History

We learn about ourselves much more clearly when we learn about others. The greatest insights we will ever gain are when we travel to another place. My classes help students travel through their learning. They come away with a greater sense of the world and a curiosity about what is happening in it." –Pat Grant, History Teacher

Upper School history students master a wide variety of skills, such as recognizing, analyzing, and critiquing trends, patterns, and causal relationships in history.

By reading both primary and secondary sources, students begin to recognize bias and disparity. Students are taught skills necessary to produce term or position papers. Techniques for debate, oral reporting, and group discussions are also emphasized.

The course sequence includes World History in 9th and 10th grades, U.S. History in 11th grade, and a semester of Civics in either 11th or 12th grade. The department also offers a range of elective courses for students to pursue their interests beyond required topics. Each elective requires students to study a specific field of history containing a rich diversity of issues. This way, students work toward the department’s goals regardless of the course taken.

Courses

EARLY WORLD HISTORY

9th grade
Required
Yearlong

What happens when peoples with different cultural traditions, different values, and from vastly different regions of the world come into contact with one another? When our globe becomes increasingly connected, what new opportunities and challenges are presented? Is progress a zero-sum game? Using case studies from the 1400s to the 1700s, Early World History examines the ongoing development of cultural traditions with an exploration of key cross-cultural encounters that shaped the course of world history and still affect us today. Students critically examine primary and secondary sources with an eye to seeing issues from multiple perspectives. A variety of research, writing, and public speaking assignments allow students to hone their historical understanding and refine their modes of expression.

MODERN WORLD HISTORY

10th grade
Required
One semester

This course explores global history from the 1700s to 1920 through a variety of perspectives, including race, class, gender, nation, and community. Our two main themes are the fight for human rights and the building of an international community. After studying the Atlantic Revolutions, the Industrial Revolution, and the age of imperialism, students end the semester exploring World War I. To understand different viewpoints, we watch movies, read memoirs, examine art, and engage in formal debates and role-plays. Students practice many skills, including writing, close reading, note-taking, public speaking, and collaboration. From literature and primary sources to movies and debates, the course emphasizes historical empathy, civic engagement, and modern-day connections.

HUMANITIES

10th grade
Required
One semester + intensive

English and History are combined into one single-block interdisciplinary humanities course to study both world literature and history. This continues the focus on identity and community that is begun in the first semester of the 10th grade Modern World History and Foundations in Literature courses. Students continue to develop critical reading, researching, and writing skills in the second semester of 10th grade Humanities.

During the intensive term, students choose one of three different tracks and conduct site visits to global organizations based in the Seattle community in order to write a six- to eight-page research paper. They immerse themselves in a research and writing process aligned with the overarching themes of the world history and literature curricula: promoting human rights and building an international community. How can we view each of these three tracks from historical, literary, artistic, ethical, environmental, and global perspectives? Students apply the lessons they have learned from previous History, English, and Humanities courses to focus on how these historical issues and topics are playing out in Seattle and in the rest of the world.

UNITED STATES HISTORY

11th grade
Required
Yearlong

This course examines historical dimensions of power in the United States from pre-Columbian times to the present day through the lens of social history. Through a hybrid chronological and thematic structure, students study people’s lived experiences as they consider the ways that conflict, ideas, structures, and resistance have shaped this nation, including its ideals, identity, and role in the world. Students show their learning of the material through presentations, debates, seminar discussions, exams, and essays, including a research paper on a topic of their choice. By tracing the evolution of the United States throughout the centuries, students will develop a deeper understanding of history’s relevance to the challenges and opportunities in our society today. By illuminating a range of histories specific to students’ identities, the course facilitates students’ reflections on what those histories mean for who they are and how they will approach coalition-building work toward improving our present and futures.

