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• U.S. Studies (Grade 9)
• Greek Studies (Grade 10)
• Roman Studies (Grade 11)
• European Studies A (Grade 12)
• Advisor Grading Service

Composition I (CM1-B)Writing and Reasoning

Credit: One semester in English/Language Arts · Recommended: Grade 8+
Schedule: ✪ Tuesdays, 11:00 to 12:15 p.m. PT (weekly, 75 minutes)
Meetings: 15 per semester (including Book Check orientation) · Grading: Full advisor grading included

Students begin their journey as writers by building foundational skills in key word outlining, narrative structure, sentence variety, and stylistic techniques. Using Verstegen’s U.S. History-Based Writing Lessons as a springboard, the course guides students from basic note-taking and retelling through increasingly complex paragraph writing, with consistent attention to sound grammar, clear reasoning, and proper format. The semester culminates in a complete five-paragraph research essay with MLA citations. Weekly Socratic discussions encourage students to articulate their ideas, read drafts aloud, and reflect on their growth as writers. English Mechanics 1 runs alongside the composition work, guiding students through Jensen’s Grammar and Jensen’s Punctuation with weekly quizzes and exercises in sentence structure, parts of speech, and general punctuation rules.

Prerequisites: This is the entry point of the Writing and Reasoning sequence. A writing sample is required prior to registration to confirm placement.
Concurrent study: Best studied concurrently with American Literature (AL1-B), Church History III (CH3-B), and U.S. History and Geography I (US1-B). Recommended science: Introductory Physics I (IP1-B).
Booklist: View required books and materials

U.S. Hist & Geogr I (US1-B)Social Studies

Credit: One semester in Social Studies · Recommended: Grade 9+
Schedule: ♞ Black Thursdays, 9:00 to 10:30 a.m. PT (every other week)
Meetings: 8 per semester (including Book Check orientation)

Students trace the story of the Americas from the Age of Exploration through the era of Manifest Destiny, studying the encounters, conflicts, and ideas that shaped the New World. The central text is Anne W. Carroll’s Christ and the Americas, a Catholic history that follows the sweep of the American experience from Columbus and the Spanish missionaries through the founding of the United States and its westward expansion. Warren Carroll’s Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Conquest of Darkness deepens the study of the Spanish conquest and the miraculous appearance at Tepeyac, and students write a multi-draft book review of this work over the course of the semester. Richard D. Heffner’s A Documentary History of the United States introduces primary sources, including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Weekly map activities from Churchill’s U.S. History Map Activities build geographic literacy as students chart the terrain, settlements, and territorial growth that accompanied each era of American history. The concurrent Church History III (CH3-B) course is an especially valuable companion: both courses cover the same centuries, and the ecclesial history studied in CH3-B illuminates the missionary movements, Enlightenment philosophies, and revolutionary upheavals that directly shaped the American story.

Prerequisites: High school reading and writing readiness; concurrent study of Church History III (CH3-B) recommended.
Concurrent study: Best studied concurrently with American Literature (AL1-B), Church History III (CH3-B), and Composition I (CM1-B). Recommended science: Introductory Physics I (IP1-B).
Booklist: View required books and materials

American Literature (AL1-B)Literature

Credit: One semester in Literature · Recommended: Grade 8+
Schedule: ♞ Black Thursdays, 9:00 to 10:30 a.m. PT (every other week)
Meetings: 8 per semester (including Book Check orientation)

Students develop the foundations of literary analysis through Andrews’s Teaching the Classics: A Socratic Method for Literary Education. In the first quarter, students work systematically through the five elements of fiction: setting, characters, conflict, plot, and theme. Each week pairs a section of the syllabus with its companion DVD lecture, and students practice applying Socratic questioning and the Story Chart method to classic short stories and poems, including Kipling’s “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi,” Tolstoy’s “Martin the Cobbler,” Thayer’s “Casey at the Bat,” Williams’s The Velveteen Rabbit, and Bradbury’s “The Veldt.” A semester-long literary terms scavenger hunt builds a personal reference collection of over sixty devices. In the second quarter, students apply these tools to a sustained study of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Ignatius Critical Edition), completing an Exploded Story Chart, responding to Socratic questions with textual evidence, and reading critical essays that model how scholars write about literature.

