St. Paul on the Lake Catholic School
Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan
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Electives
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A wonderful new addition to our Middle School this year is the offering of elective classes taught by the St. Paul Specials teachers. Each specials teacher offers a class that allows students to expand their interest the subject area they teach.
Title of Elective Description Advanced Spanish ¡Bienvenidos! Welcome! This course is designed to continue development of the language and culture of the Spanish-speaking world. It is intended to help build your confidence and fluency through oral conversations, book exercises, videos, skits, music, projects, and games. You will be introduced to vocabulary to talk about food and beverage preferences, ways to maintain your health, leisure time activities, family descriptions, and celebrations. It includes further development of listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in Spanish with emphasis on the grammatical components of the language. You will discover interesting aspects of Hispanic culture that allows you to take an active role in the language and people.
7th Grade – Meets Wednesdays and Fridays
8th Grade – Meets Tuesdays and Thursdays
Band A class dedicated to learning how to play instruments, how to communicate, and to increase musicianship. In this class, students will have the option to learn and improve on one of the following instruments: - Flute
- Clarinet
- Alto Saxophone
- Trumpet
- Horn (French Horn)
- Trombone
- Baritone
- Percussion
Advanced Lifestyle Fitness This class will provide students with a deeper look into strength and conditioning focusing on lifestyle fitness and finding what they enjoy doing while being active. Students will be asked to explore different areas of fitness and exercises to find their own lifestyle fitness. I would like the students to change every semester so we can focus on making and achieving semester goals.
Discovering Technology in Education Students will use various forms of technology to conduct research and investigate ideas to aid in the publication of an original piece of work.
Advanced Art In this class, we will explore what it really looks like to be an artist. We will learn about studio practices, everyday applications of art in the world, and how to create a successful work of art from brainstorming and drafting to preparing it for exhibition (display). We will learn gesture drawing, still-life and blind contour drawing, and more. Each student will learn bookbinding to create their own “visual journal,” which we will fill throughout the quarter!
In the spirit of treating the classroom like a real-life artists’ studio, students will have the freedom to choose their own creative journey. Each student will select an artist or stylistic movement in art (i.e. Impressionism, Pop Art, etc.) to research and prepare a short research essay on (this will be the “artist’s proposal”). Students will then work independently to create an artwork (or artworks) of their own in the style of the artist or movement they selected, using one of the following: paint and canvas, cut paper collage, papier mache/wire sculpture, hand-bound book, or other media on a case-by-case basis.
Throughout the quarter, lessons will be given on more advanced techniques of things such as shading and perspective. Mini-assignments will be given to be completed during class time. As students complete their larger projects, demonstrations on matting or mounting work for exhibition will be given. Students will leave Advanced Art with a masterpiece ready for display!