Type: summer
Available to: high school students who have completed grade 10
Schedule: three and a half hours a day, five days a week for five weeks in the summer
Special Notes: Students taking this course are still expected to take a full load of courses in the following year. The course is in-person and our dorms are closed, so students must provide their own housing and meals.
In this survey course, students investigate significant events and people in United States history from the 15th century to the present. While organized chronologically, this course also focuses on several themes that reverberate throughout the American experience: American and national identity; labor both free and enslaved; migration and settlement; politics and power; and geography and the environment. Students learn to focus their analysis of vital social, cultural, political, and economic moments in history by examining how these moments shape our perspective on current social, economic, and political issues. Students develop and use the same skills and methods employed by historians: analyzing primary and secondary sources; developing historical arguments; making historical connections; and utilizing reasoning about comparison, causation, and continuity and change. In addition, students examine competing historical interpretations, emphasizing the idea that history’s meaning constantly evolves. Living on the Monterey peninsula, we have access to excellent museums and historical sites that complement our classroom study of United States history. Each Friday, students will attend chaperoned field trips, and we will visit the Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History, Carmel Mission, Historical Monterey Walking Tour, Monterey Bay Aquarium, and the National Steinbeck Center. The cost of the field trips are included in tuition. For more information and an application click here.
