The high school seminar program is a unique series of offerings presented by
teachers outside the domain of their departments and in addition to their
regular teaching load, without additional pay. Our seminars are intense double
periods in which students undertake enormous amounts of self study and creative
work. They usually happen at the end of the school day because, in the busy
schedules of the students and instructor, no other time is available.
THE ARTISTIC MAP OF 20th CENTURY SPAIN
(Reyes)
Just as the social and political pendulum swings throughout the
twentieth century, demarking the trajectory of Spain from a Catholic monarchy
to a short-lived Republic to a dictatorship to the thriving democracy of the
last thirty years, its artists keep at work leaving behind an extraordinary
artistic heritage. Looking closely at a wide range of legendary icons in
painting, architecture, film, music, and literature, we will consider how
GaudÃ, Lorca, DalÃ, Buñuel, Falla, Picasso, and the like have interpreted
what they saw and what they lived during a century of tumultuous change and
pervasive uncertainty. (Taught in English)
THE ART OF DEBATE AND RHETORIC
(Kingsley/Mason)
The Debate and Rhetoric seminar meets as a single House once a week in the late
afternoon seminar period. We break up into smaller committees to debate and
vote on resolutions, practice speaking in various formats, arrange impromptu
and prepared intramural debates in both large and small houses; and participate
as individuals and as a team in the Princeton Model Congress in November and
other Model Congresses. We also plan to host a Saint Ann’s Model Supreme
Court, and we plan to host a Saint Ann’s Model Congress. The House is largely
self governing, on the premise that the secret of free speech is respect for
difference of opinion, and rule by majoritiesâ€"democracyâ€"depends on the
assent of minorities.
Note: Students who elect this seminar should not commit to more than one
extramural season sport with practices or games that conflict with class
meetings. There is a strict limit of 40 members.
BOOK MAKING / BEWARE OF PAPER CUTS
(Ledonne)
A rapid-fire history lesson will kick off this seminar relating the
many forms the book has taken throughout the past few thousand years from
etched papyrus leaves to Coptic binding. Afterwards, and throughout the year,
we will look at contemporary artists’ books to see how bookbinding has exploded
into an art form.
Our first book will be composed completely of found materials with which we can
fearlessly make mistakes while learning basic binding techniques. Our second
book will begin to connect the style of each individual’s book with the role it
serves. What makes a page worth filling? How does form make way for content?
Why is the Moleskin so wildly popular? This second, more developed book will be
accompanied by an artists’ statement.
A minimum of two, hand-bound books is expected, though more are encouraged.
Although most materials will be provided, some scavenging will be required.
COMMUNITY SERVICE: MORE THAN JUST BOOK DRIVES
(First semester) (Gnagnarelli)
In the late 1960s, someone came up with the
notion of “random acts of kindness.” For instance, what if when you were going
through a tollbooth, you paid for the car behind yours even if you didn’t know
who was in it? How does this alter society? This seminar discusses the concepts
of philanthropy and volunteerism, and also primes the real life skills needed
to help organizations achieve their goals of improving both our local and our
global society. While some people are driven by humanitarian motives, others
seem to act out of enlightened self-interest. What is the benefit to each
individual who participates in a service-related project or activity?
Students choose from an array of educational, social, political or
environmental issues and plans and execute community service initiatives.
Projects may be individual or involve a number of students. As a class, we
visit community service programs around the city, model a large project for the
class, and offer feedback for each project designed by class members. Some
current projects involve offsetting the climate crisis, recycling,
homelessness, and children’s health and nutrition.
While we surf the net and scan The New York Times looking for new
possibilities, we also help connect other students with organizations with
which we have formerly partnered, including the Brooklyn DA’s office, Brooklyn
Parents for Peace, Heifer International, Brooklyn Heights Synagogue Shelter,
Chung Pak Day Care Center, Project Reach Youth, L.I. College Hospital, Legal
Outreach, P.S.8, Helen Keller Services for the Blind, Spence-Chapin Services to
Family and Children, the Prospect Park Alliance, Project Cicero, Brooklyn
Historical Society, The Jubilee Center, Lighthouse for the Blind, 78th Precinct
Sports, and the Arab-American Family Support Center.
DISTINCT DIFFERENCES OR ARE WE REALLY SO DISSIMILAR? THE EXAMINATION OF RACE,
GENDER, AND SEXUAL ORIENTATION
(Bertram/Friedrichs/Kang)
What is race? Is it a hard biological fact? A social
construct? A mindset? What about gender and sexual orientation? Using
scientific, historical and sociological lenses we will examine the biological,
social and psychological origins of race, gender and sexual orientation. In the
process, we will cover various historical movements and perceptions of these
aspects of human experience. A variety of reading sources, films and
discussions will be used to help answer some of the more perplexing questions
regarding our real or perceived differences.
