Humanities and Social Sciences

Framing a Nation: American Painting from the Hudson River School to Abstract Expressionism

A relatively young country, the United States has from the beginning defined and redefined itself in relation to where it came from and where it hopes to go. Looking at its art from the mid-nineteenth century into the twentieth century, we will gain insight into our nation’s continual process of reacting, becoming, describing, and aspiring. Through close, sustained looking, we will learn to see—not just formal elements within an image, but also patterns and deviations among works over time—and we’ll discuss how the artists we study provide us with frames, snapshots, of their vision. We’ll also trace, over time, the evolution of art and its preoccupations and interests—in our case, from Romanticism to Realism to Modernism to Abstraction. And because art history as a discipline does not provide us with a single, clear throughline, we’ll pursue detours, zigzagging from the United States, to Europe, to Asia, and back again. (We’ll have the pleasure of spending time with artists in Paris, for example, as we consider the emergence of Modernism, with its experimentation and complex cross-pollinations.)

The goal is for you to engage with each piece of art you encounter on its own terms, by asking yourself: What prompted its creation? What kind of response does it ask for or demand? The art will inspire you to see and spur you to think as you refine your analytical skills through class discussion and writing—most often in class.

We’ll spend the year looking at a number of paintings by each artist, usually more or less in chronological order, in class. We will consider contexts and influences, looking at works by other artists that informed the work in front of us. We’ll spend most classes looking, describing what we see, and discussing together what we notice. You will gain a sense of the evolving dialogue that is art history: what can we say about the place of a work in relation to other artists, cultural and historical events, and the artist’s own, earlier work? In considering this question, we will have a variety of discussions that zoom in and out in thinking about art, culture, history, aesthetics, and how we look at and make meaning out of art.

For some classes there will be assigned reading (from artists’ writings, reviews, philosophy, art criticism, and more) and viewing of videos, and you will write essays on many of the artists we study—generally in class. Work will also include one or more “museum assignments,” for which you (and a buddy from class, if you like) will visit a museum and study and then write about a piece or pieces. At the end of the year, time permitting, you’ll have the opportunity to devise an independent project on an artist and piece(s) of your own choosing.

I came to realize that painting is not just an exercise in color and texture. Ultimately, these works of art reflect on our very own existence, our very lives.

Part of our required Ninth-Grade Seminar, this course is designed to make you comfortable with the city of Boston while at the same time examining the uncomfortable questions cities raise. As we eat our way through Boston (cannoli, Chinatown pastries, ice cream, pizza!) we will examine how Boston’s neighborhoods differ from one another and how they have changed over time. Classroom discussions focus on the effects of segregation and economic development and questions of opportunity and environmental justice. Throughout we will be asking two linked questions: Who decides how cities change? And who should decide? In a way, this class is a mini-course in the question of what it means to have a multi-ethnic, multicultural democracy—a question our country has been debating since its inception.

What we learned in the Boston course is that when you study a city––walking through its neighborhoods, sampling its foods, looking at its beautiful and ugly spaces, its historic houses, and its surprises––it becomes your city."

This course examines traditional epics from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the (pre-Columbian) Americas. After a brief study of the oral-formulaic nature of heroic poetry, we’ll read a number of (shorter) epics, both as literary art and ethnographic artifacts cataloging each culture’s peculiar norms and values. Some epics we’ll read, such as the Central Asian Manas cycle, have been transcribed directly from improvised oral performances; others, such as the West African Sundiata, are composite texts; still others, such as the medieval Irish Táin Bó Cúailnge, are prose works that recast earlier hero stories. While each tradition is a world unto itself, one question that will run through all our studies is, “what is the nature of epic?” We’ll also consider how traditional epic differs from literary epic (e.g., Milton’s Paradise Lost). In the spring, students will explore these questions independently by presenting on a traditional epic not covered in class.

AP

Why aren’t rent controls efficient? What exactly is bad about monopolies? Is the free market truly the best economic system? What does the Federal Reserve Bank do?

In Economics you examine these questions and many others. In the first semester, we will study the law of supply and demand, market structures such as perfect competition and monopoly, and both the extraordinary efficiencies and the inefficiencies of the free market. In the second semester, we will turn to the economy as a whole. What is GDP? How do we ensure economic growth, low unemployment, and low inflation? Can we actually do this? We will study fiscal policy such as stimulus spending and tax policy and monetary policy, those mysterious actions by the Federal Reserve. This course will prepare you for both the Microeconomics and Macroeconomics Advanced Placement tests.

We learned concepts that explain how decisions are made and prices are set. Money makes the world go ’round, and studying economics helped me understand why and how.

