New Courses for the 2019-2020 Year
By CHARLOTTE KANE ‘19
Every year, when the time comes to plan one’s classes for next year, students begin to seek out new courses. Ms. Bonenfant, the Academic Dean, explains that while “Milton already has a rich, exciting course catalogue new courses allow teachers to pursue their own interests and fill gaps that may be in the curriculum of other courses.” While the Art, Science, and History departments have always provided numerous half courses and semester program, electives in other subjects have been few and far between. Fortunately for students who prefer Math and English, five new courses promise to offer more opportunities.
The English department has added three new courses to the catalogue: a semester course, “Understanding Intersectionality: Introductory Black Feminist Literature,” and two half courses in poetry and in journalism. Ms. Sabin, the English Department Chair, hopes that these courses will encourage students to take more English classes, because students who traditionally wanted to take more than one English course have had to take another full English course, putting an unmanageable strain on their schedule. The offer of a half course allows students to take more English classes without sacrificing the other classes they may want to to take.
The journalism half course, taught by Ms. Matson in the Communications Office, will introduce students to a “completely different style of writing” than what is taught in other English classes, Sabin explains; whereas the Nonfictions course may allow seniors to write feature pieces, current news stories require a completely different skill set. The course will train students to be more effective writers for school publications and introduce them to the life of a professional journalist.
Ms. Cacho, a Penn Fellow new to Milton this year, has created a class around Black Feminist Literature—the subject of her master’s thesis. Although she presented the course as a full year option, after a discussion, the department voted against the proposal. Ms. Sabin explains that the December 1st deadline to propose new courses can make these discussions feel rushed, rendering the entire process “pretty painful.” In this case, the department did not have enough time to be confident in passing a full course. However, Ms. Sabin looks forward to seeing what a semester elective would look like for the department.
The new math electives aim to give students a chance to study math through a completely different lense. Heather Sugrue, the head of the Math department, explains that her department will collaborate with visual arts teachers in the Mathematics and Art half course, although the course will still be primarily math-focused. Ms. Sugrue mentions that the proposal for this course originated from a student’s independent study proposal. However, she also explains that while having both a math teacher and and art teacher instruct that class would be ideal, she understands that staffing issues may prevent that arrangement from happening. The course has no specific prerequisite and welcomes all students, regardless of level in math. Going in a different direction from the art-related course, the Discrete Mathematics Seminar will focus on real-world examples of combinatorics and graph theory, topics which, according to the course description, are, “the foundations for understanding a wide range of problems in probability, computer programming and discrete applied mathematics.” To ensure that everyone in the class is engaged with the material, the course will only accept students in Algebra II and Precalc. She describes the course as “what a math class should be” and as a great supplement to traditional courses. While these two new math courses have clearly been thought out, Ms. Sugrue says she doesn’t know who will teach them.
Departments only lay out the full plan for a new course if students express sufficient interest; although these courses have been added to the catalogue, they will not run if people do not sign up for them. If you see a course you like while perusing the catalogue, be sure to gather some friends and sign up for it so it can become a reality!