Taught by Ms. Small, Humanities at Mass Academy combines english and history. In the course we read texts from many different time periods and try to answer the course's driving question: what does it mean to be human? Each unit has important discussions that help us understand the topic and think critically about it. In addition, Humanities revolves around writing essays to analyze texts and writing a weekly journal about current events and life at Mass Academy.
In the Ancient Civilizations unit, we had a large group presentation about a specific civilization. My group consisted of Amy Wu, Arnav Mankad, Katy Stuparu, Rama Balagurunath, and me, and we did our project on Ancient Sumer in Mesopotamia. Along with making a presentation about Sumer's culture, location, language, and more (left), we made an interactive component in which we engaged the audience in a choose-your-own adventure story (right).
The satire unit was the best in Humanities so far. We analyzed various satires and determined their efficacy in acknowledging a problem in society. It was interesting to learn how these authors used literary devices to present and argue their claims. In that unit, I analyzed a satirical article about the pitfalls of Apple inc. I argued that the article was ineffective at satirizing Apple because of the author's loosely connected analogies to Avatar, random exaggerations, lack of cohesiveness, and broad scope.