Tutorials

VI Form students with a demonstrated commitment to independent work have the option of taking a spring tutorial. Typically comprised of four students or fewer, tutorials are offered in all disciplines, and provide a culminating academic experience for seniors as they work closely with a faculty member on a topic of their particular interest. Tutorials meet slightly less frequently than regular classes, but are reading and writing-intensive. Students are required to write weekly essays which they read aloud, critique, and debate with their teachers and classmates, in the spirit of the Oxford tutorial system. The tutorial framework allows students a degree of academic independence that more closely approximates the collegiate experience, and an opportunity to further hone their analytical, problem-solving, and written and oral argumentation skills. For more information, please visit standrews-de.org/tutorials.

2020 SENIOR TUTORIAL OFFERINGS

ARTHURIAN LEGENDS INSTRUCTORS: MR. MUFUKA AND MR. KUNEN Arthurian Legends are some of the most popular stories and tales that originated from England at the beginning of the Middle Ages. This period, which immediately follows the fall of the Roman Empire, is often depicted as a time of chaos and disorder. During this epoch, stories arose concerning a powerful warlord, named Arthur, who united Britons against the invading Saxons from Germany. Like most legends, the historical accuracy of these accounts is called into question but what remains undeniable is the legacy these stories have had on the cultural identity of not only the British but of western civilization.

Although the legends state that King Arthur conquered by the sword, what makes him timeless is that he ruled by a code that “might is not right, but might for right.” The Round Table is a metaphor for equality and Camelot a notion of what is possible for human society. In this course, we will begin with a discussion of a boy, a sword, and a destiny: a destiny so closely tied to the famous iconography of Excalibur, the Round Table, Camelot, and the Holy Grail. Through examining these symbols we hope to uncover how the writers of the day understood the individual’s relationship to the self, community, and the divine.

CAN IT HAPPEN HERE?: FASCISM IN FACT AND FICTION, PAST AND PRESENT INSTRUCTOR: MR. EDMONDS In a new documentary about the 2016 presidential election, Senator Tim Kaine quotes Barack Obama as calling thencandidate Donald Trump a fascist. Speaking to Hillary Clinton, Kaine (who was Clinton’s running mate) said, “President Obama called me last night and said, ‘Tim, this is no time to be a purist... You’ve got to keep a fascist out of the White House.’” Obama’s alleged comment both reflects and fuels a concern— particularly prominent on the progressive left—about the return of fascism in the 21st century. The years since Trump’s election have seen a resurgence in books and articles about fascism, and a search for “Donald Trump fascist” returns more than 60,000 results. Is this fear justified or simply a reflection of our polarized political moment?

A look back at history may offer some answers. In the 1930s, amidst the rise of truly fascist governments in Italy and Germany and the economic upheaval of the Great Depression, there was a similar spike of writing on the issue of fascism. Among the best known of these works was the ironically-titled It Can’t Happen Here, in which Sinclair Lewis challenged the complacency of Americans and warned that it very much could happen here.

In this tutorial, which will span disciplines from history and philosophy to literature and film, we will examine fascism—in fact and fiction, past and present—and students will decide for themselves whether it can happen (or indeed, as Kaine’s comment might suggest, has happened) here.

THE CINEMA LEGACY OF FILM NOIR INSTRUCTOR: MR. HOOPES Film Noir is one of the most iconic and American of film genres and its legacy thrives in cinema today. Contemporary films like The Dark Knight, Se7en, Blade Runner, and John Wick all drew their tone and technique from the original Film Noir style. In this tutorial we will watch and explore several classic films from the 1940s and 1950s, including The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, and Touch of Evil, and we’ll compare those to more recent films. We’ll examine character development, lighting and composition, plot elements, and music and sound. Film Noir has its fingerprints in many present-day movies and we’ll find and uncover those tangled connections.

COMPARATIVE ART HISTORY: DIVERSIFYING THE CANON INSTRUCTOR: MS. GAHAGAN In this tutorial, we will compare art across time and space to explore the ways in which different peoples and communities have processed themselves and their surroundings. Through considering thematic pairings, students will develop skills of visual literacy, and visual, contextual and comparative analysis. Some of the themes we will grapple with include: glory of empire, female representation, the male gaze, violence and technology, toxic masculinity, queer and gender bending art. Students will draw from a variety of text and video resources to understand the historical forces that gave rise to the astonishing richness of imagery produced by such diverse groups. Students will design visual presentations that seek to compare given works across cultures and time periods. Students will then write short comparative analysis essays that articulate how different artists have addressed the given theme. This tutorial attempts to specifically challenge the traditionally western, male, heteronormative, art historical canon.

