Great Ideas Syllabus
Through study of the humanities—art, film, music, philosophy, literature, and anthropology, to name a few—students explore the idea that we see the world through the filter of our own culture. By bringing together analysis of visual media, auditory media, and written media, the course teaches students how analytical thinking applies across all fields of study (and how analytical thinking applies to their day-to-day lives). After guided practice with analysis, the course turns to research: students learn to conduct college-level research with resources provided by the school district, the public library system, and nearby colleges. The course culminates in the construction of a college-level research essay on a topic of the student’s choosing in contemporary culture. This course is field-trip based in order to connect our learning to real-world experiences: we visit art museums and research institutions, and participate in projects at each location.
Although some of the above subject areas and skills are covered in traditional English, history, and humanities classes, we provide in-depth practice that these courses cannot, given their time constraints. Providing a chance to analyze various media in one place asks students to be flexible in their critical thinking skills, and thus improve their writing. Whereas the opportunity to analyze works in some (though not all) of the above disciplines is provided in English and history classes, the curricula in these classes does not allow time for in-depth research (which we spend almost half of the semester learning and conducting). Without the Great Ideas course, students arrive in 11th grade unprepared for analysis of secondary sources, a vital part of the AP curriculum. As an academic magnet school in the liberal arts, we also require students to write and research far beyond the level required by the TEKS: this course fully prepares them to complete an upper-level college research project.
Essential Knowledge and Skills of the course:
(These should be presented in the same format as the State Board of Education approved Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). You may find samples of this format in Chapters 110 – 128 of 19 Texas Administrative Code (TAC) at http://www.tea.state.tx.us/rules/tac/index.html. Please Note: They should NOT be copied from the TEKS. Applications that include standards already found in the TEKS will not be approved. )
This course supplements the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for:
(1) The student will investigate, independently or collaboratively, many works of canonical literature as well as supplementary material that corresponds to the analysis of "great works" in the Humanities . The student is expected to:
(A) analyze the relationship between his or her perspective of the world and that of the author's;
(B) review literature from varied sources from a disparate variety of authors, time periods, cultures and philosophical perspectives;
(C) identify themes within readings which relate to the broader concept of "humanity" and "the humanities;"
(D) develop a personal philosophical perspective, informed by their study of such concepts of virtue, beauty, justice, reason, self and the "other"
(2) The student will demonstrate understanding of research methods and/or technologies used in research in the Humanities. The student is expected to:
(A) develop an understanding of the requirements and practices of University-level researching, analysis and writing;
(B) simulate the methods and/or technologies used in the research process particular to the Humanities; and
(C) review and revise, as well as participating in the creation of new editing techniques, papers, artistic representations and group projects.
(3) The student will develop products that meet standards of University-level Humanities courses. The student is expected to:
(A) collaborate with their peers and instructors to create a variety of analytical products;
(B) develop a plan for project completion in collaboration with peers and instructors;
(C) develop assessment criteria for successful analysis of selected works;
(D) Interpret the concept of propriety in terms of the socio-historical climate within which both the works were created, as well as in contemporary society.
Description of the specific student needs this course is designed to meet:
The Liberal Arts & Science Academy is a comprehensive college preparatory high school that seeks to give its students a firm foundation in both the sciences and the liberal arts. The course will be required of all sophomore LASA students, and will “mate” with the already existing Planet Earth course, which teaches data gathering and research within the sciences. Within all of the core classes at LASA, a set of skills related to writing, academic researching, long-term project planning, and group work are taught; the humanities class will provide the final necessary course to teach these skills within an educationalcontext, with a particular emphasis on research. Finally the content the course will allow students to grapple with ideas represented across a broad spectrum of cultures and media. It will provide a foundation as to the ideas great thinkers and artists have grappled with themselves, and allow students to bring these ideas into their other courses, enriching their overall education. For students who are more scientific in their dispositions, it will provide an essential education in the arts that they may not receive otherwise.