Prerequisites: High school reading and writing readiness.
Concurrent study: Best studied concurrently with Composition I (CM1-B), Church History III (CH3-B), and U.S. History and Geography I (US1-B). Recommended science: Introductory Physics I (IP1-B).
Booklist: View required books and materials

Composition II (CM2-B)Writing and Reasoning

Credit: One semester in English/Language Arts · Recommended: Grade 8+
Schedule: ✪ Tuesdays, 11:00 to 12:15 p.m. PT (weekly, 75 minutes)
Meetings: 15 per semester (including Book Check orientation) · Grading: Full advisor grading included

Building on the skills established in Composition I, students continue working with Verstegen’s History-Based Writing Lessons at a more demanding pace, refining their command of stylistic techniques, paragraph development, and essay organization. Writing assignments grow in complexity as students engage with more sophisticated source material, practice increasingly independent outlining, and attend more carefully to the grammar, reasoning, and formal presentation of their work. English Mechanics 2 advances the study of grammar and punctuation, covering verb syntax, subject-verb agreement, pronominal case, adjectives, adverbs, intensifiers, and internal punctuation.

Prerequisites: Composition I with English Mechanics 1 (CM1-B).
Concurrent study: Best studied concurrently with Catholic Apologetics (CAP-B), U.S. History and Geography II (US2-B), and Art Practice and Appreciation (AR3-B). Recommended science: Introductory Physics II (IP2-B).
Booklist: View required books and materials

Catholic Apologetics (CAP-B)Religion

Credit: One semester in Religion · Recommended: Grade 9+
Schedule: ♞ Black Thursdays, 9:00 to 10:30 a.m. PT (every other week)
Meetings: 8 per semester (including Book Check orientation)

Students learn to understand and articulate the Catholic Faith through a course built around two complementary texts. Martin de Porres Kennedy’s A Philadelphia Catholic in King James’s Court tells the story of a young Catholic man who, while staying with his fundamentalist uncle, learns to defend Church teaching warmly and charitably from Scripture, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and Sacred Tradition. Chapter by chapter, students explore the biblical foundations of the sacraments, the papacy, the Eucharist, the role of Mary, the Communion of Saints, and the relationship between Scripture and Tradition. The second half of the semester turns to Henry G. Graham’s Where We Got the Bible: Our Debt to the Catholic Church, a spirited survey of how the Scriptures were preserved, compiled, and transmitted through the centuries, from the early Church councils through the age of printed Bibles. Kevin Vost’s Memorize the Faith! accompanies the semester, training students in the memory methods of the great Catholic medieval masters.

Prerequisites: High school reading and writing readiness.
Concurrent study: Best studied concurrently with U.S. History and Geography II (US2-B), Composition II (CM2-B), and Art Practice and Appreciation (AR3-B). Recommended science: Introductory Physics II (IP2-B).
Booklist: View required books and materials

U.S. Hist & Geogr II (US2-B)Social Studies

Credit: One semester in Social Studies · Recommended: Grade 9+
Schedule: ♞ Black Thursdays, 9:00 to 10:30 a.m. PT (every other week)
Meetings: 8 per semester (including Book Check orientation)

Continuing the survey begun in U.S. History and Geography I, students follow the American story from the Civil War through the Cold War and into the contemporary era, again guided by Anne W. Carroll’s Christ and the Americas. The semester opens with the coming of the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Gilded Age, then moves through the Progressive era, two World Wars, and the moral and political struggles of the twentieth century. Edward Everett Hale’s The Man Without a Country adds texture to the themes of patriotism and justice explored in the first half of the course, while John Hersey’s Hiroshima brings students face to face with the human cost of the atomic age through the accounts of six survivors. Students also view the original 1954 Japanese Godzilla and discuss its commentary on nuclear fear and its cultural setting. Map activities continue throughout the semester, and Heffner’s A Documentary History of the United States remains available for students ready to engage primary sources at a deeper level.

Prerequisites: U.S. History and Geography I (US1-B); high school reading and writing readiness.
Concurrent study: Best studied concurrently with Catholic Apologetics (CAP-B), Composition II (CM2-B), and Art Practice and Appreciation (AR3-B). Recommended science: Introductory Physics II (IP2-B).
Booklist: View required books and materials

Essay Writing (Grk) (EWG-B)Writing and Reasoning

Credit: One semester in English/Language Arts · Recommended: Grade 10+
Schedule: ✪ Tuesdays, 7:00 to 8:15 a.m. PT (weekly, 75 minutes)
Meetings: 15 per semester (including Book Check orientation) · Grading: Full advisor grading included

This pivotal semester transitions students into Jensen’s Format Writing and the college-preparatory essay tradition. Students study the art of paragraph construction from the ground up: topic sentences, continuity, thesis statements, introductory and concluding paragraphs, transitions, and the seven-sentence skeleton. Readings from Great Writing: A Reader for Writers provide models of accomplished prose for analysis and discussion. By semester’s end, students are composing polished one-paragraph and five-paragraph essays evaluated against formal parameter checks. English Mechanics 3 continues the systematic study of grammar and punctuation, including sentence patterns, noun clusters, and prepositional phrase placement.

