Hum 10 Curriculum Overview part 1--To what end? and Jigsawing

I work with someone (fortunately!) who regularly asks me to explain the connecting threads between the different puzzle pieces of our level's curriculum. Why does that piece go with that piece within a certain unit? Or what is the connecting thread between the first unit and the second unit within that component of the curriculum? When he asks me to articulate my thinking, we end up negotiating the language until we gain clarity about the different pieces (the essential questions, the unit understandings, the rationality understandings, and the writing curriculum) and about the relationship between them. Given the long road the 10th grade team has travelled to get to the current curriculum map, it's clear that curriculum mapping is a constant refinement challenge; what I'm about to throw out to the world is the latest (and most complete yet!) version of the Humanities 10 curriculum. My plan is to take myself (and whomever is reading this blog--you?!?) through a walk-through of the design of this curriculum to help reiterate the "whys" of its design.

To throw a little Beauty and the Beast fun into the mix: "It is with deepest pride (seriously!) and greatest pleasure that we welcome you tonight. And now we invite you to relax, let us pull up a chair, as the 10th grade proudly presents... Our curriculum map!"

Wrong picture. But this is kind of how it feels to have a curriculum map like the one we now have...

Terms 1 and 2, an overview

To what ends 1 and 2? 

There are actually three layers of "to what end" in the curriculum map above. To what end is a great 

question to ask when you are looking for your "why" in a curriculum. I have a major brain crush on 

Simon Sinek, and his TED talk  is useful when considering how to get people to buy in to your 

company. So what is the why? Our school's mission is to "educate[] its students for leadership and 

responsible citizenship in society by developing and nurturing the whole individual..." So that's the 

ultimate, "To what end?" And to serve the mission of the school, we need to have clear outcomes 

for our Humanities curriculum. I can identify a number of benefits of a Humanities education, but 

the "21st Century Learning Outcomes" list in that first column seem most relevant to our students' 

futures as leaders and to the mission of the school (so to what end 2). 

To what end 3?

At the top of the map, is the third end--the driving essential questions of the course. While we've 

wrestled with the role of essential questions in Humanities classes for quite some time, having these 

questions as a frame for the year gives us a direction for student understandings. In order to get 

towards those 21st century outcomes and to get through our existing curriculum, the thread that 

weaves all those pieces together is that of justice. Students need time to wrestle with those big 

questions: What defines a just society? What creates injustice in societies? What makes it difficult 

to perceive injustice? What is the role of the individual in responding to injustice? In order to begin 

to answer those four essential questions, students will have to develop deep understandings of 

societies; those deep understandings are the core of our Humanities curriculum.

Jigsawing and Threading

Those big questions all tie in directly to the threads of the curriculum. In order to begin to answer 

the questions, "What defines a justice society?" and "What creates injustice in societies?", students 

will need to do a deep dive into the societies at the heart of our central texts and the contexts of 

those central texts--the core Humanities curriculum. In order to begin to answer the question, "What 

makes it difficult to perceive injustice?", students need to do a deep dive into the rationality/critical thinking curriculum. And finally, in order to consider the question of "What is the role of the 

individual in responding to injustice?", students will be prompted to consider their own roles as 

leaders and responsible citizens (the "Modern Application" section of the map is where we're 

headed here). 

What's next?

Term 1. Overview version 1 is a walk-through of the big picture curriculum pieces. Overview 
version 2 will start to pick at our thinking through the threads of Term 1.