History and Social Studies

Year - 6 credits

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 materials
• 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 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.

Students will:

• Learn to decipher and decode Supreme Court decisions
• Master the content of key cases
• Be able to place Supreme Court decisions within their proper historical contexts
• Explore the impact of Supreme Court decisions on American society and polity
• Develop the skills necessary to articulate and defend an interpretation orally
• Hone the skills necessary for class discussions and civil debate
• Write argument-driven essays
• Engage in critical thinking about the role of law in society

Year – 6 credits

Open to juniors and seniors.

Prerequisite: Successful completion of Computer Science for Humanities, Computer Science for Mathematics and Science, Computer Science for Art and Music, Interactive Storytelling and Video Game Design, or any other year-long Computer Science offering.

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, yearlong 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.

Students will:

• Develop and deepen their reading and historical thinking skills
• Read, synthesize, and balance competing interpretations
• Write argument-driven essays
• Determine best methods for particular machine learning task
• Program in Python and learn most commonly used tools in industry/academia
• Understand how to use data to build predictive machine learning models
• Interpret the results and measure the effectiveness of a machine learning model
• Work and collaborate constructively in project-based teams
• Apply computer science skills to solve social science problems
• Recognize the moral and ethical dimensions of technological change and the uses and limitations of machine learning
• Become engaged digital citizens
• Conduct original research that extends and deepens a course-related theme
• Present their findings publicly

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. This course will intellectually engage 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.

Students will:

• Develop inquiry-based research and analytical skills; recognize the extent to which scholarly arguments can be used to advance, defend, and refute historical arguments.
• Collaborate on small group projects and presentations.
• Further develop their writing skills and hone their historical voice to create argument-driven essays.
• Critically think about primary and secondary sources, including testimonies and diaries, in order to synthesize information and to analyze those sources for deeper understanding.
• Utilize their historical thinking skills and understanding of history, remembrance, reconciliation, and historical memory to produce a year-end project and presentation.

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, students 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.

Students will:

• Develop and deepen their reading and historical thinking skills
• Read, synthesize, and balance competing interpretations
• Learn to read the built environment
• Work and collaborate constructively in design teams
• Create an urban design proposal tied to a specific site within the city
• Use city resources and partners to inquire and to deepen design project
• Develop, construct, and publicly present a 3-D model
• Author an extensive and collaboratively produced argument-driven essay
• Become engaged citizens conversant in the central issues and challenges facing the city

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.

Students will:

• Develop inquiry-based research and analytical skills
• Read, synthesize, and balance competing interpretations
• Critically think about secondary and primary sources, including oral history testimonies and the built environment, in order to decipher, decode, and apply those sources to address synthesis-style questions
• Further develop their writing skills and hone their historical voice to create argument-driven essays and presentations
• Hone their media literacy skills
• Conduct original research and use city resources and partners to inquire and to deepen their long-term research project
• Utilize their historical thinking skills and understanding of public memory, remembrance, and memorialization to produce a year-end project and presentation.

Year – 6 credits

This course is designed to increase students’ awareness of the various roles America has assumed on the global stage since WWI and will emphasize students’ interpretations of those roles. Through regular and analytical use of primary and secondary source documents, students will examine the ways in which international affairs have challenged and shaped Americans’ perceptions of themselves and their nation. Moments of international conflict and war as well as efforts to create international organizations dedicated to promoting global integration and peace will drive the course content. The interaction of formal foreign policies and domestic reform programs pressed by ordinary citizens will also be a focal issue of discussion. This approach will allow us to examine the ways in which local, national, and international issues intersect and influence students’ daily lives. This course will encourage students to see themselves as global citizens and agents of change, capable of making a constructive difference beyond the classroom. Finally, it is hoped that, upon completion of this course, students will be able to demonstrate a strong grasp of the United States’ diplomatic past and a reliable ability to anticipate the future course of US diplomacy.

Students will:

• Engage in civil, frank, and open debates
• Complete individual and group projects
• Decipher, decode, and apply primary documents to advance an argument
• Develop essay-writing skills
• Connect material covered in class to contemporary, global developments
• Understand the roles and responsibilities of global citizens.