Major resources and instructional materials to be used in the course:
Unit One: Free Will vs. DeterminismShamanistic cave paintings from Les Trois Freres and other areas
The Oresteia (Aeschylus) or The Bakkhai (Euripedes)
95 Theses (Martin Luther)
“Beyond the Pleasure Principle” or other readings (Sigmund Freud)
Mourning Becomes Electra (Eugene O’Neill)
Excerpts from Pragmatism (William James)
All The King’s Men (Robert Penn Warren)
The Communist Manifesto (Karl Marx)
The Bhagavad-GitaThe Binding of Isaac from Genesis
Selections from The Qu’ran/Koran
Jazz music
Surrealist art (Breton, Magritte, Dali, etc.)
L’Orfeo (Monteverdi)
Temple of the Golden Pavilion (Mishima)
Selections from Jorge Louis Borges short stories
Medieval Japanese Noh drama.
Unit Two: Self vs. OtherExcerpts from The Histories (Herodotus)
The Scapegoat (Rene Girard)
The Hero With a Thousand Faces (Joseph Campbell)
Various myths and legends
The Strong Breed (Wole Soyinka)
Apocalypse Now (Coppola)
The Third Man (Reed)
Orientalism (Edward Said)
Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray)
Graceland (Paul Simon)
Othello (William Shakespeare)
Perspective in Italian Renaissance art (Raphael, Michaelangelo, Tintoretto, etc.)
“Writing and Difference” (Jacques Derrida)
The Metamorphoses (Ovid)
The Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka)
Various short stories of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Octavio Paz, and Julio Cortazar
“The Birth of Tragedy” (Friedrich Nietzsche)
Unit Three: Beauty vs. VirtueExcerpts from The Golden Bough (James Frazer) or The White Goddess (Robert Graves)
“The Phaedrus” (Plato)
“Defense of Poetry” (Percy Bysshe Shelley)
The Marriage of Figaro (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
Tristan und Isolde (Richard Wagner)
Faust (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, “Kubla Khan” and other works (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
Bob Dylan songs
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock)
That Obscure Object of Desire (Bunuel)
Wuthering Heights (Bronte)
Required activities and sample optional activities to be used:
The class will end with a summative project in which students identify a set of binary ideas operating within their own societies, and, using multiple disciplines of the humanities (literature, philosophy, art and art history, theater, film, music, etc.), explore how their binary has played a role in shaping current thought. This project will include a formal paper utilizing the research methods that they have learned throughout the course of the semester, and a multi-media presentation of their conclusions.
Throughout the semester, student outcomes will be evaluated in a variety of methods; essays and papers will be required of students within each unit, and daily evaluations of student outcomes will be made using journals, media critiques, and guided reader responses. Each unit will also include one major evaluation which is interdisciplinary in nature: the photo essay, for instance (above), requires students to blend photography and literature, to amalgamate their critical thinking about visual and (written) textual evidence. Students will be required to respond critically to the ways in which ideas are presented across cultures, what those responses entail, and what the perceived excesses and deficiencies of those responses are.
Required qualifications of teachers:
In order to be qualified to teach the proposed class, teachers must have an undergraduate major in one discipline of the Humanities, the equivalent of a minor in another, and the equivalent of at least one university level course of formal study in the remaining areas. Guest speakers will supplement areas of the humanities for which teachers have a weaker knowledge base.
Additional information (optional):
Although some of the above subject areas and skills are covered in traditional English, history, and humanities classes, we provide in-depth practice that these courses cannot, given their time constraints. Providing a chance to analyze various media in one place asks students to be flexible in their critical thinking skills, and thus improve their writing. Whereas the opportunity to analyze works in some (though not all) of the above disciplines is provided in English and history classes, the curricula in these classes does not allow time for in-depth research (which we spend almost half of the semester learning and conducting). Without the Great Ideas course, students arrive in 11th grade unprepared for analysis of secondary sources, a vital part of the AP curriculum. As an academic magnet school in the liberal arts, we also require students to write and research far beyond the level required by the TEKS: this course fully prepares them to complete an upper-level college research project.