As anyone who has followed the news knows, environmental problems are complex and often cut across many domains of expertise: the scientific, social, political, and economic, among others. The field of Environmental Studies exists to examine the roots of pressing ecological problems from these differing perspectives, going beyond what we can learn from the natural sciences alone. Through a series of readings, this class will run the gamut of all things “eco,” from scientific ecology to eco-philosophy, environmental arts and media studies to radical environmental activism. For the final project, students will be asked to research an environmental problem and imagine an ideal “ecotopian” solution.

Living in an age of glitzy special effects and post-postmodern mixing and matching, we are often seduced into passive viewing. These courses will remind you that watching a film well requires as much energy and focus as studying a novel.

American Film

Starting with the talkies, we look at American history and the country’s psyche through the lens of its films. We spend first semester and part of second watching seminal examples of distinctively American genres—the Gangster Film, the Western, the Musical Film, the Screwball Comedy, Film Noir, etc. Depending on your particular interests, we may also view more recent films that may be seen as critiques, revisions, and homages made in response to their forerunners. During the final part of the year, you will undertake an independent project on a film, style, genre, or director of your choosing.

Films viewed often include: Scarface (Hawks, 1932); Swingtime (Stevens, 1936); Golddiggers (Leroy, 1933); Fury (Lang, 1936); Cat-People (Tourneur, 1942); Stagecoach (Ford, 1939); Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941); Double Indemnity (Wilder, 1944); To Be Or Not To Be (Lubitsch, 1942); Best Years of Our Lives (Wyler, 1946); Letter from an Unknown Woman (Ophuls, 1948); On the Waterfront (Kazan, 1954); Paths of Glory (Kubrick, 1957); Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958).

I love movies, so I took this course. But I never thought that old black and white films could be so visually exciting, so sophisticated. We learned to notice all the techniques directors use to manipulate us as viewers. In those days ‘special effects’ might have meant just digging a hole in the floor, but they were incredibly effective.

The French New Wave

The French cinematic movement known as the New Wave emerged from both a dissatisfaction with what its young auteurs saw as the petrified formulas and conventions of commercial film, and a belief that those same conventions (and the Hollywood tradition generally) nevertheless retained a power that could be subverted, redirected, and revitalized, in order to address the great Technicolor mess of the postwar world. Through close readings of their films and writings, we will explore the ways that these filmmakers (including Godard, Truffaut, Agnes Varda, Chris Marker, Jacques Rivette, Alain Resnais, and Jacques Demy) responded to contemporary politics and aesthetic debates, creating a visual and narrative language that continues to influence cinema around the world.

World Cinema

We begin the year in European silent films of the 1920s and work our way through nearly five decades of world cinema. As always, close reading gives us the means to see how directorial choices create effects and determine our responses. We can thus examine big and small similarities and differences across time and space. Starting with Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919), and ending with Hitchcock’s Psycho, we choose among the masterpieces of the following directors: Eisenstein, Dreyer, Lang, Dali and Buñuel, Vigo, Murnau, Renoir, Rossellini, Welles, Ozu, Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Fellini, Ray, Bergman, Truffaut, and Godard.

I learned what it means to be an active viewer. Watching clips over and over again to tease out what the director was doing technically to make me react as I did reminded me of what we do in English class. And it was every bit as rewarding.

We will trace the course of Western philosophy set by Descartes’ epochal declaration, “I think, therefore I am,” examining the dilemmas that arise from the radical separation of mind and body that follows from this axiom. In particular, we will concentrate on problems associated with the categories of substance and causality, and how the mind apprehends them, exploring solutions proposed by a number of 18th-century philosophers, including Descartes’ fellow “Continental rationalists” (Spinoza and/or Leibnitz), on the one hand, and the so-called British empiricists (Locke, Berkeley, and Hume), on the other. Thereafter, we will attempt to grasp the grand synthesis of these two competing traditions offered by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason, which he dubbed “transcendental idealism.” If time allows, we will briefly dip our toes into the post-Kantian idealists (e.g. Fichte and/or Hegel) as a preview of a possible future course in 19th-century thought. As you immerse yourself in the history of philosophy, you will also hone the skills needed to engage dense philosophical texts that range from exquisitely elegant (Hume) to maddeningly abstruse (Kant). Written work will be in the form of reading questions, brief (1-2 pages) passage/argument analyses, and in-class essays.

What is justice? Are there absolute ethical standards, or do moral principles always promote the interests of those who formulate them? How is it that discourse can so effectively conceal—or distort, or invent—truth? Will human nature respond to reason, or is the psyche moved only by the seduction of its own passions—and the flattery of clever speakers? Is a society founded on persuasion, i.e. democracy, especially prone to self-deception and destruction? These are some of the questions we will encounter in the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the great tragic poets of the fifth century B.C.E.