Prerequisites: Composition I and II strongly recommended, or one year of formal high school composition. A summer review of English Mechanics to prepare the student for the course. A writing sample is required prior to registration to confirm placement.
Concurrent study: Best studied concurrently with Greek Literature I (GL1-B), Old Testament I (OT1-B), and Greek History I (GH1-B). Recommended science: Astronomy I (AS1-B).
Booklist: View required books and materials

Greek History I (GH1-B)Social Studies

Credit: One semester in Social Studies · Recommended: Grade 10+
Schedule: ♞ Black Thursdays, 7:00 to 8:30 a.m. PT (every other week)
Meetings: 8 per semester (including Book Check orientation)

Students study the ancient world from its earliest civilizations through the Peloponnesian War, reading primary sources at length rather than in brief excerpts. Anne Carroll’s Christ the King, Lord of History provides a Catholic framework for understanding ancient history, while Lynn Hunt’s The Making of the West supplies the broader narrative from Mesopotamia and Egypt through the rise of the Greek polis and the Golden Age. The heart of the course is two of the Western world’s founding historians. Students read most of Herodotus’s The Histories in the Aubrey de Sélincourt translation, following the story of Croesus and Solon, the rise of Cyrus and Persia, the Constitutional Debate, and the great battles of the Persian Wars at Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, and Plataea. They then turn to Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War in the Landmark edition, studying Pericles’ Funeral Oration, the plague at Athens, the Mytilenian Debate, the Melian Dialogue, and the ill-fated Sicilian Expedition. Through these texts, students learn to think historically, to weigh evidence and motive, and to recognize the enduring questions of freedom, justice, hubris, and the responsibilities of power.

Prerequisites: American Literature (AL1-B), concurrent study of Essay Writing B (EWG-B); one year of high school composition.
Concurrent study: Best studied concurrently with Essay Writing B (EWG-B), Greek Literature I (GL1-B), and Old Testament I (OT1-B). Recommended science: Astronomy I (AS1-B).
Booklist: View required books and materials

Greek Literature I (GL1-B)Literature

Credit: One semester in Literature · Recommended: Grade 10+
Schedule: ♞ Black Thursdays, 7:00 to 8:30 a.m. PT (every other week)
Meetings: 8 per semester (including Book Check orientation)

Students begin with Bulfinch’s Mythology, building a thorough knowledge of the Greek gods, heroes, and monsters whose stories have shaped Western art, language, and literature for nearly three thousand years. Selections from the Catechism of the Catholic Church invite students to compare the Greek worldview with the truths of the Faith. The second half of the semester is devoted to Homer’s Iliad in the Richmond Lattimore translation, supported by CliffsNotes: Homer’s Iliad. Students follow the wrath of Achilles from its devastating consequences through the tender final encounter between Priam and the man who killed his son, wrestling with questions of honor, fate, duty, and what is truly worth fighting for. Socratic discussions and the literary analysis tools from Andrews’s Teaching the Classics train students to read closely and speak confidently about great books.

Prerequisites: American Literature (AL1-B).
Concurrent study: Best studied concurrently with Essay Writing B (EWG-B), Old Testament I (OT1-B), and Greek History I (GH1-B). Recommended science: Astronomy I (AS1-B).
Booklist: View required books and materials

Astronomy I (AS1-B)Science

Credit: One semester in Science · Recommended: Grade 10+
Schedule: ♘ White Thursdays, 11:00 to 11:55 a.m. PT (every other week)
Meetings: 8 per semester (including Book Check orientation)

This course opens with a six-week exploration of the relationship between Catholic faith and the natural sciences. Students read Br. Guy Consolmagno’s Brother Astronomer, the memoir of a Vatican scientist who brings wit, humility, and deep faith to questions about meteorites, extraterrestrial life, and the place of science in the Church. Alongside it, they study Mary O. Daly’s Creator and Creation, which addresses creationism, evolution, and biblical interpretation from a Catholic perspective, supported by selections from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The second half of the semester transitions to The Essential Cosmic Perspective by Jeffrey Bennett et al., where students study our cosmic address, the night sky, the Copernican Revolution, Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, Newton’s laws of motion and gravity, and the properties of light.

