Ethnic Studies and Street Law — Cristina Trujillo
Among the most anticipated of the new courses is Ethnic Studies and Street Law, an elective taught by AVID and history teacher Cristina Trujillo. The course will be broken into two semester courses: Street Law and Ethnic Studies. The street law class will teach students about the legal system and how the law affects their daily lives, while encouraging them to be educated about and participate in current legal issues and controversies.
“The Street Law class is going to give people a general understanding of the law that they might face just in a normal, living, everyday sort of situation,” Trujillo said. “You hear about things like, ‘Oh he’s suing him,’ or, ‘That person got arrested for arson or first degree murder’ … You hear about them in the news, and we just want students to have an understanding of what those kind of things are.”
Street Law was an elective offered several years ago, but has just been added as a district-wide elective, meaning other high schools in the district may choose to offer it next year as well.
The second semester of Trujillo’s new class, Ethnic Studies, will focus on examining history through the lenses of race, gender, sexuality, class and inequality.
“In a normal student’s schooling, when they take history, they usually take history that tells about whatever the dominant culture is, but there are a lot of stories of groups and individuals that are left out,” Trujillo said. “The Ethnic Studies class is supposed to try and fill in gaps. We’re talking about communities of color, people of different ethnicities, or people of different genders. You know not the man’s story but the woman’s story.”
Trujillo’s goal for the class is to help students see beyond the conventional information they’re taught, and to think for themselves and gain a new perspective on history.
AP Spanish Literature — Marie Escoto
AP Spanish Literature will be taught by Marie Escoto, a current Spanish II and III Native Speakers teacher. Escoto has taught AP Spanish Literature before at other schools, but it has never been offered at Aragon.
“It’s very scary when people know that it’s AP Spanish Lit., or even an AP Lit. class,” Escoto said. “It’s a lot of work, which it is, but it’s doable.”
Students taking the class will study 38 Spanish literary pieces, ranging from poems to lectures.
“I want [the students] to know more about the culture,” Escoto said, “I want them to know we have amazing writers in Latin America and Spain, and I want them to understand the different themes, and to be able to connect them with the classes they took in English, and compare it.”
Cinema and Society — Shane Smuin
Cinema and Society will also be added to the curriculum next year, which is another Visual and Performing Arts elective. It will be taught by drama teacher Shane Smuin, who taught the course before many years ago and was recently encouraged by the head of his department to restart it.
“Everybody has a screen, it’s either in their pocket or their backpack, or at home, or they go to the movies,” Smuin said. “What I hope people walk away with at the end of the school year from this film class is being able to look at a screen whatever it is, whether it’s a YouTube clip or a full length movie [and be] able to look at it with a little more sophistication.”
“I’ve always watched films growing up and I’ve seen a lot,” said freshman Kyle Canton, who recently enrolled in the class for next year. “Taking Film and Society just seemed like the right fit for me.”
Canton is excited about the opportunity of taking a newly-offered course.
“Being in a brand new elective is exciting because everything that’s happening is new,” he said, “and [we will get] to be the first class doing it.”
AP Music Theory — Troy Davis
Band teacher Troy Davis will be teaching the new AP Music Theory class next year, an upper division addition to the Visual and Performing Arts electives already offered. AP Music Theory is unlike other music classes in that it isn’t a performance-based class. Students need to have experience playing an instrument, but won’t do so in the class.
AP Music Theory was offered five years ago and has since been discontinued. However, due to popular demand, the course will be offered every other year from now on.
“Music theory includes a number of skills that we don’t often do in other music performance classes,” Davis said. “There’s music analysis, music dictation … score study, there’s a historical element. The course itself is more of the why of what we do in music, the underlying stuff, to [help us] understand how music works better.”
Students taking the class need to have at least a year of experience with playing an instrument or singing, and be able to read music. The class has a cap, so upperclassmen have priority spots, but underclassmen can sign up and will be fit in if there’s room.
“I hope that [a student taking the class] will have a rewarding experience,” Davis said. “They’re going to get to explore a side of their artistic personality that they might not get to do otherwise.”
