History and Social Studies

Year – 6 credits

Required for freshmen

Americans in the 21st century continue to struggle over the meaning and substance of the nation’s democratic ideals. In the process, they must navigate complex sets of institutionalized forms of power and privilege, which significantly shape their life chances and opportunities. This course focuses on issues of social justice and the social construction of both individual and national identities. It charts how individuals operate and dream within contexts shaped significantly by historical forces, such as race, class, gender, sexuality, and power. We will use a multicultural, interdisciplinary lens to explore the ways in which past struggles for power and rights, often rooted in identity-based conflicts, shape contemporary American political and social interactions as well as broader, global struggles.

Year – 6 credits

Open to sophomores

This course will examine and analyze important events, ideas, institutions, and developments throughout the world from the late nineteenth century to the present. Each trimester will be organized around a discrete theme. We will begin with a study of imperialism, nationalism, World War I, and the Russian Revolution. Through document analysis and persuasive essay writing, we will explore the experiences and contributions of multiple individuals and the relationships among nations in many regions of the world. From a global perspective, we will investigate World War II, genocide, and the Cold War. We will trace the development and impact of China’s Communist Revolution, decolonization throughout the world, and the many forces that have shaped many regions of the world in the twentieth and 21st centuries. In addition to developing a strong command over the material, we will develop skills essential to the success of thoughtful, scholarly students. In doing so, we will expand our capacities for critical thinking and an appreciation of divergent views.

Year - 6 credits

Open to sophomores

This college-level course requires the following:

• Extensive (at least one hour) nightly reading of college-level text.
• Written analysis of primary and secondary sources.
• Timed weekly essay writing.
• A willingness to devote the time required for mastery of detailed content material.
• The development of students’ academic independence.

The course serves as an intensive study of the history of Europe from 1400 to the present. From the time of the Renaissance through the collapse of communism, this class teaches the evolution of political, cultural, military, economic, philosophical, and religious ideals. Although there are certainly a lot of names, wars, and dates involved, AP European History is primarily a class about ideas. We will pursue our study of European history from a thematic approach each trimester. The first trimester will be devoted to the intellectual break with tradition from the Renaissance through the Enlightenment.

Students will discover the ideas and thoughts that influence the Long-19th century from 1789 (French Revolution) to the outbreak of World War I (1914), which will be the focus of the second trimester. Our third trimester will be devoted to responses to war, revolution, and totalitarian regimes in the 20th century. Throughout class, we will analyze primary and secondary sources, stressing the importance of their connection to the ideas and themes of history. Students will develop critical thinking and analysis skills through the use of these documents and sources. All students will prepare to take the AP European history exam in the spring. Students will practice with free-response and document-based questions taken directly from past AP exams.

Year - 6 credits

Open to juniors and seniors

Taught as a college-level seminar, this course is designed to develop student awareness and activism centered on the issues associated with the concept of genocide and crimes against humanity in a global perspective. Students will explore historical manifestations of genocide through the lenses of not only history but of literature, sociology, economics, the development of international law, and psychology. Intellectually engaging students to think critically about the past through primary and secondary sources, students will connect themes of actors, reconciliation and remembrance, and historical memory across historical events. Utilizing the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, the genocide in Cambodia perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge, the Rwandan genocide, the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia, and the long Guatemalan civil war and genocide of the 1980s students will study the conceptual and theoretical frameworks of historical genocides and the associated ideologies of racism, antisemitism, religious hatreds, and prejudices that preceded the violence. Together we will also promote a nuanced engagement with current events centered on crimes against humanity.

Year – 6 credits

Open to juniors and seniors

Prerequisite: successful completion of a computer science course.

Machine learning is ubiquitous today, utilized in everything from curating recommendation lists on Netflix, to diagnosing medical conditions, to detecting credit card fraud. As a result of the pervasiveness of this technology, and the desire to fully prepare our students to be fully engaged citizens, the Computer Science and History departments will offer this co-taught, full year course on Machine Learning.

In this course, students will learn how to ask questions and solve problems with big-data to better understand the world from both historical and contemporary perspectives. Using critical thinking skills, students will explore and grapple with issues – such as determining authorship, understanding political affiliations, optimizing transportation systems, and analyzing the criminal justice system – that require an interdisciplinary lens to be understood best.

Through this integrated class, students will learn the computer science techniques necessary to engage societal problems, they will be able to understand the historical forces that sired these issues in the first place, and they will be able to better predict the possible social and political consequences of technological change. Students who take this course can earn credit for either a computer science or history course, but not both, and must designate their choice at the time of enrollment.

Year – 6 credits

Open to juniors and seniors

This course seeks to breach the traditional classroom walls, pushing students outside of the confines of Winchester Thurston and reducing the boundaries between the city and the school. Cities acquire their shape and function from the dynamic interaction of social, cultural, political, ecological, and economic systems. Urban design connects these various systems in order to create places and programs that elevate the human condition. Broadly conceived, urban designers fuse various disciplines—ranging from architecture to political science to environmental science—to promote the creation of communities that connect people and places, raise the quality of life, and address recognized impediments to long-term sustainability.

Global trends underscore the importance of thoughtful design. By 2050, human geographers believe that 75% of the world’s population will live in urban areas, and the cities in which you will live, work, and raise families will face difficult challenges involving social inequality, housing, transportation, deteriorating infrastructure, post-industrial revitalization, environmental sustainability, crime, and food security.