Prerequisites: At least concurrent study of Algebra 1; prior completion of Algebra 1 is recommended.
Concurrent study: Best studied concurrently with Essay Writing B (EWG-B), Greek History I (GH1-B), Greek Literature I (GL1-B), and Old Testament I (OT1-B).
Booklist: View required books and materials

Logic (LOG-A)Writing and Reasoning

Credit: One semester in English/Language Arts · Recommended: Grade 10+
Schedule: ✪ Tuesdays, 7:00 to 8:15 a.m. PT (weekly, 75 minutes)
Meetings: 15 per semester (including Book Check orientation) · Grading: Full advisor grading included

Students step into the classical discipline of formal logic through Memoria Press’s Traditional Logic I, studying the four kinds of logical statements, the ways propositions can be opposed and made equivalent, and the seven rules for valid syllogisms. Written responses in formal academic format keep composition skills sharp while training students to express precise, reasoned arguments. Peter Kreeft’s Socrates Meets Jesus adds a lively dimension to the semester, inviting students to encounter Socratic reasoning as it engages the claims of Christ. English Mechanics 4 deepens the study of grammar and punctuation, and introduces critical thinking and communication skills.

Prerequisites: Essay Writing B with English Mechanics 3 (EWG-B).
Concurrent study: Best studied concurrently with Greek Literature II (GL2-B), Greek History II (GH2-B) or Old Testament II (OT2-B), and Greek Playwrights (GPW-B). Recommended science: Astronomy II (AS2-B).
Booklist: View required books and materials

Greek Literature II (GL2-B)Literature

Credit: One semester in Literature · Recommended: Grade 10+
Schedule: ♞ Black Thursdays, 7:00 to 8:30 a.m. PT (every other week)
Meetings: 8 per semester (including Book Check orientation)

Students continue their study of the Greek literary tradition with Homer’s Odyssey in the Robert Fagles translation. They follow the cunning Odysseus across years of wandering and witness his son Telemachus come of age in a household besieged by suitors, exploring themes of homecoming, faithfulness, hospitality, and the cost of perseverance. The second half of the semester introduces Western drama through Aeschylus’s Oresteia, Euripides’s Hippolytus, and Sophocles’s Oedipus the King and Antigone, works that still challenge audiences to wrestle with justice, fate, divine law, and the limits of human authority.

Prerequisites: Greek Literature I (GL1-B).
Concurrent study: Best studied concurrently with Logic A (LOG-A), Greek History II (GH2-B) or Old Testament II (OT2-B), and Greek Playwrights (GPW-B). Recommended science: Astronomy II (AS2-B).
Booklist: View required books and materials

Greek Playwrights (GPW-B)Fine Arts

Credit: One semester in Fine Arts · Recommended: Grade 10+
Schedule: ♞ Black Thursdays, 7:00 to 8:30 a.m. PT (every other week)
Meetings: 8 per semester (including Book Check orientation)

This course is a semester-long immersion in Athenian drama and the birth of Western theater. Students read complete plays by all four major Athenian playwrights: Aeschylus’s Agamemnon and Prometheus Bound, Sophocles’s Oedipus the King and Antigone, Euripides’s Medea and Hippolytus, and Aristophanes’s The Frogs and The Clouds. Through tragedy, students wrestle with questions of fate and free will, divine and human justice, the costs of hubris, and the tension between divine law and human authority. Through comedy, they encounter Aristophanes’s sharp satirical eye turned on sophistry, demagoguery, and the role of the poet in civic life. The semester concludes with Plato’s Apology, where students meet the historical Socrates after encountering Aristophanes’s comic portrait, and judge for themselves whether the satirist was fair to the philosopher. Studied alongside Greek Literature II, this course deepens students’ understanding of the texts they encounter there while earning credit in Fine Arts.

