Ursa Minor Learning Year 10

“When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.” -John Muir
Subject headings are linked to pages listing options for expanding those topics of study. We are also working on listing options to the main curriculum on these pages.

History

• National History: Post Reconstruction to WWI
  • T1-3 The Story of American Freedom by Eric Foner (Ch. 6-8)
  • T2 The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt and the Golden Age of Journalism by Doris Kearns Goodwin
• National History Primary Sources
• World History: Discovering the New World to 1800
  • T1-3 The Human Web: A Bird’s-Eye View of World History by J.R. and William McNeil
  • Practicing History: Selected Essays by Barbara Tuchman
  • T3 A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies by Bartolome de las Casas
• World History Primary Sources
• Biography
  • T1 Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells

Citizenship

• Government and Economics
  • American Politics Today by William Bianco and David Canon
  • The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times And Ideas Of The Great Economic Thinkers by Robert L. Heilbroner
• Plutarch
  • Phocion T1
  • Cato the Younger T2
• Philosophy
  • The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps (73-145 The Hellenistic to the Formative Period)
• World Religion
  • The World’s Religions by Huston Smith (Ch. III, IV, V)
  • T1 The Foundations of Buddhism by Rupert Gethin
  • T2 Confucianism: A Very Short Introduction by Daniel K. Gardner
  • T3 What Is Taoism?: and Other Studies in Chinese Cultural History by Herrlee Glessner Creel
• Current Events
  • Student should be keeping up with current events.

English

• Literature
  • Don Quixote
    
  • Le Morte D’Arthur: King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table
  • Robinson Crusoe
• Shakespeare
  • Othello
  • King Lear
  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream
• Poetry
  • The Iliad by Homer
  • The Norton Anthology of Poetry
• Grammar and Composition
  • The Magic Lens III
  • The Word Within the Word III
  • Academic Writing III
  • 1/week Essays
  • 3/week Written Narrations

Recitation

• Memory Work
  • 3 poems per term
  • 1 passage from Shakespeare per term
  • 1 passage from The Illiad per term

Languages

• Latin
• Two Modern Foreign Languages

Science

• T1-3 Natural Philosophy – Botany and Zoology
  • Nature Revealed: Selected Writings, 1949-2006 by E. O. Wilson
  •  The Genius of Birds by Jennifer Ackerman
  • The Country Diary of An Edwardian Lady by Edith Holden
  • Nature Journaling
    • Weekly entries
      • Illustrated either with brush or pencils
• T1 Chemistry
  • MIT OpenCourseware’s Principles of Chemical Science
    • Chemical Principles: The Quest for Insight (7th Edition)
      • This is the current edition of the textbook. The OpenCourseware Chem class is taught with the 4th edition, which you can find used for much cheaper than the current version.
    • Student Study Guide and Solutions Manual for Atkins and Jones’s Chemical Principles: The Quest for Insight, 4th Edition
      • Make sure you purchase the study guide that is the same edition as the textbook you buy.
  • MIT’s Chemistry Behind the Magic Lab Demo Videos
    • These are great videos of various lab experiments.
  • The Joy of Chemistry: The Amazing Science of Familiar Things by Cathy Cobb and Monty Federolf
  • Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe by Theodore Gray
• T2 Physics
  • MIT OpenCoursewares’ Physics I: Classical Mechanics with an Experimental Focus
    • University Physics with Modern Physics (14th Edition)
      • This is the current edition of the textbook. The OpenCourseware Physics class is taught with the 10th edition, which you can find used for much cheaper than the current version.
    • Lab Kit
  • For the Love of Physics: From the End of the Rainbow to the Edge of Time – A Journey Through the Wonders of Physics
  • Five Equations that Changed the World: The Power and Poetry of Mathematics
• T3 Geology
  • Annals of the Former World by John McKee
  • On a Piece of Chalk by Thomas Huxley
• Geography
  • The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain
  • The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology by Simon Winchester
• Map Drills
  • Locate places from Current Events and mark on map
  • Locate places from History, Literature, and Science readings and mark on map
  • Consider how the physical geography of these locales impact these events

Math

We like The Art of Problem Solving math sequence which follows from their Beast Academy for younger kids. They offer math beyond the traditional algebra to calculus path, which we include in our sequence. There are plenty of math curricula out there and most of them can be used just fine with UML.

• AOPS Precalculus

Logic

• James Madison Critical Thinking Course
• James Madison Critical Thinking Course Teacher’s Guide

The Wider Feast

• Art
  • Artist Study
  • Art History
    • The Story of Art by E.H. Gombrich
  • Artistic Practice
    • Artistic Pursuits, High School Book 1
• Music
  • Composer Study
  • Singing
    • Two songs in modern foreign language
    • Two folk songs
  • Instrument
    • Continue practice and musical theory
• Handwork
• Physical Education
  • Pick something your student enjoys doing. We suggest a martial art, but yoga, running, or a team sport would also work here.

Free Reading

1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
2. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
3. Mr. Midshipman Hornblower by C.S. Forester
4. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
5. The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
6. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
7. Rob Roy by Walter Scott
8. The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
9. Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington
10. The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam by Barbara W. Tuchman
11. The Invisibles: The Untold Story of African American Slaves in the White House by Jesse J. Holland
12. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown
13. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution by C. L. R. James
14. A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos by Dava Sobel
15. The Major Works by Alfred Tennyson
16. Njinga of Angola: Africa’s Warrior Queen by Linda M. Heywood
17. The Two Princes of Calabar: An Eighteenth-Century Atlantic Odyssey by Randy Sparks

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