What does it mean to “Find God in All Things”? This class is an exploration into the complexity and depth of the religious imagination as modeled by St. Ignatius. The course proposes “covenant” as a historical thread that has followed Abrahamic religions throughout their histories as students are introduced to religious studies through the examples of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Students will apply a framework of belief, ritual, morality, and community in learning about how religions gain historical traction and relevance, and how culture and moral vision endure in many covenantal contexts today. Animated by the Catholic belief in the sacramentality of all creation, students will be challenged to reflect on the history, rituals, and symbols that charge their own lives with meaning. Special focus will be on forming students to do a faith that does justice, exploring questions of inclusion, conscience, culture and identity.
Religious Studies 103: Literature of Covenant
How do stories reveal to us who we are? How does our literature create our shared values and community? This course seeks to create a basic foundation of understanding the Hebrew Bible. In investigating the many types of literature within the Hebrew Bible, students will better understand the various ways to read texts and apply shared narratives to their own individual and communal experiences. As a lasting record of “covenant,” students will understand the Bible as constitutive for how different faith communities have come to understand themselves and their identities, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Students will conclude the course examining the relational and sexual dimension of human experience, probing covenantal wisdom for guidance in discerning the healing and liberative nature of human relationship.
Religious Studies 201: Christology
At a pivotal moment in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus asks his disciples “Who do you say that I am?” The confusion that ensues among his followers is emblematic of the struggle that Christians and non-Christians alike have had throughout history to answer that very question. In this course, students will be challenged to offer their own unique contributions to the discourse on the identity of Jesus. They will grapple directly with the question Jesus posed to his disciples by developing responses based on multiple and intersecting paradigms: the personal, the historical, the theological, and the anthropological to name just a few. Effectively engaging with the course will lead to greater skills in the areas of critical thinking, cultural competency, and religious imagination, among others.
English 103H
The major difference between English 100 and English 103H is in the number of books that are read and their inherent difficulty, in the mode of instruction in the classroom, in the student initiative required, and in the number of writing assignments and their increasing and various difficulty.
Class receives honors weighting in SI weighted GPA
English 203H
The major difference between this honors course and the regular sophomore course is in the number of books that are read and their inherent difficulty, in the mode of instruction in the classroom, in the student initiative required, and in the number of writing assignments (generally 2-3 additional essays per year) along with their increasing and various difficulty.
Class receives honors weighting in SI weighted GPA
English 200
English 200 continues the course of study begun in the freshman year. Skills learned the previous year are refined, expanded, and enhanced. Basic grammar is reviewed and new material introduced throughout the year. The lower division writing sequence continues with a review of paragraph writing, which leads into the year’s emphasis on descriptive, narrative, and expository essay writing. Students will write approximately 10-12 papers in a variety of rhetorical modes. The writing becomes not only more formal, but increased in length as well with students writing multi-paragraph expository essays by the end of the first quarter. The reading of literature includes all the major genres: novel, drama, poetry, short story, and essay; however, the study of literature shifts from an organization by form to an organization by themes that reveal an insight into the human condition.
English 100
The purpose of freshman English is three-fold: 1) to master certain grammatical material that will aid in the discussion of composition, 2) to begin a systematic approach to writing, and 3) to identify certain literary concepts in a variety of literary genres. To achieve these goals, English 100 presents the incoming students with a course of study that exposes them to the forms of literature: the short story, non-fiction essay, poem, drama, and novel. Freshman English also presents the students with various writing assignments that will start them on the process of building a personal writing style. The subjects for these assignments move from the students’ own experiences to topics related to their reading, and the movement during the course of the year is from narrative and descriptive writing to writing that is more expository in nature. Writing assignments generally will progress from one-page papers at the beginning of the year to longer essays at the end of the year. By the end of the course, the student will have written approximately 10-12 papers in a variety of rhetorical modes including creative, descriptive, narrative, expository, and literary analysis writing. The student will also have completed at least one multi-paragraph expository essay.
Algebra 1
Algebra 1 is a traditional course in elementary algebra with an emphasis on solving problems. The course falls into four basic parts: 1) the four operations on real numbers and their use in the solution of simple equations and related problems; 2) polynomials, factoring, and fractions, leading to the solution of more complicated problems; 3) inequalities, functions and relations, and systems of open sentences; and 4) irrational numbers and quadratic functions and equations. A Texas Instruments TI-83 or TI-84 series graphing calculator is required.
Algebra 1 Accelerated
The course follows the general goals and objectives of the regular Algebra 1 course. In addition, advanced topics of algebra are introduced: absolute value equations and inequalities, linear programming, polynomial functions and their graphs, analytic techniques to explore various curves, and an introduction to topics of geometry and trigonometry. Finally, students will be given challenging problems appropriate for an accelerated course. A Texas Instruments TI-83 or TI-84 series graphing calculator is required.
Algebra 2 Honors
This course is offered to entering freshmen who have demonstrated mastery of Algebra 1 content. The course includes in-depth analysis of higher degree polynomials; analysis, interpretation and graphing of rational functions, including asymptotic behavior; an in-depth consideration of the conic sections, including transformations. Students who successfully complete Algebra 2 Honors typically enroll in Precalculus Honors after the completion of their Geometry course. A Texas Instruments TI-83 or TI-84 series graphing calculator is required.
*Class receives honors weighting in SI weighted GPA