Prerequisites: American Literature (AL1-B), Greek Literature I (GL1-B), Greek History I (GH1-B), and Essay Writing B (EWG-B).
Concurrent study: Best studied concurrently with Logic A (LOG-A) and Greek Literature II (GL2-B). Recommended science: Astronomy II (AS2-B).
Booklist: View required books and materials

Astronomy II (AS2-B)Science

Credit: One semester in Science · Recommended: Grade 10+
Schedule: ♘ White Thursdays, 11:00 to 11:55 a.m. PT (every other week)
Meetings: 8 per semester (including Book Check orientation)

Continuing with The Essential Cosmic Perspective by Jeffrey Bennett et al., this semester carries students from our own solar system to the edge of the observable universe. They begin with the formation of planets, exploring the terrestrial and jovian worlds, asteroids, comets, and dwarf planets. The course then turns to the Sun and the life cycles of stars, from the birth of protostars in molecular clouds through the dramatic fates that await them: white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes. Students study the structure and history of the Milky Way, the variety of galaxies beyond our own, and the evidence for dark matter and dark energy before concluding with the Big Bang and the origin of the universe itself. The semester is a grand sweep from planetary science to cosmology, inviting students to marvel at the scope and order of creation.

Prerequisites: Astronomy I (AS1-B). At least concurrent study of Algebra 1; prior completion of Algebra 1 is recommended.
Concurrent study: Best studied concurrently with Logic A (LOG-A), Greek Literature II (GL2-B), and Greek Playwrights (GPW-B).
Booklist: View required books and materials

Essay Writing (Rmn) (EWR-A)Writing and Reasoning

Credit: One semester in English/Language Arts · Recommended: Grade 11+
Schedule: ✪ Tuesdays, 9:00 to 10:15 a.m. PT (weekly, 75 minutes)
Meetings: 15 per semester (including Book Check orientation) · Grading: Full advisor grading included

Returning to Jensen’s Format Writing and Great Writing: A Reader for Writers, students deepen their command of the five-paragraph essay. The semester opens with intensive work on thesis construction, introductory and concluding paragraphs, transitions, and body paragraph development, then moves into sustained, confident practice composing well-organized essays on a variety of subjects. Students learn to plan efficiently, draft with clarity, and revise with a critical eye. By semester’s end, students write five-paragraph essays with the fluency and assurance that college-level work demands. English Mechanics 5 advances into more complex grammatical territory, including infinitives, gerunds, relative patterns, and appositives.

Prerequisites: Essay Writing B with English Mechanics 3 (EWG-B) and Logic A with English Mechanics 4 (LOG-A).
Concurrent study: Best studied concurrently with Roman Literature I (RL1-A), Church History I (CH1-A), and Roman History I (RH1-A). Recommended science: Biology I (BY1-A).
Booklist: View required books and materials

Roman History I (RH1-A)Social Studies

Credit: One semester in Social Studies · Recommended: Grade 11+
Schedule: ♘ White Thursdays, 9:00 to 10:30 a.m. PT (every other week)
Meetings: 8 per semester (including Book Check orientation)

This course traces the full arc of Roman history from the founding of the city through the rise of Augustus, built primarily on sustained reading of ancient sources. Students read Livy in three Penguin Classics volumes: The Early History of Rome (Books I through V, covering the kings, the founding of the republic, the Struggle of the Orders, and the Gallic sack of Rome), Rome and Italy (Books VI through X, covering the Samnite Wars and Roman expansion), and The War with Hannibal (Books XXI through XXX, following the Second Punic War from Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps through the Battle of Zama). They turn to Plutarch’s Lives for biographical portraits of Fabius Maximus, Marcellus, Marcus Cato, the Gracchus brothers, and Julius Caesar, and to Sallust’s Catiline’s War for the crisis of the late republic. Anne Carroll’s Christ the King, Lord of History provides a Catholic perspective on the ancient world, while Lynn Hunt’s The Making of the West supplies the broader narrative framework from monarchy through republic to empire. Live class discussions also draw on readings from the concurrent Church History I course, where The History of the Church and St. Augustine’s Confessions illuminate the Roman world from the vantage point of the faith that would transform it.