Essential Knowledge and Skills of the course:
(These should be presented in the same format as the State Board of Education approved Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). You may find samples of this format in Chapters 110 – 128 of 19 Texas Administrative Code (TAC) at http://www.tea.state.tx.us/rules/tac/index.html. Please Note: They should NOT be copied from the TEKS. Applications that include standards already found in the TEKS will not be approved. )
This course supplements the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for:
- Humanities
- English II
- Analysis of Visual Media
- World History Studies
- Psychology
- Social Studies Research Methods
(1) The student will investigate, independently or collaboratively, many works of canonical literature as well as supplementary material that corresponds to the analysis of "great works" in the Humanities . The student is expected to:
(A) analyze the relationship between his or her perspective of the world and that of the author's;
(B) review literature from varied sources from a disparate variety of authors, time periods, cultures and philosophical perspectives;
(C) identify themes within readings which relate to the broader concept of "humanity" and "the humanities;"
(D) develop a personal philosophical perspective, informed by their study of such concepts of virtue, beauty, justice, reason, self and the "other"
(2) The student will demonstrate understanding of research methods and/or technologies used in research in the Humanities. The student is expected to:
(A) develop an understanding of the requirements and practices of University-level researching, analysis and writing;
(B) simulate the methods and/or technologies used in the research process particular to the Humanities; and
(C) review and revise, as well as participating in the creation of new editing techniques, papers, artistic representations and group projects.
(3) The student will develop products that meet standards of University-level Humanities courses. The student is expected to:
(A) collaborate with their peers and instructors to create a variety of analytical products;
(B) develop a plan for project completion in collaboration with peers and instructors;
(C) develop assessment criteria for successful analysis of selected works;
(D) Interpret the concept of propriety in terms of the socio-historical climate within which both the works were created, as well as in contemporary society.
Description of the specific student needs this course is designed to meet:
The Liberal Arts & Science Academy is a comprehensive college preparatory high school that seeks to give its students a firm foundation in both the sciences and the liberal arts. The course will be required of all sophomore LASA students, and will “mate” with the already existing Planet Earth course, which teaches data gathering and research within the sciences. Within all of the core classes at LASA, a set of skills related to writing, academic researching, long-term project planning, and group work are taught; the humanities class will provide the final necessary course to teach these skills within an educationalcontext, with a particular emphasis on research. Finally the content the course will allow students to grapple with ideas represented across a broad spectrum of cultures and media. It will provide a foundation as to the ideas great thinkers and artists have grappled with themselves, and allow students to bring these ideas into their other courses, enriching their overall education. For students who are more scientific in their dispositions, it will provide an essential education in the arts that they may not receive otherwise.
Major resources and instructional materials to be used in the course:
- Slide projector or LCD projector
- Access to computer laboratory with internet connection for research days
- An anthology of literature (Norton or some other)
- An anthology of major philosophical thought (Ariew and Watkins or some other)
- An anthology of art history (Gardner’s or some other)
- Access to slides of major artwork for this unit (on the internet)
- Access to research materials (provided by AISD in the form of Gale Groups, the Austin Public Library System, the University of Texas Library system, and such internet database sites as Voice of the Shuttle)
- Various individual texts in the humanities. Although not all texts will be taught in any given year, some examples of the subject matter to be taught are included below:
Unit One: Free Will vs. DeterminismShamanistic cave paintings from Les Trois Freres and other areas
The Oresteia (Aeschylus) or The Bakkhai (Euripedes)
95 Theses (Martin Luther)
“Beyond the Pleasure Principle” or other readings (Sigmund Freud)
Mourning Becomes Electra (Eugene O’Neill)
Excerpts from Pragmatism (William James)
All The King’s Men (Robert Penn Warren)
The Communist Manifesto (Karl Marx)
The Bhagavad-GitaThe Binding of Isaac from Genesis
Selections from The Qu’ran/Koran
Jazz music
Surrealist art (Breton, Magritte, Dali, etc.)
L’Orfeo (Monteverdi)
Temple of the Golden Pavilion (Mishima)
Selections from Jorge Louis Borges short stories
Medieval Japanese Noh drama.
Unit Two: Self vs. OtherExcerpts from The Histories (Herodotus)
The Scapegoat (Rene Girard)
The Hero With a Thousand Faces (Joseph Campbell)
Various myths and legends
The Strong Breed (Wole Soyinka)
Apocalypse Now (Coppola)
The Third Man (Reed)
Orientalism (Edward Said)
Pather Panchali (Satyajit Ray)
Graceland (Paul Simon)
Othello (William Shakespeare)
Perspective in Italian Renaissance art (Raphael, Michaelangelo, Tintoretto, etc.)
