NCSSM COURSE CAtAlOG - North Carolina School of Science and ...

the program emphasizes the development of reading and writing skills, it is
grounded in the same curricular content as AS305 American Studies and
prepares students for NCSSM core English courses. During the second and third
trimesters, students continue their exploration of the literary, historical, and
artistic heritage of America, while at the same time focusing on continuing to
build their strengths as readers and writers.
AS305a/AS305b/AS305c American Studies
One year
Credit: Two units core English credit, two units core history/social science credit,
two units core elective credit.
Prerequisite: Placement by the Dean of Humanities.
Meeting pattern: Five periods per week including lab (trimester 1), four periods
per week including lab (trimesters 2 and 3).
American Studies is a team-taught, interdisciplinary course that presents history,
literature, and the arts as strands within a complex cultural fabric. The course
begins with the first European encounters with “new” lands and peoples in the
late fifteenth century. It concludes with the global economies and virtual
communities of the present. In examining the American experience from
multiple perspectives, students develop a more nuanced sense of what
America is and what it means to be an American. Making use of tools from
many disciplines to analyze what they are reading and seeing, students also
learn to think and speak with greater clarity, power, and elegance. The writing
component of the course centers on the academic essay, which invites students
to wrestle with texts and contexts and, in the process, to articulate what they
have learned and why it is important.
EN352 African American Studies
One trimester
Credit: One unit core elective credit.
Meeting pattern: Three periods per week including lab.
This interdisciplinary course provides an introduction to African American history,
literature, and culture. Students examine significant social, political, economic,
and religious issues as well as issues of identity in the lives of African Americans
from the sixteenth century to the present. In addition to readings in historical
backgrounds and documents, students explore texts ranging from slave
narratives, folktales, and spirituals to the works of writers, artists, and musicians
during the Harlem Renaissance to contemporary works by such writers as Alice
Walker and Henry Lewis Gates and filmmaker Spike Lee. Through a variety of
assignments and activities, students continue to develop their skills in reading,
research, critical thinking, speaking, and writing, with special emphasis on the
academic essay.
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