Philosophy

11th and 12th grades
Elective
One semester

The ideas explored in philosophy are foundational to all that we are, study, and do. We as a society and as individuals are constantly evaluating our place in the world, who and why we are, and what our obligations are to ourselves and to each other. This class begins by exploring the classic works and thoughts behind many of these explorations of human nature and our subsequent systems of education and ethics. Readings include works by Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Nietzsche, and Kant.

CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

11th and 12th grades
Elective
One semester

Students focus on understanding society and culture by studying the beliefs and behaviors of human societies around the world. Students learn the concepts and methods of sociocultural anthropology and use them to examine ethnographic writing that addresses common themes such as power, religion, economics, kinship, ritual, globalization, identity, race, gender, and ethnicity and the various ways these themes play out in different societies and cultures. Students show their learning through discussion, presentations, exams, and essays. They also conduct ethnographic fieldwork in the local community and write a final paper that applies these themes. By attempting to understand culture from an insider’s perspective while recognizing their own positionality, anthropology students develop reflexivity, empathy, global competence, and intercultural understanding.

MACROECONOMICS

11th and 12th grades
Elective
One semester

This course covers many fundamental concepts in macroeconomics, including government and taxation, money and banking, international trade and currencies, unemployment, inflation, and poverty. Students also learn about theory by studying the history of economic thought, with a focus on such exemplars as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes. Students learn about major international concerns through an International Economic Summit. Students read The Economist each week to discuss the role of economics in current issues.

Civics

11th or 12th grade
Required (one of three courses listed below)
One semester

CIVICS: POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT
In keeping with our school’s mission, vision, and values, we want our students to become capable and engaged citizens, able to effect political, social, and economic change. This class examines our local and federal governmental systems and structures, the Washington state and U.S. constitutions, the judicial system, and the ways that politics and current events influence each other. The course emphasizes the rights and responsibilities of both citizens and government in the ongoing dance between the competing interests of liberty and order. The course uses a variety of media, including news articles, student-generated blogs, online forums, and podcasts. Class activities include simulations and debates surrounding current issues, panels of guest speakers, and field trips. Students participate in a Mock Congress to build an indepth understanding of the legislative process. All students also participate in either a local campaign or a practicum of observation and involvement in local government or an activist organization of their choice and are expected to commit hours outside of school to complete this experience.

ENVIRONMENTAL CIVICS
Students are coming of age in a world fraught with environmental challenges. Climate change, pollution, and natural resource utilization pose difficult challenges for office holders and voters alike. This course examines our local and federal governmental systems and structures, including the judicial system, and asks how lawmakers and citizens address the competing interests of individual rights and collective interests. How do governments address issues of climate change, which cross international borders and last longer than most terms of office? Through interactions with guest speakers, independent research, and team problem-solving activities, students gain skills to become effective change-makers within political and governmental systems. All students also participate in either a local campaign or a practicum of observation and involvement in local government or an activist organization of their choice and commit hours outside of school to complete this experience.

CIVICS: COMPARATIVE GOVERNMENT
Democracy must be learned by each generation. During first quarter, students learn about the United States government and political systems in their own state and communities. During the second quarter, students will investigate how other countries’ structure and run their governments and the extent that the voices of all the people in a democratic system are valued. They will draw important comparisons among the systems they investigate. Their final project will bring together the best components to create an exemplary governmental structure. Students also complete a citizen action project by participating directly in democracy through involvement in a campaign for a candidate or issue.

Intensives

Art History and Studio Practice

Art History and Studio Practice

Upper School

Students dive deeply into different topics and methods that have defined art movements over the ages. Through field trips, studio visits, and in-class presentations, students explore a variety of media and methods that they then employ in hands-on projects. Classical and contemporary art in the Western tradition, as well as the multitude of cultures that helped shape Western art, provide students with a window on not just historical context, but also on how and why the art was made, allowing them to hone their skills in visual literacy (their ability to “read” images). By the end of the course, students complete several sketches, drawings, paintings, and other projects that reflect and allude to the movements studied in class. Activities may include master copies, still life, collage, abstract painting, and others.