CONSTRUCTING REALITY: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PERCEPTION, EMOTION, AND THE SELF INSTRUCTOR: MR. O’CONNELL In 1886 Thomas Huxley asked: how is it that “a state of consciousness comes about as a result of irritating nervous tissue?” How indeed? In this tutorial we will study how our perceptions relate to our thoughts, how our thoughts produce our experiences, and how our experiences give rise to a sense of self. Although scientists struggle to answer Huxley’s question, this struggle has generated abundant insights and fascinating follow-up questions. Lisa Feldman Barrett (in How Emotions Are Made) will challenge the conventional view that emotions are produced in response to external events. Anil Seth will challenge us to accept that we are all hallucinating all the time. Donald Hoffman (in The Evolutionary Argument Against Reality) will argue that natural selection favors animals that misperceive reality. Finally, Elizabeth Camp and Robert Wright will present arguments for the constructed nature of personal identity. We will conclude by considering the doctrine of nonself: the idea that our personal identities are illusory.

CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN FILM AS LITERATURE INSTRUCTOR: MR. TORREY Although we don’t typically think of film as literature, cinema is a serious art form that adheres to the same narrative structures as novels and short stories. Like any good book, a film begins with a break in routine that disrupts the life of the protagonist and ends when the protagonist experiences a major change of perspective. Over the course of this tutorial, we’ll dissect nine of the most significant films produced by American directors in the twenty-first century. In addition to weekly viewings and group discussions at my house, students will write essays on each film, and, in some cases, put their own assertions in conversation with those of scholars and film critics. Overall, the tutorial aspires to expose students to a broad spectrum of contemporary film while continuing to hone the critical thinking and analytical writing skills they’ve developed over the past four years at St. Andrew’s.

ECONOMIC THEORY IN DAILY LIFE INSTRUCTOR: MR. FINCH Economics is primarily the study of scarcity. But the role of firms in using scarce resources to produce products that can generate a profit is only one application of economic theory. Economics has much more to say about the daily decisions of life, from deciding whether to hit the snooze button to choosing whether to spend extra time on your English paper or your math homework. Thanks to theories like comparative advantage, economics has plenty to say about your choice of a mate. It can even explain how the line length in the servery can predict the quality of tonight’s dinner options. A number of authors have written extensively about the application of economics to daily life. This tutorial will read their offerings and students will write about their own ideas for using economic theory to improve their own decision making.

Texts read will include Tim Harford’s The Undercover Economist, Steven Landsburg’s The Armchair Economist, and Robert Frank’s The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas.

ELENA FERRANTE’S MY BRILLIANT FRIEND: IN PRINT AND ON THE SCREEN INSTRUCTOR: MRS. ROACH Ferrante (a pen name—in fact, no one actually knows her real identity) has said that she likes to write narratives “where the writing is clear, honest, and where the facts—the facts of ordinary life—are extraordinarily gripping when read.” Indeed, I have never read a writer who is so raw, so candid. Set in Naples, Italy, her novels explore, in vivid detail, the complexities of friendship, love, gender, motherhood, family, power, and identity. From page to page, Ferrante takes her reader on a ride of real-time psychological and emotional upheaval: rage, tenderness, lust, abuse, betrayal, violence, and loyalty.

In this tutorial, we will study the first novel in her Neapolitan series, My Brilliant Friend, both in print and in its recent iteration as a mini-series (for which Ferrante, herself, consulted) as we consider how the author depicts the many layers of this friendship within the world of Naples in the midtwentieth century.

GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS INSTRUCTOR: MRS. LAZAR The development of this tutorial resulted from the controversial issues that have been a part of our society for quite some time but has come to the forefront as a result of the most recent presidential elections. This tutorial will focus on the following issues: healthcare, immigration, science and environment, gender, labor and wages, and education. In order to stimulate our discussion and writing, we will read several articles as well as the following three books: Girl in Glass by Deanna Fei, Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok, and Lab Girl by Hope Jahren.

GLOBAL HEALTH INSTRUCTOR: DR. O’CONNOR The delivery of health care to underserved populations poses unique challenges for physicians, public health officials and governments. This tutorial will expose students to the stories of three physicians who made it their life’s work to address those challenges. The first book we read tells the story of Dr. Paul Farmer, founder of Partners in Health, who began travelling to Haiti during medical school. The profound lack of access to health care among the Haitian people motivated him to work to change that disparity. The success of his work in Haiti with HIV and tuberculosis altered the paradigm for managing those conditions across the world, and Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder tells his story. The second story that we will consider chronicles the work of Dr. Sanduk Ruit and Dr. Geoff Tabin, two physicians working in the mountains of Nepal to provide access to eye care in underserved areas. The work of these two physicians, and particularly the development of a new surgical technique, have changed the approach to the treatment of cataracts in all parts of the world. The movie Out of the Darkness tells the story of their work. Together, these stories will expose students to the challenges of global public health and explore how individuals can make a profound difference in this field. We will also consider the public health work of Hans Rosling, and we will use his online tool Gapminder to assess trends in public health across the globe.