Prerequisites: American Literature (AL1-B) and Essay Writing B (EWG-B); concurrent study of Essay Writing A (EWR-A).
Concurrent study: Best studied concurrently with Essay Writing A (EWR-A), Roman Literature I (RL1-A), and Church History I (CH1-A). Recommended science: Biology I (BY1-A).
Booklist: View required books and materials

Roman Literature I (RL1-A)Literature

Credit: One semester in Literature · Recommended: Grade 11+
Schedule: ♘ White Thursdays, 9:00 to 10:30 a.m. PT (every other week)
Meetings: 8 per semester (including Book Check orientation)

Students spend the first half of the semester with Virgil’s Aeneid in the Robert Fagles translation, following the Trojan exile Aeneas as he carries his father, his gods, and the destiny of Rome through storm, war, and sacrifice. Virgil’s epic raises searching questions about duty, fate, the cost of empire, and what it means to lead with both courage and compassion. The second half of the semester turns to the Roman mind at its most reflective: students read Cicero’s “Laelius: On Friendship” alongside John Cuddeback’s True Friendship: Where Virtue Becomes Happiness, exploring what the classical and Catholic traditions have to say about the nature of true friendship and its relationship to virtue and happiness. Selections from St. Augustine’s Confessions (studied concurrently in Church History I) enrich the comparison. The semester closes with Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Plutarch’s biographical portrait of the same man, inviting students to compare how two very different writers portray a single historical figure for very different literary purposes.

Prerequisites: Greek Literature II (GL2-B).
Concurrent study: Best studied concurrently with Essay Writing A (EWR-A), Church History I (CH1-A), and Roman History I (RH1-A). Recommended science: Biology I (BY1-A).
Booklist: View required books and materials

Biology I (BY1-A)Science

Credit: One semester in Science · Recommended: Grade 11+
Schedule: ♞ Black Thursdays, 11:00 to 11:55 a.m. PT (every other week)
Meetings: 8 per semester (including Book Check orientation)

This course pairs a thorough introduction to life science with a Catholic theological framework that enriches every topic. Students work through Campbell Essential Biology and Steven Garber’s Biology: A Self-Teaching Guide, studying the chemistry of life, cell structure, membrane transport, cellular energy (respiration and photosynthesis), and cell reproduction through mitosis and meiosis. Woven throughout the semester is Christopher Baglow’s Faith, Science, and Reason: Theology on the Cutting Edge, a stimulating and elegant text that addresses the faith-and-science relationship, critiques the warfare model, explores the Catholic doctrine of creation, and examines biological evolution from the perspective of the Church’s intellectual tradition. The result is a year of life science shaped by the conviction that truth cannot contradict truth, and that the study of living things draws us closer to the Author of life.

Prerequisites: Essay Writing B (EWG-B), Algebra 1, Astronomy I (AS1-B), and Astronomy II (AS2-B).
Concurrent study: Best studied concurrently with Essay Writing A (EWR-A), Roman Literature I (RL1-A), Church History I (CH1-A), and Roman History I (RH1-A).
Booklist: View required books and materials

Critical Reading (CRR-A)Writing and Reasoning

Credit: One semester in English/Language Arts · Recommended: Grade 11+
Schedule: ✪ Tuesdays, 9:00 to 10:15 a.m. PT (weekly, 75 minutes)
Meetings: 15 per semester (including Book Check orientation) · Grading: Full advisor grading included

The culminating course in the Writing and Reasoning sequence, Critical Reading A is built around Mortimer Adler’s How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading. Students learn to read with purpose and discipline at every level: elementary, inspectional, analytical, and syntopical. Weekly chapters guide students through the art of demanding reading, marking texts, coming to terms with an author, evaluating arguments fairly, and approaching different genres of books, from history and philosophy to science and imaginative literature. Written responses and discussions challenge students to apply these skills across the liberal arts. English Mechanics 6 completes the three-year grammar and punctuation sequence.

Prerequisites: Logic A with English Mechanics 4 (LOG-A) and Essay Writing A with English Mechanics 5 (EWR-A).
Concurrent study: Best studied concurrently with Shakespeare (EL1-B), Economics (ECO-A), and Art and Architecture I (AA1-A). Recommended science: Biology II (BY2-A).
Booklist: View required books and materials

Shakespeare (EL1-B)Literature

Credit: One semester in Literature · Recommended: Grade 11+
Schedule: ♘ White Thursdays, 9:00 to 10:30 a.m. PT (every other week)
Meetings: 8 per semester (including Book Check orientation)

Students spend a full semester immersed in three of Shakespeare’s plays, each representing a different dramatic genre. The course opens with Hamlet, Shakespeare’s searching tragedy of conscience, duty, and the nature of man, studied with the CliffsComplete edition and crowned by Kenneth Branagh’s celebrated unabridged film. At midterm, students turn to Macbeth, a darker exploration of ambition, guilt, and the corruption of power. The semester closes with The Taming of the Shrew, a lively comedy that invites students to examine Shakespeare’s treatment of wit, marriage, and social convention in light of St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians and the teachings of the Catholic Church. Throughout, students use the Socratic questioning tools from Andrews’s Teaching the Classics to analyze setting, character, conflict, and theme across all three plays.

