5th and 6th Grade Humanities
Team D Humanities boasts a rigorous curriculum for our 5th and 6th grade students while assisting 5th graders with their transition to middle school and challenging 6th graders for success on Team E and beyond. Our language arts curriculum focuses on fostering a love of reading and reading with a critical eye, while the writing program cultivates clarity in communicating ideas and enhances argumentation skills. Our social studies curriculum rotates every other year: Western Hemisphere includes Meso-American culture and Create-A-Culture projects, and our USA History curriculum includes the First Nations through the United States Constitution. We also foster critical thinking and nurture growth toward language precision with Socratic Seminars, debates, and presentations. The Team D Humanities team encourages lifelong learners who make real-world connections while meeting and exceeding State and District Standards in Language Arts and Social Studies.
7th and 8th Grade Humanities
Team E Humanities challenges its seventh and eighth graders with interdisciplinary, research-based instruction that alternates annually. It focuses on American history from the colonial period and eastern hemisphere world history from the ancient river civilizations onward. It develops students’ civility through classroom discussion and structured debates on high-interest topics. Our National History Day unit fosters students’ skills of inquiry as they design and conduct a research project on a historical question of their choosing. This project-based unit addresses a different theme each academic year. With emphases on analysis of primary source texts, recognition of historical patterns, and development of writing skills for varied purposes, our curriculum prepares students to excel at AP and IB coursework. The Team E Humanities curriculum lays the cognitive foundation for students to participate in a democratic society, lead in a competitive workplace, and contribute new ideas in academia.