“Writing and Difference” (Jacques Derrida)
The Metamorphoses (Ovid)
The Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka)
Various short stories of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Octavio Paz, and Julio Cortazar
“The Birth of Tragedy” (Friedrich Nietzsche)
Unit Three: Beauty vs. VirtueExcerpts from The Golden Bough (James Frazer) or The White Goddess (Robert Graves)
“The Phaedrus” (Plato)
“Defense of Poetry” (Percy Bysshe Shelley)
The Marriage of Figaro (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
Tristan und Isolde (Richard Wagner)
Faust (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, “Kubla Khan” and other works (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
Bob Dylan songs
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock)
That Obscure Object of Desire (Bunuel)
Wuthering Heights (Bronte)
Required activities and sample optional activities to be used:
- Reading one major work and several supplemental works per six weeks unit, to be drawn from the list above.
- Listening to at least one work per six weeks unit.
- Watching at least one film or live dramatic performance per six weeks unit.
- Examining at least one type of visual art per six weeks unit.
- Regular class and small group discussions.
- Student study and production of criticism across various media (literature, philosophy, psychology, film, visual art, music, architecture).
- Student creative projects--production of artwork, mini-architectural projects, music, film, performance, poetry, and prose writings (literary, philosophical, historical, etc.) (see below for examples).
- Regular response journals that give students both practice in formal analytic writing and a forum for more subjective responses to texts.
- Regular internet and library research, to produce mini- research projects.
- Guest speakers from the community who are experts in particular areas of classroom study, to supplement the teacher’s knowledge.
- Three weeks of intensive research at the end of the course, to culminate in the production of the major research project (see below, under “methods for evaluating”).
- A field trip to the Blanton Museum (modern art) to complete an analytical “scavenger hunt.”
- A field trip to the Perry Castaneda Library on the University of Texas campus to research the final course project.
- A photo essay pairing quotes from a text being studied (Othello, in previous semesters) with pictures taken by the students, and including written analysis of how each photo symbolizes some aspect of the quote.
- A poem written to accompany a particular piece of art work.
- Reproduction of a famous portrait using the student as a stand-in for the portrait model (in order to encourage students to notice details in art).
The class will end with a summative project in which students identify a set of binary ideas operating within their own societies, and, using multiple disciplines of the humanities (literature, philosophy, art and art history, theater, film, music, etc.), explore how their binary has played a role in shaping current thought. This project will include a formal paper utilizing the research methods that they have learned throughout the course of the semester, and a multi-media presentation of their conclusions.
Throughout the semester, student outcomes will be evaluated in a variety of methods; essays and papers will be required of students within each unit, and daily evaluations of student outcomes will be made using journals, media critiques, and guided reader responses. Each unit will also include one major evaluation which is interdisciplinary in nature: the photo essay, for instance (above), requires students to blend photography and literature, to amalgamate their critical thinking about visual and (written) textual evidence. Students will be required to respond critically to the ways in which ideas are presented across cultures, what those responses entail, and what the perceived excesses and deficiencies of those responses are.
Required qualifications of teachers:
In order to be qualified to teach the proposed class, teachers must have an undergraduate major in one discipline of the Humanities, the equivalent of a minor in another, and the equivalent of at least one university level course of formal study in the remaining areas. Guest speakers will supplement areas of the humanities for which teachers have a weaker knowledge base.
Additional information (optional):
- This is one of four “core” courses required by the Liberal Arts and Science Academy. At the freshman level, two core courses ask students to take ownership of their own critical thinking and problem solving projects; at the sophomore level, this course asks students to take charge of gathering their knowledge on a subject in the humanities, while its partner course asks students to do the same for the sciences.
- This course goes beyond the basic skills taught by the TEKS to teach (and require) upper-level college research.
- This course is designed to be interdisciplinary.
- This course aligns with skills and subject matter being taught in English and history classes at the tenth-grade level.