Prerequisites: Greek Literature II (GL2-B) or Roman Literature I (RL1-A).
Concurrent study: Best studied concurrently with Critical Reading A (CRR-A), Economics (ECO-A), and Art and Architecture I (AA1-A). Recommended science: Biology II (BY2-A).
Booklist: View required books and materials

Economics (ECO-A)Social Studies

Credit: One semester in Social Studies · Recommended: Grade 11+
Schedule: ♘ White Thursdays, 9:00 to 10:30 a.m. PT (every other week)
Meetings: 8 per semester (including Book Check orientation)

Students explore the principles of economics through a layered approach that weaves together free-market theory, Catholic social teaching, and practical financial literacy. Richard J. Maybury’s Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? introduces the history of money, inflation, the business cycle, and the Federal Reserve in clear, conversational language rooted in Austrian and Monetarist perspectives. Russell Kirk’s Economics: Work and Prosperity provides a broader survey of micro- and macroeconomic concepts with attention to the ethical dimensions of economic life. Throughout the semester, students also engage Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics as a companion resource for deeper exploration. The course gives sustained attention to three landmark papal encyclicals: Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, Pius XI’s Quadragesimo Anno, and John Paul II’s Centesimus Annus, allowing students to examine questions of private property, just wages, subsidiarity, and the limits of both capitalism and socialism in the light of Catholic social teaching. A semester-long financial literacy strand, built around Pyrczak’s Survival Math Skills, equips students with practical competence in budgeting, banking, credit, taxes, and household planning.

Prerequisites: Essay Writing B (EWG-B); high school reading and writing readiness.
Concurrent study: Usually studied concurrently with Critical Reading A (CRR-A) and Shakespeare (EL1-B), just after completing Essay Writing A (EWR-A). Recommended science: Biology II (BY2-A).
Booklist: View required books and materials

Biology II (BY2-A)Science

Credit: One semester in Science · Recommended: Grade 11+
Schedule: ♞ Black Thursdays, 11:00 to 11:55 a.m. PT (every other week)
Meetings: 8 per semester (including Book Check orientation)

This semester continues the integrated study of life science and Catholic theology begun in Biology I. Students advance through Campbell Essential Biology with units on genetics and inheritance, DNA structure and function, viruses, the mechanisms of evolution, the diversity of life from microbes through plants, fungi, and the animal kingdom, and an introduction to ecology and population biology. Garber’s Biology: A Self-Teaching Guide adds a substantial study of human anatomy and physiology, covering homeostasis, the endocrine system, the brain and nervous system, bones and muscles, the circulatory system, and blood, while Matt’s Human Anatomy Coloring Book provides hands-on study of the body’s major systems. Baglow’s Faith, Science, and Reason completes its arc with chapters on Scripture interpretation, the Church’s patronage of scientific discovery, the Galileo affair, the Big Bang, human origins and the imago Dei, the tragic consequences of Social Darwinism and eugenics, and the Resurrection of Christ as the fulfillment of the human story.

Prerequisites: Biology I (BY1-A).
Concurrent study: Best studied concurrently with Critical Reading A (CRR-A), Economics (ECO-A), and Shakespeare (EL1-B).
Booklist: View required books and materials

Church History II (CH2-A)Religion

Credit: One semester in Religion · Recommended: Grade 12
Schedule: ♘ White Thursdays, 7:00 to 8:30 a.m. PT (every other week)
Meetings: 8 per semester (including Book Check orientation)

This course traces the history of the Catholic Church from the collapse of the Carolingian world through the Treaty of Westphalia, using Peter Armenio’s The History of the Church from the Didache Series. Students study the monastic reforms at Cluny, the lay investiture controversies, the Crusades and Inquisition, the flowering of medieval culture in the great universities and mendicant orders, the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, the Council of Trent, and the Wars of Religion. Running alongside the history is a sustained introduction to the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas through Peter Kreeft’s A Shorter Summa and Kevin Vost’s The One-Minute Aquinas. Students engage directly with selections from the Summa Theologica on God’s existence and nature, the human soul, free will, happiness, virtue, and natural law, learning to read and reason within the great tradition of Catholic philosophy. Together, the two strands reveal how the life of the Church and the life of the mind have always been inseparable.