ENLIGHTENMENT, ROMANTICISM AND REALISM
(Everdell)
We will read short imaginative works of literature typical of these
three consecutive periods in the intellectual/ cultural history of the West,
and discuss them as we listen to some musical compositions contemporary with
them. Readings likely to include: Voltaire, Micromégas; Paine, Age of Reason;
Pope, Essay on Man; Rousseau, Discourse on the Arts and Sciences; Wordsworth
and Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads; Victor Hugo, Cromwell; Stendhal, Romanticism;
Marx, Communist Manifesto; Darwin, Expression of the Emotions; Dostoevsky,
Notes from Underground; Zola, Naturalism; Freud, Dora.
FICTION, POETRY, FAIRY TALE, AND THE PSYCHIC LANDSCAPE
(Gidwitz)
We will investigate the ways the internal, psychological world can be
expressed through fiction, poetry, art, film, and fairy tale. From Where the
Wild Things Are to “The Wasteland," we will read intense texts that make the
psychoscape real. Writers and artists are encouraged, as we will also practice
realizing that internal imaginative world in our own work. Authors will likely
include the Brothers Grimm, Maurice Sendak, John Keats, Alfred Lord Tennyson,
Emily Dickinson, T.S. Eliot, Edgar Allen Poe, Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad,
Ralph Ellison, and others. Artists will include Bosch, Goya, Dali, Picasso, and
Schiele.
FICTION WRITING WORKSHOP
(Avrich/Bosworth/Ziegler)
A seminar in which students will do writing
exercises, write stories, and read and discuss each other's work. It will meet
2nd semester only, during a lunch period.
THE GAME OF GO
(Lockhart)
Learn to play the world’s oldest and most fascinating strategic
board game! This seminar will introduce beginners to the rich and exciting
world of Go, and will help more experienced players get stronger. Relax and
have fun while learning the basic strategic principles of Go, including Attack
and Defense, Cutting and Connecting, and Life & Death! We will also explore the
history and philosophy of the game, as well as its place in Asian art and
culture. All levels are welcome, but enrollment is limited.
HEARING THE ROOM: RECORDING REAL SOUNDS IN REAL PLACES
(Schramm)
Learn the basics (and some of the secrets) of sound recording.
Discover the ways music is recorded and reproduced. Learn to “make a record” –
record music or speech in a room with a microphone. How best to record an
acoustic guitar? A drum set? A violin? A wildly loud and distorted electric
guitar? A jazz combo? We’ll have live soloists and ensembles performing as we
explore the acoustic properties of different microphones. Learn how the
placement of the microphone in the room effects the recording. Train our ears
to listen to the different qualities of sound and how that sound interacts with
the room. Decipher the mysteries of stereo microphone technique, with names
like “Coincident Pair”, “Blumlein” “Mid/Side” or “ORTF”. Learn something of the
physics of sound. Nothing too deep, just enough to illustrate how we capture
and reproduce the music and speech that we hear. The techniques we experiment
with will apply not just to music, but also to speech and ambient or
environmental recording used in film and television. Students will make their
own recordings of the performers that come visiting, or of themselves if so
inclined. Limited to eight students. Knowledge of music theory and notation not
necessary.
HIGH SCHOOL LITERARY MAGAZINE
(The English Department)
The High School Literary Magazine is created by a
board of students and faculty advisors who are eager to find and publish
excellent high school writing. The Board (about eighteen students selected by
the English Department and the Head of the High School) meets once a week
during a seminar period to discuss and select poetry and prose. In addition,
board members type all selections and, in April, lay out the magazine. Because
the work is heaviest in February, March and April, students must give several
extra hours a week during this period.
HISTORY OF AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHY
(Bakalar)
In 1932 the photographer Berenice Abbott submitted a photomontage to
the MOMA exhibit “The Post-War World” to demonstrate what, as Julien Levy
phrased it, “the photograph can present that is not better rendered in paint”.
Since its inception in 1838, photography, in a meteoric ride, eclipsed
portraiture by the itinerant painter, marginalized landscape painting, and even
threatened notions of the “representational” in art altogether. From the
beginning, though, photographers have had to fight for acceptance as artists.
Even today, while no museum is complete without a photography department,
photographs are rarely included in exhibits with other media. Visual artists
who work in other media, rarely, with one or two exceptions, work in
photography as well.
In this class, we will examine these phenomena. We will trace the specifics of
this debate and place it in its cultural context in the United States. There
will be some readings, but primarily we will look at photographs, analyze and
discuss them. We will try to appreciate them within their own place in art
history, as well as critique them as stand-alone works. Attention will be given
to photographic processes and technique when it is germane to the work of an
individual.