HISTORY OF JAZZ INSTRUCTOR: DR. GEIERSBACH What is this thing called jazz? Louis Armstrong famously replied, “If you have to ask, you’ll never know.” In this tutorial we will study Ken Burns’ important documentary on the topic and read selected articles by important jazz scholars in preparation for attending a live performance. Students will engage in frequent short writing projects for in-class presentation plus a more substantial concert review. Some experience participating in a musical ensemble is helpful but not required.

JUVENILE JUSTICE FROM NICKEL TO FERRIS INSTRUCTOR: MR. ROBINSON Juvenile Justice Reform has been a political talking point in the western hemisphere since 16th century English courts ruled youth to have less than fully developed moral and cognitive capacities. The first juvenile court in America was established in 1899 in Cook County, Illinois. The Supreme Court formalized juvenile courts in the 1960s and by the 1980s state legislatures had passed punitive laws, including mandatory sentences for juveniles and adult court adjudication for certain crimes. The 1990s saw a sharp increase in juvenile prosecution and overcrowding of correctional facilities in conjunction with President Bill Clinton’s War on Crime. Hillary Clinton backed her husband’s plan by referring to a certain subset of youth offenders as “superpredators.” “We can talk about why they ended up that way,” Clinton said in a 1996 New Hampshire speech, “but first we have to bring them to heel.” In 2020, it’s estimated that between 48,000 and 60,000 youth are in a detention center on any given day.

The arc of history is said to bend toward justice, but where are we on that arc? When, if ever, is it moral or ethical to incarcerate juveniles? How are victims made whole? What does rehabilitation look like? What should rehabilitation look like? What resources should be provided? How can we decrease recidivism? How can we offer juvenile offenders reentry into mainstream schools and civilian life?

In this three-part, interdisciplinary exploration, students will attempt to answer these questions and more by (1) studying Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys, (2) embarking on short research projects to unearth the history of juvenile detention centers in Delaware, and (3) examining Delaware’s current juvenile justice system through research and site visits.

Due to the sacrifices required to accommodate off-campus research and site visits, students must be highly motivated with a deep, abiding interest in juvenile justice, equity, systemic racism, economics, public policy, and public education.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE BY GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ INSTRUCTOR: SRA. RAMIREZ One Hundred Years of Solitude is one of Latin America’s novels of excellence and one of the most important novels of the 20th century. Nobel Prize Winner Gabriel García Márquez wrote it in 1967. One of the most important characteristics of this novel is that García Márquez breaks with all realism and introduces myth in fiction. He constructs a mythical past in which fantastic elements are part of daily existence. Macondo, the town that the Buendía family founds, is more than just a place in the world; it is a state of being. We will discuss the novel within the frame of Latin America’s history and the creation of memory. Among the topics of discussion are: solitude, love, solidarity, history of Buendía family as metaphor of Latin America’s history, incest, chastity, dreams, time, selfishness, public vs. private spaces, and death.

POETS OF OUR TIME INSTRUCTOR: MRS. HURTT Poetry reaches well beyond our English classrooms when famous lines echo over the decades: “Just like hopes springing high / still I’ll rise” … “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood / and sorry I could not travel both” … “Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?” This tutorial will explore some of the most well-known, popular poets of your time—Mary Oliver, Billy Collins, Tracy K. Smith, and others. Students will have some input on the poets and poems we study. Through readings, research, and writing, we will experience each writer’s unique voice, context and style.

THE SIGNAL IN THE NOISE: ALTERNATIVE MUSIC AS COMMENTARY ON SOCIAL ISSUES, GLOBAL ETHICS, AND LIFE ITSELF INSTRUCTOR: DR. HYDE Alternative genres of music such as rock, heavy metal, and punk are often negatively stereotyped as consisting of meaningless noise, or of promoting violence and even anarchy. However, there are many artists within these genres—if not most—who use their music as an almost poetic outlet for their personal views, producing eloquent musings on life, love, and death. Others tackle social issues such as racism, poverty, and corruption. These artists create music that often deliberately rails against mainstream views and societal norms. The music is designed to be hard-hitting and emotive, to encourage us to have difficult conversations, and to confront and raise awareness of what the artists feel are important issues or injustices in our society or on a global level. A song or lyric may contain an inflammatory concept or theme, not necessarily because this is what the artist believes or supports—instead, their intention is to criticize this view or to shine a light on the issue. The Sex Pistol’s “God Save the Queen” is a classic example: despite its title, which is also the title of the official royal anthem of Great Britain, the song is actually a scathing criticism of the British monarchy.

