FLEX No Live Zoom 2025/2026 Class 10

Humanities Main Lesson Blocks with Mr. Siepker

Ancient Civilizations: During this Main Lesson block, the students will experience the development of human consciousness through the study of ancient civilizations. Students will consider the role of nature, geography, technology, and resources on the development of societies, culture, and religion. They will also reflect on how ancient peoples developed knowledge and understood the world around them.

As tenth graders, students will be looking at a variety of primary source materials and stories to help them gain a deeper understanding of these ancient cultures. Tenth grade students are ready to seek to understand how and why things are the way they are, and this block will support the students as they develop their ability to understand patterns, comparisons, and cause-and-effect. Students will engage in discussion, compose a variety of written reflections, and create artistic renderings to enhance our learning.

Public Speaking: During this main lesson block, the students will explore the history of oration, and be given tips and tricks to help them develop confidence during presentations, developing their public speaking skills. In addition, the intellectual capabilities of the tenth graders will shine as they demonstrate their ability to apply their knowledge and research in order to engage in comparative thinking discussions and debates.

Students will also read and prepare inspirational speeches and monologues to share. Every week the students will also engage in artistic explorations inspired by the work that we will do. Multimedia work will cover the basic elements of design, color layering, composition, harmony, balance, and contrast.

Poetry: Poetry is perhaps the oldest form of literature, as verse was used to share and preserve many ancient stories. In this block, we will explore the development of poetry and its many forms around the world from ancient times. Students will gain a familiarity with rhythm and the structure of various poetic forms by reading, listening to, and trying their hand at writing a variety of poems. Sharing work, giving feedback, and revising will be another aspect of the class. By the end of the block, each student will have a beautiful collection of their own poetic and artistic work, and a class anthology will be created highlighting each student’s favorite poems.

We will also explore meaning in the poetry that we write and read. The students will be given context for where various forms were developed in history and geography, and seek to find explicit, implicit, and more subtle clues to help us understand what an author might have been trying to convey. Students will be encouraged to use, explore, and listen to, the richness of language that comes with writing, reading, and enjoying poetry.

Class 10 Play: Drama can have a transformative effect on students and a class. Students in the tenth grade are ready to step out into the world with greater confidence and try new things! Acting allows us to experiment with trying on new characters and feelings in a safe and temporary way. Students will explore with various acting exercises and monologues. This block will take us through the the process of producing and acting in a virtual play as a class, and give students the language and background to familiarize them with

Students will also be tasked to work more consciously with speech. Through our drama work, the students will experience the nuances that can be reflected through clear and careful enunciation and intonation, and the experience of imbuing language with feeling and mood, to bring speech to life through sound and gesture. Students will engage in various acting exercises and monologues as we discover the richness of language written in dramatic works.