Humanities Curriculum

The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools

Humanities Curriculum

Humanities Philosophy

The Humanities program aims to inculcate in students a love for reading and writing and a critical but open-minded view of the diverse world. Through coherently planned thematic units, constructive and consistent feedback, and opportunities for personal choice that include both remediation and enrichment, students leave middle school with a strong sense of themselves as capable writers, readers, and thinkers.

Sixth Grade Humanities
Sixth grade humanities is an interdisciplinary course that uses discussion, projects, simulations, and guided research as a basis for studying language arts, literature, and ancient history. Students engage in an intellectual, creative, and artistic process and work as individuals as well as in whole group and small group formats. The course covers four major interdisciplinary units-geography, Mesopotamia and/or other river valley civilizations, ancient Greece, and ancient China-that link literature selections with historical concepts. Students use the process approach to write a research paper and creative pieces.

Students in sixth grade learn geography and mapping, historical perspective and chronology, political and economic structures of governance, the role of religion in human societies, philosophies of ancient peoples, and the foundations of democracy. The Sixth grade units allow students to explore and understand current world issues by providing a context and framework for human behavior. For example, as they role-play the ancient Greek city-states, they encounter questions of gender and class equity, slavery and ownership, education, and the beginning of democracy. They also begin to understand the philosophies that influence modern political thought and action.

As they read, students begin to ask interpretive questions, notice significant details of plot, character, and setting, recognize figurative language, and acquire and use new vocabulary. They develop writing skills by summarizing both fiction and non-fiction pieces coherently, narrating personal experiences, writing short fictional pieces, organize prose into paragraphs and organizing paragraphs around topic sentences. Students practice note-taking strategies, organize notes into basic outlines, and learn and use correct bibliographic formats. Students continue to revise and self-edit their work with the guidance of teachers. In the revision process, students pay close attention to the details of grammar, usage, and mechanics.

Discussion is an important component of the humanities curriculum because it allows students to develop their capacities to reason. Students listen to and consider others' ideas, recognize and articulate similarities between ideas, support ideas with textual evidence, and carefully further discussion with ideas expressed at appropriate times.

Seventh and Eighth Grade Humanities
The Seventh and Eighth Grade Humanities curriculum explores how people in the past and present express themselves in thought, in the arts, and in action. The course encourages students to engage in a deliberative process that leads them to intelligent and compassionate participation in the world. The course aims to produce active citizens as well as thinkers -- reflective and analytical young people who will apply the habits and the insights they develop to their own decision-making.

In seventh grade, students investigate the problems, challenges, and opportunities of nationhood. As students investigate, discuss, and explore Colonialism, Rebellion and Independence, the Constitutional Convention, Westward Expansion, Slavery, and the Civil War, they develop their skills as critical thinkers and historians.

In eighth grade students build upon the seventh grade experience as they investigate the American experience from Reconstruction through the Civil Rights Movement with the Constitution as a foundation. Chicago provides a case study approach to urbanization, industrialization, and immigration at the turn of the Century. Students explore America in the world as they study Imperialism and World War I. Current events provide a stimulus to many of the discussions and investigations of the past in order to shed light on the problems of today's world.

The Humanities curriculum integrates history and literature and uses the tools of anthropology, sociology, art, music, geography, philosophy and law to help students understand American history. By reading both historical non-fiction and fiction that parallel the topics and periods studied, students make significant connections as they ask meaningful questions about history, literature, and humanity. In humanities, they learn how to ask effective questions and to evaluate primary and secondary sources; how to detect point of view; how to use evidence to support an argument; how to find, define, and research a fruitful question; how to write an analytical essay with a thesis statement using evidence and sources to support their claims.

Students read to understand literal meaning and they reread to make deeper connections. The study of literature allows students to analyze story elements, identify themes in literature, and to enrich their vocabularies. Students' critical reading skills develop as they work to summarize, quote, and paraphrase succinctly. Various types of writing, such as research papers, interpretive essays, and creative pieces, including poetry, drama, journals, and personal narrative, encourage further development. Students refine their writing by using a clearly structured self, peer, and teacher review process in which they focus on both content and grammar, usage and mechanics.

Discussion is an important component of the humanities curriculum because it allows students to develop their capacities to reason, to marshal evidence for their arguments, and to defend their ideas orally. As a result, students are encouraged to listen and respond to the ideas of other students. They recognize important issues and interests and engage in problem solving during discussions. Student ownership of discussion grows progressively from small group, student-led discussion in 7th grade to whole class, student-led discussion in 8th grade. Teachers carefully work with students to develop analytic questions and to hone students' listening and responding skills.