Hot Topics – New School Year Brings Curriculum Enhancements
The new academic year has brought several curriculum enhancements and exciting new course offerings. Below is just a sample of what is being implemented in Greenhills classrooms this year.
English: A new senior elective this year is Mark Randolph’s Another Voice: Post-Colonial Literature and Theory, which focuses on the global political stakes and individual experience of projecting foreign power on native populations, as well as the variety of literary responses to these political pressures. The goal for the course is to serve as a springboard for global cooperative projects, connecting our students and their studies with the issues and concerns of the larger world.
Mathematics: Two new electives include Topics in College Mathematics, which gives students a chance to conduct in-depth research, and The Mathematics of Finance, which focuses on the basics of personal finance, covering such topics as decision-making, credit cards, and student loans. The department has also added a non-AP Statistics course. In addition to the new course offerings, the geometry program has been revamped to include some of the concepts used in the honors course (including reading translations of Euclid’s Elements and studying the history of geometry) to all geometry courses.
Science: For the first time ever, Greenhills juniors and seniors have the opportunity to take Human Anatomy & Physiology. In addition to their traditional textbook, students have access to an interactive cadaver dissection tool, as well as an online diagnostic learning system that allows them to quiz themselves and keep track of their progress.
Fine and Performing Arts: Dr. Laura Bird is teaching a new course called Play Production, an introduction to the varied skills (analyzing, directing, staging, and promoting) necessary to produce a successful play.
Social Studies: Seventh grade American history students will be working on a new family oral history project this year that will make use of local resources (e.g., museums). Ultimately, the project will turn into an electronic resource for the entire community to both read the student research and listen to related interviews.
Modern and Classical Languages: This year Spanish students in many middle school and upper school classes will have the opportunity to expand a community service project that started several years ago with Ypsilanti public schools. Building on a project where Spanish II students read the Spanish stories they have written to native Spanish-speaking pre-school and kindergarten students, more classes between Spanish 6 and Spanish IV will head to different Ypsilanti elementary ESL programs to work and play with the students.
