Curriculum: Course/Activity-Specific

Requirements:

 

 

° Media Literacy and Popular Cultural Studies - (Social Sciences /  Language Arts)

This elective class will trace the relationship between trends,

styles, and the delivery of media messages with the larger

sociological and philosophical dimensions of culture.  Close attention will be paid to comedy and satire, as it relates to developing an understanding of thoughtful critique of one’s environment.  Relationships studied might include Post-modernism and Monty Python.  Students will look at diverse genres of music including rap, R&B, folk, jazz, pop and rock and see their relationship to the historical context of their time.  Additionally, students will examine the relationship between the economic mandates that drive the delivery of “content” and to understand how this might be manipulated to convert people to a social or ideological perspective.  Trends in music, styles, and movies will be deconstructed to help students frame an understanding between their own personal narrative and the larger cultural perspectives.

 

° Contemporary and Modern Literature - (Language Arts)

This elective class is designed to give students an understanding of each piece of literature as  its own artistic statement, as well as its relationship to larger cultural currents of the late Nineteenth and Twentieth Century.  Novels studied will include Dostoevski’s Crime and Punishment, Albert Camus’ The Plague, Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael and Russell Banks’ Rule of the Bone.    Other genres, including plays, short stories, and essays will be read by authors which include W.B.Yeats, James Joyce, H.D., Wilfred Owen, Leo Tolstoy, E.E. Cummings, Walt Whitman, Alan Ginsberg, Stevie Smith, bell hooks, Langston Hughes, Elizabeth Bishop, Gary Snyder, Henrik Ibsen, Dianne Diprima, Edward Albee, Eugene o’Neill, Countee Cullen, Marianne Moore, Tom Stoppard, Walter Benjamin, Luigi Pirandello, T.S. Eliot, Margaret Atwood, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, C.S. Lewis, John Paul Sarte, and others.  Students will be encouraged to create their own critical and emotional responses to these texts and share them .  They will also find an author that they are particularly interested in and be asked to do in an in-depth reading project which relates to their subject.  In conjunction with our study of these works, Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” and “The Tempest” may be studied to give resonance to the many literary allusions and to foster a sense of the timeless component of enduring works of literature.

 

° Drama - (Language Arts / Fine Arts)

This course is designed to give students an experiential understanding of drama as a unique means of self-expression and cultural commentary.  While several plays by established playwrights will be read, including William Shakespeare, Tony Kushner, Edward Albee, Tennessee Williams, Ann Deavere Smith, Christopher Durang, Arthur Miller, Dr. Seuss, and Sopohocles, the emphasis will be placed on creating original material  to perform.  Students will develop an understanding of the basics of blocking, staging, diction, voice control, improvisation, and playwriting.  All students taking part in this elective will be required to write an original ten minute play and participate in the Vermont Stage Company’s Young Playwrights Festival.  Some attention will be placed on the technical elements of theater.

 

° World Philosophy, Religions and Psychology - (Social Science)

This course is a survey of some of the major questions that have intrigued humanity over time.  By focusing on the thoughts of thinkers in diverse religious and social traditions, students will be continually engaging in discourse surrounding questions of being, truth, subjectivity, objectivity, epistemology, ethics, the mind, and other related topics.  

 

Texts, thinkers, and ideas considered will be excerpt from the following:  The Bible, Sartre, Camus, Heidegger, Freud, Chomsky, Dewey, Plato, Mencius, Aristotle, Lao-Tzu, Carl Jung, Ken Wilber, Kashmir Shavism, Walter Benjamin,Vedanta, Zen, John Searle, Jerome Bruner, Karl Marx, Reinhold Niebuhr, Chang Tzu, Emerson, and of course, Thoreau.  As with the Foundations course, the emphasis in this course will be to exposure to ideas rather than adopting a particular point of view.  Whenever possible, local “experts” in the community will be invited to participate in these conversations.  It is also worth noting that while technically part of the physics discipline, some attention will be paid to the basic questions posed in quantum physics, as it raises an important set of assumptions about humans and their relationship with the physical world.

 

Second and third year Walden students wishing to further deepen and personalize their core and elective requirements may engage in an individualized study in conjunction with the existing classes. Students and Walden staff will design a serious and well-articulated study plan that includes clearly defined goals and outcomes. These include the following:

 

Advanced Topics in Social Sciences

Advances Topics in Humanities

Advanced Topics in Literary Studes

 

° Mathematics - (Math)

There are essentially three ways that a student might meet their math needs through Walden.  It should be noted, however, that the strength of the Walden Project lies in its delivery of the humanities and natural sciences.  Students wanting an intensive upper level math experience are encouraged to take courses in the mainstream setting. The three math courses that are taught within Walden are Integrated Math I, Informal Geometry, and Math Applications. However, all three coures cannot be taught simultaneously, and therefore, the courses for the year will depend upon the needs of the student community. If the above methods of obtaining required math credits are not adequate, students may take a math class through Community College of Vermont or set up private tutoring in math subjects.  

 

° CCV Class in Burlington - (Various)

Note: In order to receive high school credit and have the course appear on the high school transcript, courses must be pre-approved by the Director of Student Support Services and the transcript release form signed before the student begins the course. Students in the Walden Project have the opportunity to further personalize and individualize their course of studies by enrolling in classes at the Community College of Vermont (CCV). Students must first take the Accuplacer assessment to find courses that are appropriate for their academic abilities. Traditionally these have been classes in the arts, social sciences, science, and math and have included Introduction to Studio ARts, Introduction to Sculpture, Acting, Psychology of Dreaming, Foundations in Writing, Introduction to Business, etc. It is recommended that first year students only take one course per semester.  Returning students may take whatever courses they deem relevant to their own intellectual growth and development.  The recommended first course for students is the Dimensions of Learning, as it serves as a good entry level course for many CCV requirements.  

 

° Vermont Playwrights Festival - (Fine Arts / Language Arts)

This two day festival, which is designed by the Vermont Stage Company, introduces students into the art of playwriting.  Students participating will work with an established writer to generate their own ten minute play.  Two plays will be selected to be performed by professional actors at the Vermont Stage Company Young Playwrights Festival at the Royall Tyler Theater.

 

°  New England Young Writers Conference - (Fine Arts/Language Arts)

This conference brings  young writers  from New England and New York together for four days at the Breadloaf  campus of Middlebury College in Ripton, VT.  Students participating in this conference have the opportunity to work with established writers and other aspiring young poets/writers to celebrate the written word, as they generate and revise original work.  Because of Vergennes Union High School’s participation on the coordinating committee, students at Vergennes will have the opportunity  to play the role of host students.

    

           Walden Project