Throughout this course, you will be challenged to address these issues and imagine creative solutions. We will explore these issues through hands-on activities, course readings, conversations with experts and community members, and extensive fieldwork throughout the city. You will become familiar with different aspects of urban site design, and you will work individually and collaboratively to address social issues and to create two studio projects. This course envisions students directing their own learning, pursuing their intellectual interests, and making a lasting, valuable contribution to the Pittsburgh community.

Year - 6 credits

Open to juniors and seniors

“We cannot claim to have answers to all the complex problems of modern society. That is too much to ask of a movement still battling barbarism in Mississippi. But we can agitate the right questions by probing at the contradictions which still stand in the way of the ‘Great Society.’”

--Bayard Rustin (1965) From Protest to Politics: The Future of the Civil Rights Movement

This course examines the social movements that took up Rustin’s challenge and sought to agitate the right questions and address the complex problems of contemporary America, and it is centrally focused on struggles over the meaning of freedom and liberty. Starting with the “long civil rights movement,” the course will explore the feminist movement, the New Left, the Chicano Movement, and the LGBTQ rights movement that challenged discrimination and promoted equality, and it will trace how the New Right and the Tea Party launched and sustained conservative ideological and political responses to these movements and American liberalism. We will assess the ways in which #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo Movement reflect earlier movements for change, and the course will conclude by investigating the global dimensions of social movements, focusing on the anti-Apartheid Movement, We Are the World, the Occupy Movement, and the Climate Change Movement.

Year – 6 credits

Open to juniors and seniors

“The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is beside the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech.”
–Justice Anthony Kennedy, 1992

In this course students will seek to understand the competing values and constitutional principles lurking beneath Justice Kennedy’s call for tolerance and the proper obligations of government. The course will survey some of the great issues and controversies that surround America’s founding document. We will read U.S. Supreme Court decisions and listen to selected oral arguments seeking to understand the nature of the Constitution, the contested nature of its interpretation, and the evolving meaning of civil liberties and civil rights, such as free expression, school desegregation, voting rights, and privacy. The social and cultural context of these decisions will be particularly emphasized. Together, we will explore the following questions: What is the proper role of the Supreme Court in the political process? What is the constitutional framework for judicial review? To what extent should the Court become an agent of political change? What does it mean in practice to tolerate speech? What is cruel and unusual punishment? What is the proper balance between liberty and security? This course will emphasize critical thinking, the open exchange of ideas, and advanced essay writing skills.

Year – 6 credits

Open to juniors and seniors

This course requires the following:

• Extensive (at least one hour) nightly reading of college-level text;
• Written analysis of primary and secondary sources;
• Timed essay writing;
• A willingness to devote the time required for mastery of detailed content materials; and
• The development of students’ academic independence.

This course will cover the American experience from 1400 to the present. The course will be organized thematically as well as chronologically. We will begin with the transatlantic Age of Revolution, exploring the American Revolution in a global context. The course will trace the development of the American nation and the persistent challenges to American nationalism throughout the 19th century. We will chart the origins of the Civil War and assess the radicalism of Reconstruction. Industrialization, the Progressive reform movement, the New Deal, the domestic consequences of the world wars, the Cold War, and de-industrialization will be some of the additional themes examined. Lectures, discussions, films, and primary document analysis will provide the basis for our exploration into the American past. Students will master analytical writing, oral argumentation, and critical thinking skills, and students will read secondary works penned by some of the greatest modern historians.

Year – 6 credits

Open to seniors; juniors may enroll with permission from the department chair

AP Macroeconomics focuses on the economy as a whole: Major topics involve measuring economic variables related to production and prices, and developing models that explain the relationship between these variables in the short-run and long-run. Graphical analysis is used extensively throughout the year. Students in this course will work to understand the global implications of events within an economic model. Will growing nationalism undo the benefits of free trade? How pervasive (and dangerous) is income inequality? Globalization has turned our macroeconomic model upside down in recent years, making the study of macroeconomics no longer nation specific but instead the study of a deeply interconnected world economy, in constant flux.

In this course, students will be introduced to the basics of macroeconomics, exploring the scale and structure of individual economies, and the dynamics of growth. We will consider specific topics including population and migration, human capital, health care and education, and the global cost of climate change, as well as the role of political institutions in economic development. Exploring case studies based on current events, students will deepen their understanding of these fundamentals in a 21st century context.

Utilizing ‘City as Our Campus’ partners and regional economics bodies, students will engage in project-based learning opportunities to see their economic knowledge at work in real world scenarios. This course will go beyond the AP macroeconomics curriculum to engage in the global implications of socio-economic and political trends. (This course does not meet the graduation requirement for 3 history & social studies courses.)

Year – 6 credits

Open to juniors and seniors

This survey course addresses the main economic, religious, political, and cultural trends in the modern Middle East. Topics to be covered include the cultural diversity of the Middle East, relations with Great Powers, the impact of imperialism, the challenge of modernity, the creation of nation states and nationalist ideologies, the discovery of oil, radical religious groups, and war and peace.

Throughout the course these significant changes will be evaluated in light of their impact on the lives of a variety of individuals in the region and especially how they have grappled differently with increasing Western political and economic domination. Topics of focus will include the collapse of the Ottoman Empire during World War I, European imperialism, the rise of nationalism and Zionism, the Arab-Israeli conflict, political Islam and the role of the United States in the region.

Attention will be paid to the links between the history of the modern Middle East and current events surrounding the US-led invasion of Iraq, Arab Spring, the civil war in Syria, and Iranian nuclear treaty. This course will emphasize critical thinking, the open exchange of ideas, and the production of argument-driven essays.