DSA Course Guide
2013-2014 School Year
ENGLISH
Introduction to Literature and Composition
Grade Level(s): 9
Prerequisites: None
Fees and Materials: Depending on class numbers, some novels may have to be bought or borrowed from the library.
Course Description
This language arts class is designed to expose students to a wide variety of literary and nonfiction genres. It is their first high school English class, and thus focuses on the types of analysis and writing skills necessary to excel in DSA’s college prep high school classes.
American Literature
Grade Level(s): 10
Prerequisites: Introduction to Lit and Comp
Fees and Materials: Students may be asked to borrow “choice novels” from a library or purchase them.
Course Description
A year long, required language arts course in which students read literature from a variety of genres with a focus on social, artistic, and literary movements, in order to ascertain prototypical American themes. Students work on composition, comprehension, oral communication, and reference skills. Grammar, vocabulary, and knowledge of literary terms will be emphasized as part of the composition exercises.
British Literature and Composition
Grade Level(s): 11, 12
Prerequisites: Required 9th and 10th grade English classes
Fees and Materials: Students may be asked to borrow choice novels from a library or purchase them.
Course Description
This language arts course explores the literature of the English-speaking world, especially works from Great Britain and its colonies (excluding America). During the Fall Semester, students concentrate on British Literature of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The movements of modernism in poetry, expressionism in fiction, and the theater of the absurd are explored through readings of Conrad, Woolf, Joyce, and Beckett. During the Spring Semester, students read the Victorian novelists, Romantic poets, Milton, Shakespeare, and Chaucer. Students write research papers, poetry, dramatic dialogues, and make presentations on novels.
College Preparatory Composition S1 (paired with Women’s Literature)
Grade Level(s): 11, 12
Prerequisites: Required 9th and 10th grade English classes
Fees and Materials: Students will be asked to borrow books from the public library or buy personal copies.
Course Description
The focus is on development of the individual student's writing process and on the importance of correct grammar, syntax, and mechanics in writing. It involves practice in various techniques of pre-writing, group, self, and peer editing and revision. The focus of the writing component is the personal essay and various methods of organizing material in paragraphs and essays.
Women’s Literature S2 (paired with College Composition)
Grade Level(s): 11, 12
Prerequisites: Required 9th and 10th grade English classes
Fees and Materials: Students will be asked to borrow books from the public library or buy personal copies.
Course Description
Women's Literature is an interdisciplinary one-semester course designed to enhance the student's appreciation for the contributions of women writers and artists.
Shakespeare Alive (paired with Mythology)
Grade Level(s): 11, 12
Prerequisites: Required 9th and 10th grade English classes
Fees and Materials: Students may be asked to borrow books from the public library or buy personal copies
Course Description
This single semester course gives students the opportunity to explore a variety of pieces by and about William Shakespeare. The course will also look at influences of Shakespeare in modern media and literature. The history and background of the Elizabethan theater will also be studied. The course emphasizes an understanding of ideas presented in the literature, expressing this understanding, and enjoying orally and in writing Shakespeare's contribution to the English language.
Mythology (paired with Shakespeare Alive)
Grade Level(s): 11, 12
Prerequisites: Required 9th and 10th grade English classes
Fees and Materials: Students may be asked to borrow books from the public library or buy personal copies
Course Description
Mythology is a one-semester literature course that looks to mythology and its influence on Western thought and writing (particularly English and American literature). Class time is devoted to the general effects of mythology on the cultural base of humanity through literature, art, music, and dance. Students will read and write short myths and read excerpts from longer literary works. Modern urban mythology will also be explored as a link to classic mythic structure and how myths come into being in the development of a culture.
CTE Understanding Modern Media S1 (paired with Writing About Film – taught by Mrs. McGrath)
Grade Level(s): 11, 12
Prerequisites: Required 9th and 10th grade English classes
Fees and Materials: None
Course Description
Understanding Modern Media and Writing About Film together comprise DSA’s Film Study Course, a full year English elective for 11th and 12th graders. Film is possibly the most culturally relevant of all modern art mediums. It is also an important synthesis of ALL art forms. Film Studies will give students a basic understanding of the history of the cinema, major genres, critical frameworks, and basic elements of filmmaking. This course asks students to consider symbol, archetype, perspective, and structure- as well as many other tools that filmmakers use to create meaning. Students will research, discuss, and write about each of the nearly 40 films screened in class, as well as films viewed independently outside of class.
