Ursa Minor Learning Year 11

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” -T. S. Eliot
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: The 1920s to WWII
  •  The Story of American Freedom by Eric Foner (Ch 9-10)
  •  T1-3 The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes
• National History Primary Sources
• World History: 1800-1945
  • The Human Web: A Bird’s-Eye View of World History by J.R. and William McNeil
  • Practicing History: Selected Essays by Barbara Tuchman
  • T1 King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild
• World History Primary Sources
• Biography
  • T2 Nancy Wake: SOE’s Greatest Heroine by Russell Braddon

Citizenship

• Government and Economics
  • American Politics Today by William Bianco and David Canon
  • Economics: The User’s Guide by Ha-Joon Chang
• Plutarch
  • T1 Demosthenes
  • T2 Cicero
• Philosophy
  • The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps (146-217 Andalusia to Early Medieval)
  • The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan
• World Religion
  • The World’s Religions by Huston Smith (Ch. VII and VIII)
  • T1 Judaism: A Very Short Introduction by Norman Soloman
  • T2 Christianity: A Very Short Introduction by Linda Woodhead
  • T3 Atheism: A Very Short Introduction by Julian Baggini
• Current Events
  • Student should be keeping up with current events.

English

• Literature
  • The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
  • Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
  • A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
• Shakespeare
  • Macbeth
  • The Merchant of Venice
  • Richard III
• Poetry
  • The Aeneid by Virgil
  • Double-Take: A Revisionist Harlem Renaissance Anthology
• Composition
  • 1/week Essays
  • 3/week Written Narrations

Recitation

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

Languages

• Latin
• Two Modern Foreign Languages

Science

• Natural Philosophy –
  •  Anatomy
    • The Brain
      • Neurocomic by Hana Ros
      • Beautiful Brain: The Drawings of Santiago Ramon y Cajal
    • The Body
      • The Way We Work: Getting to Know the Amazing Human Body
  • Nature Journaling
    • Weekly entries
      • Illustrated either with brush or pencils
• Chemistry T1
  • 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.
  • 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
• Physics T2
  • 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
  • The Theoretical Minimum: What You Need to Know to Start Doing Physics by Leonard Susskind and George Hrabovsky
• Big Data T3
  • Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O’Neil
  • Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World by Bruce Schneier
  • The Book of Trees: Visualizing Branches of Knowledge by Manuel Lima
• Geography
  • Rethinking the Power of Maps by Denis Wood
• 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 Calculus

Logic

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

The Feast

• Art
  • Artist Study
  • Art History
    • The Story of Art by E.H. Gombrich
  • Artistic Practice
    • Artistic Pursuits, High School Book 2
• 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. Middlemarch by George Elliot
2. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
3. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
4. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
5. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
6. The Plague by Albert Camus
7. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
8. The Book Thief by Marcu Zusak
9. Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Huston
10. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
11. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
12. The Extraordinary Journeys: Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
13. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
14. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Acheb
15. Games Without Rules: The Often-Interrupted History of Afghanistan by Tamim Ansary
16. Under a Lucky Star by Roy Chapman Andrews
17. The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory by Brian Greene
18. The Ways of White Folks: Stories by Langston Hughes
19. Night by Elie Wiesel
20. Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal

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