This college-level course is a survey of the development of artistic expression throughout history and from around the world. Students learn how people have responded to and communicated their experiences through art making by exploring art in its historic and cultural contexts. Students engage with forms and content of works of art as they research, discuss, read, and write about art, artists, art making, and respond to interpretations of art. Students develop critical analysis skills and make thematic connections among global traditions, which allows students to develop a profound understanding of representative works of art from diverse cultures, including fundamental information that places these works in context and reveals relationships among them. The curriculum includes the exploration of major museums in Los Angeles, both in class field trips and in required independent visits. This course integrates academic content with industry knowledge through the examination of various professional areas such as museum studies, art conservation, art evaluation, connoisseurship, and market trends. (Grades 11-12)

This course surveys the development of civilizations from the classical period to the expansion of global connections and major political, artistic, and religious developments in the 15th and 16th centuries. Particular attention is paid to themes in history, such as the relationship between religion and politics; the effects—both positive and negative—of imperial power on civilizations; the process of cultural conversion and assimilation; and the transition to the modern world. Students will continue to hone their skills as writers of expository prose and analysts of primary sources. (Grade 9)

This course presents the rise of the modern world following the expansion of global connections and major political, artistic, and religious developments in the 15th and 16th centuries to contemporary times and the conditions of the modern world. Significant topics include the rise of the individual, Humanism, the Enlightenment, Industrialization, Imperialism, the spread of Democracy, Socialism and Communism, the two world wars, the emergence of power dynamics between global superpowers and the developing world, the post Cold War Era, globalization, and the concerns of today's global citizens (i.e. human rights, disease, the environment, and terrorism). (Grade 10)

This college-level course requires students to investigate how individuals, groups, and societies make decisions; how they act in response to complex, global issues; and how these actions can have far-reaching implications. The course employs a case study approach that encapsulates multiple perspectives and provides students with an opportunity to understand issues through in-depth inquiry, deliberation of their own positions, engagement with diverse sources of information and technologies, and collaborative and constructive problem-solving activities. The course emphasizes patterns of development in the world’s major civilizations and the consequences of the interactions among them. Themes include cultural and intellectual trends, revolution, the power of the individual, developments of political culture and organization, the impact of technology, strategies of power acquisition, change and dissent, and changing systems of social structure, power, and identity. Throughout the course, efforts are made to tie the study of the past to its consequences in the world today and to the central question around which the course is structured: How does the study of world history help us understand the world today? (Grade 10)

This course surveys human experiences in the United States from the age of European exploration to the present. Reading, discussion, and lecture focus on the cultures that influenced our nation’s development and investigate the turmoil, rapid change, and challenges of the American Revolution, the U.S. Constitution and foundation of political systems, territorial and economic expansion, slavery and race relations, the Civil War and Reconstruction, Industrialization, Immigration, Urbanization, Progressivism, Imperialism and the World Wars, the Great Depression and the New Deal, the Cold War, civil rights movements, the Great Society, Vietnam, Watergate, the New Right, and issues in modern America. (Grade 11)

Students will examine the evolution of the ever-changing American identity: the uniqueness of what it means to be "American,” how the American experience has changed and evolved in our nation's brief time, and the many events that have shaped our “culture” and “identity.” Students will interpret, analyze, and evaluate significant American events through the use of primary and secondary sources, literary books, film analysis, presentations, and lectures/discussions. This course will incorporate a high level of analysis in looking at events and changes that have impacted our American experience. The course will engage students not only in the subject matter of United States history, government, and economics but also in its relevance and meaning to their own lives. (Grade 11)

This college-level course is a survey of the development of artistic expression throughout history and from around the world. Students learn how people have responded to and communicated their experiences through art making by exploring art in its historic and cultural contexts. Students engage with forms and content of works of art as they research, discuss, read, and write about art, artists, art making, and respond to interpretations of art. Students develop critical analysis skills and make thematic connections among global traditions, which allows students to develop a profound understanding of representative works of art from diverse cultures, including fundamental information that places these works in context and reveals relationships among them. The curriculum includes the exploration of major museums in Los Angeles, both in class field trips and in required independent visits. This course integrates academic content with industry knowledge through the examination of various professional areas such as museum studies, art conservation, art evaluation, connoisseurship, and market trends. (Grades 10-12; students must only earn grades of C+ or higher in a regular class or C or higher in an advanced-level class at the end of year marking period immediately preceding enrollment in the course. Student requests for this course will be confirmed once their grades are evaluated in June.)

This course provides an introduction to the systematic study of the patterns and processes that have shaped human beings’ understanding, use, and alteration of the Earth’s surface. Students employ a variety of methods including concepts and landscape analysis to examine human social organization and its environmental consequences. They also learn about the methods and tools geographers use in their statistical analysis, scientific observation, and writing. (Grades 11, 12)

Racial identity and racial construction have always been paradoxically both the connective tissue and the dividing walls between Americans of all backgrounds. This college-level course will place race in the foreground of the cultural and political history of the United States. Through the use of academic texts and a diverse mixture of artistic sources, students will more critically interrogate both the history of race itself, as well the way in which it functions in the United States. Students will study not only the history of the United States through the lens of race, but will be introduced to historiography and historicity as well. Instructional techniques will include Harkness discussion sessions, mini-lectures, student-led research projects, and oral history. Students will conduct their own research into any area / discipline of their choosing in order to explore the impact, function, and role of race in that field. To do so, students will utilize both standard research methods as well as engage with advanced, theory-based materials. (Grades 11, 12)

This course takes the interdisciplinary approach of Global Studies, tethering disparate vectors of knowledge, such as Comparative Government, Cultural Studies, and Political Economy, by parsing the complex and often interconnected patterns that orient our lives in the United States. Taking a transnational approach, units will address the notion of “Power,” who exactly gets to write, and therefore, dictate “History,” and the distinction between “human” versus “civic” rights.” Other essential questions will look into the construction of the modern, liberal subject as produced through Western-European intellectual discourse. Using this framework as a platform to investigate forms of governance, power, and sovereignty, the class will look more specifically at “theories of power” within the United States. Beyond curricular content, students will be introduced to tools for activism and praxis beyond the classroom. (Grade 12)

Using case studies from the Civil Rights Movement, the Chicano Student Movement, the Gay Rights Movement, and other social justice collective actions, students will examine both the roots and repercussions of racism, prejudice, sexism, heterocentrism and anti-Semitism in order to make essential connections between history and the moral choices they confront in their own lives. Students will explore both inadequate and successful responses to various historical inequality issues, human needs, and moral dilemmas. Students will also examine contemporary issues through a critical lens and connect their own personal insights and experiences to research in various fields. (Grades 10, 11, 12; one semester)

This course will encourage students to think critically about media messages. It will introduce and critically examine the contemporary role of media in enabling, facilitating, or challenging the social constructions of identity in our society. We will be drawing on research and theories from history, gender studies, sociology, cultural studies, and pop culture to discuss the impact of media on our world and specifically our concept of identity and power. This media literacy education will use a wide range of media, including films, television shows, newspaper articles, websites and blogs, songs and music videos, social media, and much more. Students may also work with other literacies as well, including news, visual, information, technology, and platform literacy. (Grades 10, 11, 12; one semester)

Using Huston Smith’s classic The World’s Religions as a primary text, we will explore the basic structures of belief and practice of the world’s religions, including the “big five”: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Some class periods will be replaced with weekend field trips to houses of worship as students’ schedules allow. Besides readings, seminar discussions, and assessments, every class will include a few minutes with different contemplative practices such as meditation, prayer, and tai chi. (Grades 11, 12; one semester)