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.

Students will:

• Develop inquiry-based research and analytical skills
• Read, synthesize, and balance competing interpretations
• Critically think about sources of economic data, in order to decipher, decode, and apply those sources to address synthesis-style questions
• Further develop their writing skills and hone their critical thinking to create argument-driven essays and presentations
• Hone their media literacy skills
• Conduct original research and use city resources and partners to inquire and to deepen their long-term research project;

*This is a course that will only cover macroeconomic concepts and theories; it will not prepare you for the AP Microeconomics exam. Should you wish to take the AP Microeconomics exam, you will need to do extensive work outside the class.

Not offered in 2020 - 2021

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

Questions will dominate this course as we seek to understand the complex values and principles lurking beneath Mr. Justice Kennedy’s call for tolerance and vision of government. What does it mean in practice to tolerate speech? Under what, if any, circumstances can meeting the obligations governance require the restriction of rights? How is political power best exercised? To what extent should public policies become agents of social change? What is the proper balance between liberty and security? To address these and other questions, we will survey some of the great issues and controversies that surround American politics. We will analyze the principles behind the formation of the Constitution, paying particular attention to the federated nature of the American system and the dispersal of political powers among the three branches of national government. Students will deepen their understanding of civic life, the rights and responsibilities of citizens, and the formation of public policies. This course has an additional, somewhat practical side. It is hoped that students will be inspired to invest themselves in the political process, to think of ways to improve public policies, and to press their ideas in the public realm. This course will emphasize critical thinking, the open exchange of ideas, and the production of argument-driven essays.

Not offered in 2020 - 2021

Year – 6 credits

Open to juniors and seniors.

William Faulkner wryly observed in Absalom, Absalom: “The past isn’t over. The past isn’t even past.” Our individual and collective pasts, as Faulkner suggested, often follow us into the present and, in complicated ways, shape our individual identities, sense of community, and understandings of citizenship. This course proposes an interdisciplinary approach to studying the relationship among memory, history, and identity. Rather than viewing memory as a fixed reflection of past events, we will examine memory as a process grounded in science, formed through social interaction, and mediated by rhetoric. We will explore the relationship between individual memories and collective commemorations, tracing the complicated ways in which personal experiences, popular media, monuments, and public ceremonies interact to create meaning. The class will investigate the politics of memory in families, communities, and nations. Why do some stories become “our” heritage, while others are forgotten? How can psychology help explain how individual memory functions? How and why do societies remember something? How does a particular event, site, or monument acquire places in a community’s collective memory? What moral choices inform the representation of the past and the ways in which individuals write their autobiographies? Do computers record or remember the past? Students enrolled in this discussion-based course will investigate the scientific and psychological basis for memory; create time capsules; write a portion of an autobiography; travel to Shanksville, PA, to analyze the Flight 93 Memorial; conduct an oral history interview; and compose a photographic or musical essay covering local monuments.

Not offered in 2020 - 2021

Year – 6 credits

Open to juniors and seniors

Winston Churchill once said that Russia ‘is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.’ Together we will seek to unwrap the mystery and understand the complex socio-cultural forces at work in Russia. This course follows a chronological study of Russia from Peter the Great (1689-1725) to President Vladimir Putin. Although the primary focus of this course will be placed in the internal developments, appropriate attention will be paid to Russia’s role in international relations. Combined with political, social, and economic studies of Russia, this class will provide opportunities to engage with Russian culture and literature. The works of Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Bulgakov, and Solzhenitsyn will supplement our readings from assigned texts. Major thematic units will be: the rise of the Russian empire, enlightened despotism under Catherine the Great, Russia’s role in 19th century Europe, the era of reform, Russia in revolution, the Stalinist era, the Soviet Union’s Cold War, the Gorbachev era, and the creation of a new Russia after the collapse of Communism. Special attention will be paid to current events concerning Russia’s role in the modern world as they develop. This course will emphasize critical thinking, the open exchange of ideas, and the production of various forms of written assessment to include argument-driven essays and historical biography.

Not offered in 2020 - 2021

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.