MOCK TRIAL SEMINAR
(Hill)
The Mock Trial Seminar is designed to teach students about the legal
trial process and the skills needed to be effective courtroom advocates. The
seminar operates on a “learn by doing” principle, whereby students actively
practice techniques of effective persuasion. The skills of thinking on one’s
feet, preparing arguments and analyzing cases are emphasized. The first
semester is devoted to learning and perfecting courtroom skills in order to
prepare the students for the New York State Bar Association Mock Trial
Competition against other city schools in the spring. Students work on practice
cases to gain facility with preparing direct and cross examinations, making
objections, introducing evidence, and learning trial procedure. Attendance and
interest are critical to forming a cohesive team for going to trial. Extra
meeting times in January and February will be necessary as the competition
approaches.
LATIN DANCE
(Davila)
This seminar is offered to students who want to explore Latin dance,
rhythms and space. Students will listen to, differentiate between, and learn
different styles of salsa, merengue, saya, and joropos. They will also have the
1
opportunity to develop a sensibility that will make it easier to assimilate the
Latino language and culture.
Note: Everyone can dance! If you think you cannot dance, just give it a chance.
Start with us, and you will see the results.
NEGATIVE SPACE IN CINEMA
(Tirado)
We all know how to communicate our thoughts effectively through a
combination of words and sounds, but what is it that is being communicated
through our silences and gestures? Those unsaid things, those non-verbal
exchanges, are as integral to the process of being understood as their
considerably more obvious counterparts. This class aims to examine this
interpersonal phenomenon’s cinematic equivalent – i.e., the ways in which
meaning is conveyed visually in film. We will learn to notice those seemingly
unimportant details that a lifetime of movie watching has trained us to ignore,
and we will develop the cinematic vocabulary required to analyze and discuss
those details. By examining camera angles, character movement, lighting, and
more, we will look at the ways in which the viewer is influenced - nay
manipulated - by a film’s images. There will be weekly full or partial
screenings followed by discussion, and we will read articles and excerpts from
various sources. Each semester will conclude with a sequence analysis in which
each student chooses a film that interests him or her and explores a portion of
it in great detail. The will be two field trips (either to see films or to
visit film-related museum exhibitions) over the course of the year. A sampling
of potential films to be screened are: The Battleship Potemkin directed by
Sergei Eisenstein, Citizen Kane directed by Orson Welles, O Brother, Where Art
Thou? Directed by the Coen Brothers, Taxi Driver directed by Martin Scorsese, A
Movie directed by Bruce Conner, There Will Be Blood directed by Paul Thomas
Anderson, and The Maltese Falcon directed by John Huston.
PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS
(Aronson)
From its beginnings in Ancient Greece, western philosophy has
attempted to ask and answer the big questions that underlie our lives and our
relationship to the world – questions that from the philosophical point of view
are always with us, even if we are not always conscious of them. For instance:
what is knowledge and how do we obtain it? What is the nature of reality? What
is truth? Do we live in a deterministic world, or is there free will? Does God
exist? Is there, in fact, something that we can call mind or soul as
distinguishable from brain or body? What is art? This course considers how, in
each of the above cases (as well as others), a variety of philosophers – some
ancient, some modern, some still alive – have dealt with these inherently
thorny issues. There are no prerequisites other than a desire to think hard.
POETRY WRITING WORKSHOP
(Skoble)
Poetry is a craft as well as an art. Poems don’t happen, they are
made. In this workshop we learn how to use the tools of poets. We take poems
apart to see how they work, and we put things together to see if they work.
Construction and experimentation, exploration and imitation are the processes
we use to help us create poems. The poetry workshop is open to all, including
dancers, thespians, musicians, athletes and astrophysicists. We meet one double
period each week to share our efforts, to read and discuss, and, of course, to
write.
PRESCHOOL SEMINAR: PORTRAIT OF WONDER
(Fuerst/Stevens)
How do the three- and four-year-olds at the Preschool see
their world? How do you see yourself through their lens? We will use artist
portraits and figurative expression by Goya, Kahlo, Dunham, Neel, Matisse,
Picasso and others to create a visual response to preschoolers and their play
as a way of capturing what inspires both these children in their world of
wonder and discovery and us working and playing with them. We will play and
work with various materials during our seminar meetings at The Bosworth
Building; in addition, your schedule should allow you to come to the Preschool
once a week to work in a classroom.
RUNNING WITH SCISSORS: TEXT AND TRANSFORMATION IN THE STUDIO
(Klein/Sullivan)
Our seminar will be based on a different text (TBA) each
semester. We will read and discuss and see what we "make" of it...literally!
We'll draw, sculpt, whittle, garden and sew. Through the lens of this text
(Blake? a Shakespeare sonnet?) we may visit galleries and neighborhood
attractions, and attend plays, movies or readings, all to inform and infuse our
studio work. Our mantra is inspiration, transformation.