As we read closely a number of their plays, we will consider how the genre of tragedy as such responded to the cultural dislocations caused by the intellectual revolution and unprecedented horrors of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.E.). Then we’ll observe the influence of tragedy on Thucydides, reading his history of this disastrous conflict precisely as the tragedy of Athens’ willful and self-destructive folly. Finally, we’ll explore Plato’s literary and intellectual debt to tragedy, taking as our cue the philosopher’s decision to present his ideas in the form of fictional dialogues set, significantly, during the Peloponnesian War.

Texts include Aeschylus’ Oresteia, Sophocles’ Oedipus the King, Euripides’ Bacchae, Thucydides’ Histories, and the Gorgias, Symposium, and Phaedrus of Plato.

This course changed the way I examine society. We analyzed sociology, history, political science, mythology, and philosophy in our discoveries––deep in the smooth and delightful subtleties of Greek literature. Some of the texts we read still haunt me (in a good way!).

Smart and information-savvy as your generation is, it might surprise you to discover how many people mistakenly believe you can get a sexually transmitted disease from a toilet seat or similar myths. Part of our Ninth-Grade Seminar, Health and Community provides a comfortable place (or as comfortable as possible) to examine crucial questions about "growing up" and all that it entails. We learn about different drugs, what leads some people to abuse them, and their effects on brain chemistry and behavior. We explore the biology of sex, and learn about sexually transmitted infections and how to prevent them. The school’s psychologist joins us for a number of discussion sessions dealing with mental health and wellness and ways to manage stress.

By the end, you will have learned to think and talk with clarity and maturity—and without embarrassment—about complicated matters, many of which, at one time or another, in one way or another, will affect every one of us during our lives. And you will have the information you need to make healthy, informed choices.

I'm glad that Health and Community is a requirement. It's not just learning about drugs and sex—it broadens your horizons. It's important not to be blind to things just because they're awkward to talk about."

Jazz Theory

Jazz music can be deeply instinctive or intensely cerebral—sometimes both at once. When listening to the shifting chord changes of Duke Ellington’s “Caravan” or the abstract ensemble improvisations of late-era Coltrane, have you ever wondered how it all hangs together? Beginning with Jazz Theory 1 you can find out. We combine close listening to jazz performances with learning basic music theory: notation, ear-training, harmony, and music theory allow you to grasp concepts of improvisation. You will become a literate musician. As you come to understand more fully what you hear, you also gain a historical overview of jazz and how great jazz performers work. This gives you the opportunity to define your own role in a jazz group—which is helpful since every student in Jazz Theory must take Jazz Ensemble as well. Most work is done in class, including exploring concepts on your instrument.

Studying jazz theory, I learned the rules—the science beneath the art. I no longer think of those concepts as rules, but as tools for improvisation.

Jazz Theory Advanced

As you advance your understanding of jazz theory (you can take this class for up to four years), you will become increasingly knowledgeable and adept at listening, playing, analyzing, and composing. We do intense ear-training and study harmony, nomenclature, and writing jazz notation. More advanced classes include jazz arranging and jazz composition. All the way through, we emphasize playing what you learn and incorporating your skills into performance situations—such as Jazz Ensemble!

I found that studying jazz theory is a unique opportunity not only for serious musicians but also for people who might not continue music after Commonwealth. Our teacher takes time to develop our individual abilities according to what we need most—be it simple ear training, improvement through practice, or composing. And as a bonus, in Jazz Ensemble we get to perform with well-known guest artists.

This course will begin with a brief overview of city planning before American colonization in order to understand the formation of the modern city, and then we will focus on the United States. We will use cities as source material to evaluate each significant trend in addition to writings by the major urban planners of the times. We will examine demographics, housing numbers, and engineering solutions to current problems. There will be multimedia planning projects including work designing in 3D with computer software.

Music Theory 1 and 2

We study notation, music history, rhythm, pitch, and intervals. You’ll do formal analysis and four-part writing, including secondary dominants and modulation. Heavy emphasis on ear training and solfège teaches you to listen. Music, like any language, is a system; understanding how it’s put together helps you comprehend—analytically and therefore more pleasurably—any kind of music and notice correspondences between different styles of music. In the second year, we deepen our structural and formal analysis of music and do more sophisticated ear training and composition exercises. Often students are ready to take the music theory AP by the conclusion of this course. All members of both classes must also join either orchestra or chorus.

If you’re interested in theory, the level of your musical background doesn’t matter. The program here can take people at any level and bring their theory to an AP level in just two years.