Writing About Film S2 (paired with CTE Understanding Modern Media – taught by Mrs. McGrath)
Grade Level(s) 11, 12
Prerequisites: Required 9th and 10th grade English classes
Fees and Materials: None
Course Description
Understanding Modern Media and Writing About Film together comprise DSA’s Film Study Course, a full year English elective for 11thand 12thgraders.Film is possibly the most culturally relevant of all modern art mediums. It is also an important synthesis of ALL art forms. Film Studies will give students a basic understanding of the history of the cinema, major genres, critical frameworks, and basic elements of filmmaking. This course asks students to consider symbol, archetype, perspective, and structure- as well as many other tools that filmmakers use to create meaning. Students will research, discuss, and write about each of the nearly 40 films screened in class, as well as films viewed independently outside of class.
Writing About Film (full year class – taught by Mrs. Kohzadi)
Grade Level(s) 9, 10, 11, 12
Prerequisites: Required 9th and 10th grade English classes
Fees and Materials: None
Course Description
Unlike a traditional film class, this course uses critically acclaimed documentary films as the source from which to explore analytical thought, philosophical discussion and diverse forms of writing. Therefore, the primary focus isn’t the acquisition of knowledge (facts, etc.) regarding the history and technical components of documentary film, but rather is contained within the process of multifarious examination of the films, from the artistic merit of the film’s cinematography to the critical evaluation of the content in the documentary itself. Additionally, this class will primarily be guided by the students of the class themselves, as they will generate the majority of discussion topics, will serve as the primary evaluators of written components, and will be given the liberty of determining many of the films explored.
AP English Literature
Grade Level: 12
Prerequisites: Required 9th and 10th grade English classes
Fees and Materials: Most of the required novels are available for checkout, unless the number of students requires that some students buy their own novels. $95 AP exam fee.
Course Description
Students learn to approach works of literature (novels, short stories, and a lot of poetry) from the kind of analytical perspective demanded of them in college. Through close attention to the text and carefully written essays, students will learn to develop the language skills to write about literature with the kind of insightful precision demanded of college freshmen.
AP Language & Composition
Grade Level(s): 11, 12
Prerequisites: Required 9th and 10th grade English classes
Fees and Materials: Students purchase their own textbooks. Students may be asked to borrow choice novels from a library or purchase them. $95 AP exam fee.
Course Description
Advanced Placement English Language and Composition is an AP course that high school students can take in place of the Freshman Composition courses offered at most colleges. This course is designed to extend your existing abilities to interpret and analyze a wide range of texts, to write and revise sustained arguments, to carry out independent research, and to integrate multiple sources into your essays. In addition to helping you become a skilled writer who can compose for a variety of purposes and audiences, the course is also designed to enhance your critical thinking skills. The focus is on rhetoric and argument, most clearly evinced in nonfiction.
CU Succeeds Language Arts – fall semester
CU Course Title – Composition 1
Grade Level(s): 11, 12
Prerequisites: Required 9th and 10th grade English classes
Fees and Materials: $225 per semester plus required CU text materials
Course Description
Provides opportunities to write for different purposes and audiences, with an emphasis on learning how to respond to various rhetorical situations; improving critical thinking, reading, and writing abilities; understanding various writing processes; and gaining a deeper knowledge of language conventions.
CU Succeeds Language Arts - spring semester
CU Course Title – Introduction to Fiction
Grade Level(s): 11, 12
Prerequisites: Required 9th and 10th grade English classes
Fees and Materials: $225 per semester plus required CU text materials
Course Description
Introduces class members to the works of famous authors as well as to major themes, elements, and techniques of fiction in both short stories and novels.
DSA Humanities
Grade Level(s): 11, 12
Prerequisites: Required 9th and 10th grade English classes
Fees and Materials: None, other than that required for two creative projects.