RUSSIAN LANGUAGE AND ART
(Chavchavadze/Okuneva)
We will teach beginning Russian reading, writing and
conversation as we introduce students to Russian art. Each class will begin
with a language component in which students learn the Russian alphabet,
beginning reading and writing skills, and practice basic conversation. The
second part of each class will focus on aspects of Russian culture from three
historical eras: ancient Russian folk art; the 19th c. “World of Art” movement,
including Serge Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes, Alexander Benois and others;
Constructivism and the art of the Russian Revolution, including Malevich,
Tatlin and others. The seminar will take a playful approach to the Russian
language through reading fairy tales, singing Russian songs, developing
puppetry performances and viewing Russian films. The class will take at least
two field trips to see Russian performances or art exhibits.
SPACE COLONIES
(Roam)
Could some of that limitless solar energy in outer space be safely
beamed down to Earth, making us less hungry for oil and less reliant on
gas-burning cars and coal-burning power plants? Couldn’t this be a boost for
health, environment, prosperity, you name it, if it worked? Since the 1970s,
some physicists have been suggesting that colonies floating in space could
build huge solar collectors, using minerals from the moon, and using microwaves
to send down cheap (?) energy. This seminar asks whether space colonies are a
possible, desirable investment in the future, and how they might realistically
work. Issues include safety and health and life in space (artificial gravity,
radiation), energy, cost, basic physics, and even political philosophy
(Colonialization? Independence? Weapons in space?). We study models
(simulations) of life support, ecosystems, financial investments, and world
population vs. hunger vs. resource trends. The “Civilization IV” game, with its
“manage a country” role-playing, might give us a way to design a “civ in space”
scenario. We read works by technology philanthropist Buckminster Fuller and
works by Ray Kurzweil, who is forecasting a rapidly approaching technological
“singularity”—an escalating collection of breakthroughs in everything from
genomics to artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology and energy. This
is also a chance to participate in NASA’s annual space colony design contest
for high school students. See http://gargoyle.saintannsny.org for more
information. No programming experience necessary.
TOPICS IN GERMAN STUDIES
(Elliott/Levin)
In this seminar, we will open the rather large can of worms
known as German Studies. Perhaps no culture has moved so dramatically from high
to low in the history of the world. From the incredible array of brilliance and
originality reflected in the works of Goethe, Beethoven, and Kant to the
tragedies of the Holocaust, the Cold War, and the Stasi, Germany both defies
our understanding and requires us to look deep within its culture in order to
understand the variety of possibilities within the human experience. We will
take a wide view with a focus on literature, music and philosophy.
From the Renaissance to the 20th century, German composers created and advanced
musical language and rhetoric in a way that dominated art music and continues
to define the classical tradition today. From Schütz to Schoenberg, German
composers defined language and form so thoroughly that all alternative
movements were seen as reactionary. German musical thinking was essential to
the creation of an American style of classical music. In this seminar, we will
listen to music, read novels, poetry and philosophy, and perhaps learn ein
bißchen Deutsch together. The focus of the course will be the great artistic
and cultural achievements of Germany, but we will also spend time discussing
the ways in which the arts were affected by the Holocaust and the Cold War.
Invited guest lecturers will help us to better understand the complexities of
German society, but we hope to raise more questions than answers. You do not
need to know any German or German history to take this seminar. Possible texts
and authors include Schoenberg's Style and Idea; Goethe's Faust and The Sorrows
of Young Werther; Mann's Death in Venice; Wedekind's Spring Awakening. We may
also watch the films Goodbye, Lenin and The Lives of Others. Please note that
this class will meet once a week for one hour during the first semester only.
WRITING ABOUT SPORTS IN HISTORY AND SOCIETY
(Flaherty/Stevens)
Why do people compete in sporting events? Why do people
write about the athletic feats of others? What do these competitions, and the
stories about them, reveal about the societies in which they take place? These
are some of the questions that this seminar will look into, as we examine the
tradition of writing about sports from the ancient world of the Greeks and
Romans, through the development of the English tradition and the rise of modern
journalism in the 19th century, to the place of sports journalism in America
today. We will certainly look at how America has found – and created – the
sports heroes and metaphors we have needed at key junctures in our history,
such as the Great Depression, wars, and times of social conflict. We will read
ancient descriptions of the Olympics and gladiatorial contests alongside
examples from modern writers such as Damon Runyon, Joyce Carol Oates, Grantland
Rice, George Plimpton, Hunter S. Thompson, and many others. Eventually, we may
even take a stab at reporting on some local sports ourselves.
YEARBOOK
(Hord)
Lots of film, lots of fun. You’ll be shooting many rolls of film –
candid portraits of your friends, classmates, and teachers. We meet once a
week, print like mad, and then edit our work; we say yes to some photographs
and no to many more. We talk about what works, what doesn’t, and why. And in
the end, the big reward: your photographs published, in a real book.
Prerequisites: You must have had one year of B&W Photography and be a senior.