Humanities 8 B
Why This Class
As a parent, you recognize that one of the most significant factors in your children’s future happiness is their ability to step out of the prevailing worldviews of the day and think for themselves. This course gives students the tools to identify and decode those worldviews.
Throughout this course, mentors guide students to examine the worldviews that have most impacted periods of world history, including the Classical era, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Enlightenment, Romanticism, and Modernism. Students learn to recognize the ingredients that make up each of these worldviews, such as art, music, myth, and symbolism, and in turn, gain a clearer understanding of their lens on the world.
By the end of this course, students can better distinguish between their core values and beliefs and the cultural norms and pressures around them. They are more confident in themselves as independent thinkers and more sensitive to the worldviews held by others.
Overarching Questions
What is the role of great myths in society?
Am I willing to grow and access more truth by putting on the glasses, or worldview, of others?
What do I think of today’s worldview, and how can I make choices about which parts of it I will and will not embrace?
What will I do differently because of the things I learned this semester?
Reading List
Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods by Rick Riordan
Selections of The Federalist Papers by Hamilton, Madison and Jay (provided by Williamsburg)
Great Composers Dover History Coloring Book by John Green and Paul Negri
Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis (Honors only)
Choose one of the following:
- Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
- The Shakespeare Stealer by Gary Blackwood
- The Midwife’s Apprentice; & Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman (two books)
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
- Johnny Tremain by Ester Forbes
- Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis (optional for Classic—challenging material)
Course Details
Recommended Grade: 8th
Prerequisites: None
Estimated Weekly Hours: 6 (Classic), 8 (Honors)
Format: Live
Credits: 0.5