Prerequisites: Critical Reading A (CRR-A).
Concurrent study: Best studied concurrently with European History IA with Research Papers (EH1-A). Recommended science: Chemistry I (CY1-A).
Booklist: View required books and materials

European History I (EH1-A)Writing and Reasoning Social Studies

Credit: One semester in Social Studies · Recommended: Grade 12
Schedule: ♘ White Thursdays, 7:00 to 8:30 a.m. PT (every other week)
Meetings: 10 per semester (including Book Check orientation)

This course pairs a rich survey of European history (c. 600–1050) with formal instruction in research paper writing. Students read from Anne Carroll’s Christ the King, Lord of History, Lynn Hunt’s Making of the West, and Thomas Woods’s How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, among other primary and secondary sources. Alongside the historical studies, students learn the research paper process from topic selection through oral presentation, guided by Jensen’s Format Writing and weekly slideshows. The semester culminates in a fully cited research paper and formal oral presentation. This course is classified as a Writing and Reasoning course and is priced accordingly.

Prerequisites: Essay Writing A with English Mechanics 5 (EWR-A) and Critical Reading A with English Mechanics 6 (CRR-A).
Concurrent study: Best studied concurrently with Church History II (CH2-A), Dante (EL2-A), and Art and Architecture II (AA2-A). Recommended science: Chemistry I (CY1-A).
Booklist: View required books and materials

Moral Apologetics (MA1-A)Religion

Credit: One semester in Religion · Recommended: Grade 12
Schedule: ♘ White Thursdays, 7:00 to 8:30 a.m. PT (every other week)
Meetings: 8 per semester (including Book Check orientation)

This course is a systematic study of Catholic moral theology through Fr. John Laux’s Catholic Morality, a clear and thorough text that guides students through the foundations of the moral life: free will, conscience, the natural and divine law, the nature of sin and virtue, and the theological and cardinal virtues. From there, students explore their duties to God through faith, hope, charity, prayer, and worship; duties to themselves in matters of human dignity, chastity, and material goods; duties to their neighbors through charity, justice, and truthfulness; and duties as members of the family, the state, and the Church. Alongside the moral theology, students cultivate a daily habit of spiritual reading through St. Francis de Sales’s Introduction to the Devout Life, learning to integrate the wisdom of the saints into their own interior life. The Catechism of the Catholic Church and Sacred Scripture support every topic, anchoring the course in the living tradition of the Church.

Prerequisites: Essay Writing A (EWR-A), Catholic Apologetics (CAP-B), and Critical Reading A (CRR-A).
Concurrent study: Best studied concurrently with Government and Natural Law (GNL-A), European History II (EH2-A), and Dante (EL2-A). Recommended science: Chemistry II (CY2-A).
Booklist: View required books and materials

Govt & Natural Law (GNL-A)Social Studies

Credit: One semester in Social Studies · Recommended: Grade 12
Schedule: ♘ White Thursdays, 7:00 to 8:30 a.m. PT (every other week)
Meetings: 8 per semester (including Book Check orientation)

This course grounds the study of American government in the tradition of natural law philosophy. Students read Charles Rice’s 50 Questions on the Natural Law, working through Aquinas’s definition of law, the relationship between human law and divine law, the role of reason and revelation, conscience, the dignity of the human person, the family, and the Magisterium’s application of natural law to contemporary questions of life, sexuality, and bioethics. Alongside it, Declaration Statesmanship by Richard Ferrier and Andrew Seeley traces the American founding from its philosophical roots through the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, the crisis of slavery, and the Civil Rights movement. A substantial Book of Readings accompanies the textbook, drawing students into primary sources that include Aristotle, Locke, the Federalist Papers, the Dred Scott decision, Lincoln’s speeches, Tocqueville, and Booker T. Washington. Students memorize the Gettysburg Address, portions of the Declaration of Independence, the Preamble to the Constitution, and key amendments. The course culminates in a semester-long senior capstone project in which students research a politically relevant issue and learn to engage opposing viewpoints with clarity, charity, and well-reasoned conviction.

Prerequisites: Essay Writing A (EWR-A), Critical Reading A (CRR-A), and U.S. History and Geography I (US1-B).
Concurrent study: Best studied concurrently with Moral Apologetics (MA1-A) and European History II (EH2-A). Recommended science: Chemistry II (CY2-A).
Booklist: View required books and materials