Music Theory 3

AP 

We study scores intensively—especially those from the classical symphonic literature. You may also study conducting. All members of the class must also join either orchestra or chorus.

All of us had already spent time in previous classes studying the smaller musical forms—their minutiae. Now we could move on to consider them in a larger context: how all those tiny details can add up to a glorious whole, like a delicate Mozart symphony or a grand Bach chorale.

Music Theory Advanced: Seminar in Conducting and Advanced Theory

This course is for those of you who have completed the school’s music-theory sequence and have scored a minimum of 4 on the music theory AP exam. We study basic and complex beat patterns and independence of hand gestures as we continue with advanced ear training and score analysis. You will discover ways to use physical gestures to mold individual phrases and to weave them into a unified whole. The goal is for you to learn the skills that will enable you to conduct the chorus or the orchestra during a rehearsal or performance in the spring.

The music program at Commonwealth is amazingly accommodating. Our teacher created a year-long conducting course for just three of us.

Independent Seminar

In extraordinary cases, by permission of the teacher and the faculty, independent study seminars are given in conducting, solfège, analysis, etc.

All ninth graders take a special year-long seminar designed to prepare them to succeed throughout their time at Commonwealth, including how to:

• Communicate effectively and respectfully, particularly in a digital world
• Navigate Boston comfortably and conscientiously (our "City of Boston" unit, see above, replete with field trips around the city and challenging questions)
• Study and plan their time effectively
• Safeguard their health and wellness by examining crucial questions about "growing up" and all that it entails (our "Health and Community" unit, see above)

Ninth-Grade Seminar was that class you look forward to during a busy week while I was acclimating to my first year at Commonwealth. I was especially touched by a short course at the beginning of the year called "City of Boston," where history teacher, Ms. Haber, leads students through Boston proper. We learned about the political rise of the city and how that affects different groups of people within it; Ms. Haber's thorough expertise allowed me to see the subtleties of the city, she made it feel like a second home to me.

What do dreams mean? Can memories be repressed? What are the psychological motives for racism? Can statistics "lie?" How can academic research inform social policy decisions? Is IQ determined by genes or environment? What causes mental illness, and what are the most effective treatments for it?

In Psychology we will examine these questions, among others, from various points of view. We will read classic and contemporary texts by prominent theorists and researchers in the field. We will consider the historical evolution of psychological questions and ideas, and explore professional disagreements and controversies. In the classroom, we will combine lecture, question-and-answer, interactive activities, and open-ended discussion. We will also use media sources (newspaper articles, television and movie clips)— and some clinical case material—to illustrate concepts and facilitate conversation.

Though this course is not designed to prepare students for the Psychology AP exam, we will use a college-level textbook and read primary sources in the psychological literature. The course will also introduce students to basic social science statistics and research design.

Students in this class can expect to explore how Russian letters in the 19th-century responded to trends in Russian society, especially Russia’s rapid westernization and the simultaneous development of its identity as a separate civilization, one appointed with a historical mission to save Europe from itself. The course investigates how intellectuals responded to the repressive, imperialistic regime that emerged from this tension, paying particular attention to the ways writers navigated state censorship and other forms of social control, whether they chose to resist the “system” or promote it. And it does not shy away from observing the through lines between tsarist, communist, and contemporary Russia. Though the class begins with an exploration of works by Pushkin, Gogol, and Karolina Pavlova, the latter stages focus on Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, both as social critics and penetrating psychologists. In Tolstoy students will also find a defender of ethnic and religious minorities, reading, among other works, his late novella Hadji Murat, a sympathetic depiction of a Dagestani Muslim rebel. In addition, the class gives ear to some non-Russian voices within the Russian empire, such as Taras Shevchenko and Adam Mickiewicz, the “national” poets of Ukraine and Poland, respectively.

This full-credit course is designed to fill the social-science space left by Economics in 2025-2026 by examining how we got to this political moment. We will be looking at debates over the proper size of government in the face of the changes in the global and U.S. economy since the 1970s, with a focus on not only economic but also cultural factors that have intensified those disagreements. Some of the topics we will cover: polarization, including whether we the people are as divided as our politics suggest; a growing retreat from a rights-based “Liberal Democracy” seen in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world; the role conversations about gender and gender roles have played in our culture and politics; how environmental policy became associated with one party; and the economic benefits and costs of the concentration of wealth. Throughout the course, we will develop and articulate our understandings of what we individually think government should—and can!—do. The course will be experimental in form, as it will emphasize reading and organizing large amounts of information rather than working on writing. There will be no writing assignments outside of class time (except the midyear), but readings will run 25-30 pages a night.