Northwood High School’s unique Humanities Core Program facilitates collaboration by pairing 9th and 10th grade English and History teachers together. These teachers share the same students and meet to discuss both curriculum and student achievement. Although humanities teachers teach in separate classrooms, they work together to develop and score interdisciplinary projects that provide the connections between their disciplines.
Humanities Core is required of all 9th and 10th-grade students (or students who have not fulfilled their World History or US History requirements). It is designed to provide the richness of a traditional English Language Arts program and a traditional History program combined with an emphasis on art and culture. Northwood High's Humanities curriculum accentuates the interrelatedness of these sometimes isolated disciplines and, in so doing, advances a holistic view of knowledge. The Humanities core program is centered around the essential question, “How does one’s place in the world determine one’s identity?”
Humanities - World is a one-year course devoted to the exploration of the geography, history, literature and art of the modern world. The History component and the English Language Arts component are taught in separate classrooms by different teachers, but the course contents are coordinated in order to emphasize context and interrelationships. Humanities in 9th grade will focus on developing an understanding of the primary components of the Humanities Essential Question, by focusing on understanding the relationships between individuals and their communities, as well as understanding how an individual’s identity is constructed.
Humanities - U.S. is a one-year course devoted primarily to the exploration of the history, geography, literature and art of the United States in the 20th & 21st Centuries. In terms of skill development, Humanities - U.S. will reinforce and refine what was learned in Humanities - World. Again, the History component and the English Language Arts component are taught in separate classrooms by different teachers, but with coordinated course contents. We will focus on the essential questions: “How does one’s conception of place and identity manifest itself in the world? What are the various consequences of actions taken to create or accept identity?
Students must be enrolled in an English course each year and in grades 11 and 12, they have different options that should be explored based on their interests.
For English courses beyond the core, please click on the English Electives tab under “Quicklinks” on the top right of this page and/or visit the Program of Studies.