Course Description:
This is a class grounded in aesthetics, the philosophy of beauty in art, and how art is made, appreciated and judged. All art forms are examined and compared with each other in terms of their creation and evaluation. This is a chance for DSA students to learn about art forms with which they may not be as familiar as they are with their major, and it is a chance for students to look at their own art form from a more objective viewpoint. The primary focus of this class revolves around the movements in 20th century arts.
MATHEMATICS
Algebra 1
Grade Level(s): 9, 10, 11, and 12
Prerequisites: None
Fees and Materials: Graphing calculator and protractor
Course Description:
In the first year of this integrated curriculum, students develop basic understanding of patterns in functions, integers, and geometry. Students then begin to develop understanding of simple and conditional probability using area models, tree diagrams, and algebraic formulas that lead to the ability to calculate expected value for a complex game. Students develop skill graphing linear functions, writing equations for linear functions and solving linear equations in one and systems of linear equations two variables. Students also develop understanding of standard deviation, normal distributions and right triangle trigonometry.
Geometry
Grade Level(s): 10, 11, and 12
Prerequisites: Algebra 1 Integrated
Fees and Materials: Graphing calculator and protractor
Course Description:
In the second year of this integrated curriculum, students develop a formula for calculating the area of regular polygons and the volumes of polygon-based right prisms. Students deepen their understanding of linear equations and inequalities as they solve linear programming problems in two variables to optimize a value. Students expand their understanding of algebra to include quadratic functions. Students connect different forms of quadratic functions to graphs and the special characteristics of quadratic functions while also developing fluency with algebraic skills. Students round out their algebraic work in study of exponent rules and introduction to logarithms. Students also begin to understand the Chi-squared statistic and chi-squared test for comparing two populations.
Algebra 2
Grade Level(s): 10, 11, 12
Prerequisite: Geometry
Fees and Materials: Drawing compass, straight edge, protractor, and graphing calculator
Course Description
In the third year of this integrated curriculum, students investigate circles and coordinate geometry, incorporating right triangle trigonometry and earlier geometric theorems, and study three- dimensional geometry. Students expand their algebra understanding of algebra to solve linear programming problems in more than two variables, eventually developing and using basic matrix algebra. Students expand their understanding of exponential and logarithmic functions as well as rate of change in non-linear functions and the underlying concepts of instantaneous rate of change versus average rate of change. Students also use combinatorics to develop the binomial distribution.
Pre-Calculus
Grade Level(s): 11, 12
Prerequisites: Advanced Algebra 2
Fees and Materials: Graphing calculator
Course Description:
Students develop a deep understanding of functions through investigation of families of functions and formal analysis of functions. In the process, students develop fluency of algebra skills. Students develop understanding of limits, complex numbers, and computations with complex numbers. Students develop understanding of radian measure, circular trigonometry, trigonometric functions, trigonometric identities and their application to modeling real data. Students investigate polar graphing and parametric equations which can model time-dependent situations. Students learn how to graph conic sections as well as the attendant algebraic equations and skills.
Probability and Statistics
Grade Level(s): 11, 12
Prerequisite: Algebra 2 or Pre Calculus
Fees and Materials: Graphing calculator and software recommended
Course Description
This course will prepare the student to understand the use of common descriptive statistics. It will prepare the student to use conventional data interpretation techniques in a variety of academic, business, and social applications. Topics include: an introduction to experiments and surveys, descriptive statistics, probability, probability distribution, normal distribution, and estimation on sample size of means.
CTE Math Infused Audio Production
Grade Level: 12
Prerequisites: Algebra 2
Fees and Materials: $50
Course Description
This course is based on the Denver Public Schools Mathematics Content Standards and emphasizes math concepts and ideas embedded in the CTE Audio Production curriculum. The students learn math application skills necessary in the field of audio production as they work on small and large group projects. Students will demonstrate mathematical achievement on traditional and non-traditional assessment tasks. All lessons incorporate algebraic thinking, communication skills and the use of appropriate technology used in the audio production field (computer software and hardware, sound systems). This course enables the student to demonstrate an understanding of applied math concepts that appear naturally in the field of audio production.