety of ways. Standards of mathematical practice and process are embedded throughout the course, as students make sense of problem situations, solve novel problems, reason abstractly, and think critically.

• This compelling two-semester course engages students in the study of life and living organisms and examines biology and biochemistry in the real world. This is a yearlong course that encompasses traditional concepts in biology and encourages the exploration of discoveries in this field of science. The components include biochemistry, cell biology, cell processes, heredity and reproduction, the evolution of life, taxonomy, human body systems, and ecology. This course includes both hands-on wet labs and virtual lab options.

• This yearlong course examines the major events and turning points of world history from ancient times to the present. Students investigate the development of classical civilizations in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and Asia, and they explore the economic, political, and social revolutions that have transformed human history. At the end of the course, students conduct a rigorous study of modern history, allowing them to draw connections between past events and contemporary issues. The use of recurring themes, such as social history, democratic government, and the relationship between history and the arts, allows students to draw connections between the past and the present, among cultures, and multiple perspectives. Throughout the course, students use a variety of primary and secondary sources, including legal documents, essays, historical writings, and political cartoons to evaluate the reliability of historical evidence and to draw conclusions about historical events.

• Introducing art within historical, social, geographical, political, and religious contexts for understanding art and architecture through the ages, this course offers high school students an in-depth overview of art throughout history, with lessons organized by chronological and historical order and world regions. Students enrolled in this one-semester course cover topics including early Medieval and Romanesque art; art in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries; fifteenth-century art in Europe; sixteenth-century art in Italy; the master artists; High Renaissance and Baroque art; world art, which includes the art of Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific cultures; eighteenth and nineteenth-century art in Europe and the Americas; and modern art in Europe and the Americas.

• Students begin their introduction to high school Spanish with fundamental building blocks in four key areas of foreign language study: listening comprehension, speaking, reading, and writing. Each unit consists of an ongoing adventure story, a new vocabulary theme and grammar concept, numerous interactive games reinforcing vocabulary and grammar, reading and listening comprehension activities, speaking and writing activities, and multimedia cultural presentations covering major Spanish-speaking areas in Europe and the Americas.

• Introducing high school students to the working world, this course provides the knowledge and insight necessary to compete in today’s challenging job market. This relevant and timely course helps students investigate careers as they apply to personal interests and abilities, develop the skills and job search documents needed to enter the workforce, explore the rights of workers and traits of effective employees, and address the importance of professionalism and responsibility as careers change and evolve. This one-semester course includes lessons in which students create a self-assessment profile, a cover letter, and a resume that can be used in their educational or career portfolio.

BUSINESS AND MARKETING

• This full-year course introduces students to the features and functionality of the most widely-used productivity software in the world: Microsoft® Office®. Through video instruction, interactive skills demonstrations, and hands-on practice assignments, students learn to develop, edit, and share Office® 2019 documents for both personal and professional use. By the end of this course, students will have developed basic proficiency in the most common tools and features of the Microsoft Office suite of applications: Word®, Excel®, Outlook®, and PowerPoint®. Note: This course includes examples from both Office 2019 and Office 365. Required Materials: Student access to MS Office 2019 or Office 365 preferred.

COMPUTER AND INFORMATION SCIENCES

• This course is available as both an elective and a CTE course. Introduction to Computer Science is a year-long course designed for students in grades 9-10, although any students across 9-12 may enroll. This course introduces students to the foundational concepts of computer science and challenges them to explore how computing and technology can impact the world. Students have creative, hands-on learning opportunities to create a computer program.

HEALTH CARE SCIENCES

• This year-long course introduces high school students to the fundamental concepts of anatomy and physiology— including the organization of the body, cellular functions, and the chemistry of life. As they progress through each unit, students learn about the major body systems, common diseases and disorders, and the career specialties associated with each system. Students investigate basic medical terminology as well as human reproduction and development. Students are introduced to these fundamental health science concepts through direct instruction, interactive tasks, and practice assignments. This course is intended to provide students with a strong base of core knowledge and skills that can be used in a variety of health science career pathways.

CAREER READINESS

• This course provides students with the opportunity to prepare to complete the ACT® college entrance exam. Practice tests diagnose and target areas of opportunity, and students are prescribed individual study paths. The learning experience includes video-based instruction by highly qualified teachers, interactive assignments, and frequent assessment opportunities to track progress.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS

• This one-year course focuses on academic skill remediation for learners with needs in the areas of basic reading skills, phonemic awareness, reading fluency, and reading comprehension. This course is a credit-bearing course available to students based on IEP/MTSS team recommendation.

MATHEMATICS

• This one-year course focuses on academic skill remediation for learners with needs in the areas of mathematics calculation, reasoning, and problem-solving. Special focus is given to critical skills including proportions and ratios, algebraic reasoning, and math problem-solving. This course is a credit-bearing course available to students based on IEP/MTSS team recommendation.

SCIENCE

• Examining a broad spectrum of the biological sciences, Life Science is a full-year course that builds on basic principles of scientific inquiry and translates those skills to more complex, overarching biological themes. The course includes units that help students understand the definitions, forms, and classifications of living organisms and learn to analyze the diversity of each unique group of living organisms. Other units introduce students to the structures and functions of cells, cell theory, and cell reproduction. These larger themes are then applied to other topics, such as genetics, Darwinian theory, and human biology and health. An introduction to ecology draws all of these concepts together to examine the interrelationships that help to maintain life on Earth.

SOCIAL STUDIES

• This yearlong course examines the major events and turning points of world history from ancient times to the present. Students investigate the development of classical civilizations in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and Asia, and they explore the economic, political, and social revolutions that have transformed human history.