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Humanities

Through a wide range of texts, unique courses, and a rigorous writing program, Maret teaches students to analyze and debate diverse topics in history and literature.
With the goal of building empathy, we challenge our students to think proactively, creatively, and with increasing complexity about the world around them.
Student speaks up during a group discussion in class

Goals

Maret strives to create intellectual leaders who will fully engage in a society centered on equity and who have a deep understanding of the world’s most pressing issues.

How We Teach

Lively discussions, debates, and deep dives into challenging issues are hallmarks of our humanities classes. Using a variety of thought-provoking strategies, teachers let the students take center stage, while encouraging courageous conversation. Innovative group protocols and stimulating activities create a fluid learning environment that challenges students to take nurtured risks.

Curriculum Snapshot

LOWER SCHOOL

Classes engage in the fundamentals of reading, writing, and social studies. Students learn to read and write through explicit instruction and regular practice. In social studies, students explore a range of communities and cultures near and far, past and present. Starting with their community and broadening to the greater world, they develop cultural competence and gain an understanding of different perspectives. 

MIDDLE SCHOOL

Classes build on the foundation established in Lower School and address increasingly sophisticated writing and reading skills. In addition, students are introduced to a concept-based curriculum that coordinates assessments, builds skills evenly between history and English classes, and connects content across disciplines.

UPPER SCHOOL

Students take a series of required courses and choose from a variety of history and literature electives for a minimum of seven credits in the humanities. Like the middle school Humanities curriculum, our required ninth and tenth grade courses use a concept-based curriculum that connects content across disciplines, builds skills in history and English, and coordinates assessments. The curriculum challenges students conceptually and builds their analytical, critical thinking, creative expression skills.

Our eleventh and twelfth grade electives provide students with a unique opportunity to dive deeper into specific topics that draw on teacher expertise and challenge the students with more innovative and sophisticated content, skills, and assessments.

Signature Projects

Student making a presentation


Seventh Grade Global Issues Day 

In the lead-up to this community event, seventh graders learn about global issues such as poverty, hunger, inequalities/exclusion, human rights, education, access to clean water, disease, and sustainability. Hands-on activities in the classroom provide students with opportunities to grapple with these complex problems and form their own opinions about what should be done to address them.
 
Then in small groups, students choose a problem to research in depth and create a presentation that shows their understanding of the problem and avenues to address it. The projects—which have included interactive webpages, display boards and analytical papers—are then showcased for peers and family members on Global Issues Day.

Girl coming out of her house with Air Pods on


The Power of Story 

This popular Upper School elective is divided into four blocks: telling your own story, telling other people’s stories, telling stories to persuade, and telling the story of history. As they craft their stories in a variety of media, students are challenged to make strategic choices around narrative delivery, identify the tools available to them within different formats, and creatively use these for maximal impact. Assignments include:

  • Telling your own story in a six-word memoir
  • Telling another person’s story in a podcast
  • Telling a persuasive story in the form of a short commercial to market a product or service
  • Telling a lesser-known story of history through film

Pictured above: In the short commercial "Spring Break Rewritten," three students reimagine their spring break during COVID-19 with help from Natasha Bedingfield and three Apple products—Apple Watch, Air Pods, and Apple Music.