THEORY AND REALITY: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE INSTRUCTOR: MR. SANCHEZ How does science work? Does it tell us what the world is “really” like? What makes science different from other ways of understanding the universe? The goal of this course is to observe, analyze, and understand how philosophers of science have approached these big questions. We will do this by surveying one hundred years of intense philosophical debate about the nature, purpose, and plausibility of various scientific frameworks. In doing so, we will introduce some main themes of the philosophy of science through a historical, philosophical, and scientific lens.

A background in philosophy will be very helpful in this course, although it is not necessary. The foundation of this course is the book Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science by Peter Godfrey-Smith.

U.S. FOREIGN POLICY TOWARD LATIN AMERICA: CUBA – A WHOLE NEW BALLGAME INSTRUCTOR: SR. MILLER The United States has a unique relationship with Latin America due to historical coincidence and geographical proximity. Perhaps no other country in Latin America has as special a relationship with the United States as Cuba. Cuba’s destiny has been inextricably tied to the foreign policy decisions of the United States since before its independence from Spain. Indeed, Cuban independence followed directly from military intervention by the United States. The relationship has gone through many phases, beginning when both were colonies of European powers, through independence for one, then the other, through revolution, the Cold War and a fifty year estrangement during the Revolutionary Period, to the brand new age of regularized relations, to a horizon which is again cloudy on both sides of the Florida Straits.

In this tutorial, politico-historical in nature, we will give a brief account of the pre-Cuban independence period, pay more attention to the pre-Revolutionary period and devote a good deal of concentration to the Revolution and how it affected the relationship between the nations. However, the most attentiongrabbing part of this tutorial will no doubt center on what has happened in the past five years. President Obama moved significantly toward normalization of relations with Cuba in his final two years in office, rolling back as much of the embargo of Cuba as possible using executive action, including the re-establishment of embassies in Washington and Havana. President Trump has begun to dismantle pieces of the Obama administration’s adjustments to the relationship, though there are other parts that he has chosen to leave in place. Added to the mix, the recent death of the patriarch of the Cuban Revolution may augur changes on the island itself. In a sense, during the last part of the tutorial, we will be following the most current of events as they occur. By the end of the spring, we will make our best guesses as to how the next phase of the relationship between the United States and Cuba will develop. There is no more timely a moment to take on this case study than right now.

WILDERNESS IN THE AMERICAN IMAGINATION: THE ENVIRONMENT IN AMERICAN HISTORY, LITERATURE, AND CULTURE INSTRUCTOR: MS. PRESSMAN How have Americans imagined wilderness over the course of American history? In what ways have we represented the natural world in art, literature, and popular culture? What can the Hudson River School painters, the stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the plastic pink flamingo tell us about our changing relationship with nature? How have we sought to shape—and how, in turn, have we been shaped by—our interactions with the wilderness? How has our understanding of what is “wild” shaped the American environmental movement? This interdisciplinary tutorial will explore these and related questions, using a variety of sources from history, literature, art, popular culture, and environmental ethics.

WRITING OUR OWN LITERATURE INSTRUCTOR: MS. REDDY In an interview with writer and educator Alexander Chee, he explains his journey to writing about himself and teaching this skill to his students: “How do we write our own literature? I am thinking of when I interviewed Ursula K. Le Guin and she told me she had to teach herself to write as a woman. Or my own first stories, when I did much the same as these students. In the 1980s, I had to learn how to write myself and people like me onto the page. My own life on the page felt impossible to explain in any detail when I was a student writer. I had to ask myself why I was embarrassed to mention that I was AsianAmerican, much less to center it in a story. Strangely, it took finding writers like Mavis Gallant and Gregor Von Rezzori, whose works described characters who had lived among several cultures, as they were writing about Europeans. Reading about someone who was of Austrian and French heritage may not feel like a mix of cultures, but I unexpectedly found permission there—white writers teaching me how to write mixed-race Asian-American characters like me.”

In this tutorial, we will examine how various AsianAmerican writers write themselves “onto the page.” By reflecting on their approaches, what they choose to examine, and how they tell their stories, you will be asked to complete a final project where you write your own story onto the page. For this final project, you will have the option to write in any of the genres we read in the tutorial: a “graphic” essay/portrait, a comedic piece that can be used in the form of a show or presentation, or a personal essay.

“YO” BY JULIA ALVAREZ INSTRUCTOR: SRA. DAVILA This tutorial will focus on Julia Alvarez, a Dominican writer who was born in the United States, but returned to her native country when she was three months old. She was raised in the Dominican Republic until she was ten years old, at which point her family decided to return to New York City, where Alvarez witnessed fellow immigrant families seeking asylum or a better life in the US. Today, she owns a farm in the Dominican Republic, where she also runs a school to teach reading and writing to local farmers and their families. She also serves as writer-in-residence at Middlebury College. Her novel Yo shares the story of a brilliant woman seeking her identity and her place in the world. More than ever before, Latina women are finding their place and making their history in the US, and Alvarez is a perfect role model for American Latinas today.