The History Department offers Boston Latin School students a comprehensive, multifaceted, and inclusive college preparatory curriculum that is centered on the study of World History and United States History. In addition, the department offers a variety of electives including Economics, Government, Modern European History, Facing History and Ourselves, African-American Studies Modern Boston and Foreign Policy. The curriculum seeks to develop a deep understanding and engagement with the events, ideas, and forces that have shaped and enriched the lives of Boston Latin School students and the larger world. In accordance with the standards of the Massachusetts Department of Education and the Boston Public Schools, and beyond the specific factual knowledge associated with each course, the history program is designed to develop the analytical thinking, reasoning and writing skills that will prepare students for college and professional life. The curriculum requires that students acquire the ability to engage critically with both historic and contemporary issues and events. Students will learn to assess primary source documents - their relevance to a given interpretive problem, their reliability, and their importance - and to weigh the evidence and interpretations presented in historical and current scholarship. Students are also asked to look at disparate interpretations of events, both past and present, and arrive at reasoned and sound assessments of those views. The goal of the History Department is to help students develop the skills necessary to arrive at conclusions on the basis of an informed judgment, present reasons and evidence clearly and persuasively in written and oral forms and become knowledgeable thinking citizens. |