Course Catalog

Course Descriptions

Middle School

English

Math

Middle School Courses

English

English 7 and 8

English 7 and 8 delivers instruction, practice, and review designed to build students’ communication and reading comprehension skills. Reading comprehension lessons strengthen students’ critical analysis skills as they study how nonfiction and literature can be used to share ideas. Writing lessons combine free-response exercises with drafting strategies and exemplars to help students communicate clearly and credibly in narrative, argumentative, and explanatory styles. To develop skills specific to public discourse, speaking and listening lessons guide students as they evaluate clips and readings from speeches and discussions. In language lessons, students build foundational grammar skills they need to articulate their ideas and understand challenging words.

Math

Math 7

Math 7 delivers instruction, practice, and review designed to develop computational fluency, deepen conceptual understanding, and apply mathematical practices. Throughout the course, students gain a deep understanding of proportions and their use in solving problems. They extend their fluency with operations on rational numbers and translate among different forms of rational numbers. Algebra topics include simplifying and rewriting algebraic expressions and solving more complex equations and inequalities. Students also sketch geometric figures and explore scale drawings, investigate circle properties and angle relationships, and deepen their understanding of area, volume, and surface area. They see how statistics uses sample data to make predictions about populations and compare data from different data sets. Students gain a fundamental understanding of probability and explore different ways to find or estimate probabilities.

Math 8

Math 8 delivers instruction, practice, and review designed to develop computational fluency, deepen conceptual understanding, and apply mathematical practices. In this course, students focus on understanding functions — what they are, how to represent them in different ways, and how to write them to model mathematical and real-world situations. In particular, students investigate linear functions by learning about slope and slope-intercept form. Students’ understanding of linear functions is extended to statistics, where they make scatter plots and use linear functions to model data. They solve linear equations and equations involving roots and explore systems of linear equations. Additional topics include exponents, powers of ten, scientific notation, and irrational numbers. Students learn about transformations and extend that understanding to an investigation of congruence and similarity. Other geometric concepts explored include the Pythagorean theorem, angle relationships, and volumes of cylinders, cones, and spheres.

Science

Integrated Science 7

California Middle School Grade 7 Science delivers instruction, practice, and review to help students develop scientific literacy, deepen conceptual understanding, and apply scientific practices. Students explore concepts such as the structures and properties of matter; chemical reactions; the flow of energy through systems, including Earth’s living and nonliving systems; and the history of Earth.

Integrated Science 8

California Middle School Grade 8 Science delivers instruction, practice, and review to help students develop scientific literacy, deepen conceptual understanding, and apply scientific practices. Students explore concepts such as waves and electromagnetic radiation, energy and forces on Earth and in space, genetics and natural selection, engineering design, and the impact of humans on Earth’s resources.

Social Science

World History 7

Middle School World History delivers instruction, practice, and review designed to build middle school students’ knowledge of world history, from the Neolithic Revolution through the Middle Ages. By constantly honing their ability to analyze history, students build the depth of knowledge and higher-order thinking skills required to demonstrate their mastery when put to the test. US History 8 Middle School U.S. History and Geography delivers instruction, practice, and review designed to build middle school students’ knowledge of U.S. history, from the peopling of North America through the era of Reconstruction. Students engage with the subject matter in an interactive, feedback-rich environment as they progress through standards-aligned content. By constantly honing their ability to analyze history, students build the depth of knowledge and higher-order thinking skills required to demonstrate their mastery when put to the test.

Electives

College & Career Preparation

In College and Career Preparation, students obtain a deeper understanding of what it means to be ready for college. Students are informed about the importance of high school performance in college admissions and how to prepare for college testing. They know the types of schools and degrees they may choose to pursue after high school and gain wide exposure to the financial resources available that make college attainable. Career readiness is also a focus. Students connect the link between interests, college majors, and future careers by analyzing career clusters. Students come away from this course understanding how smart preparation and skill development in high school can lead to expansive career opportunities after they have completed their education and are ready for the working world.

Spanish I (Apex Learning Virtual School-ALVS)

Spanish I teaches students to greet people, describe family and friends, talk about hobbies, and communicate about other topics, such as home life, occupations, travel, and medicine. Each lesson presents vocabulary, grammar, and culture in context, followed by explanations and exercises. Vocabulary includes terms to describe school subjects, parts of the body, and people, as well as idiomatic phrases. Instruction in language structure and grammar includes the structures and uses of present-tense verb forms, imperatives, adjective agreement, impersonal constructions, formal and informal address, and reflexive verbs. Students explore words used in different Spanish-speaking regions and learn about the cultures of Spanish-speaking countries and regions within and outside Europe.

High School Courses

English

English 9

The English 9 course is an overview of exemplar selections of literature in fiction and nonfiction genres. Students read short stories, poems, a full-length novel, and a full-length Shakespeare play, analyzing the use of elements of literature in developing character, plot, and theme. For example, in selected stories, students compare the effect of setting on tone and character development. Likewise, in the poetry unit, students analyze how artists and writers draw from and interpret source material. Each unit includes informational texts inviting students to consider the historical, social, and literary context of the main texts they study. Throughout the course, students respond to others’ claims and support their own claims in essays, discussions, and presentations, consistently using thorough textual evidence.

English 10/ Honors English 10

The focus of the English 10 course is the writing process. Three writing applications guide the curriculum: persuasive, expository, and narrative writing. Each lesson culminates in a written assignment that lets students demonstrate their developing skills in one of these applications. English 10 follows the model of English 9 by including at least one anchor text per lesson, but the essays, articles, stories poems, and speeches are often presented as models for students to emulate as they practice their own writing. So that these readings may serve as proper examples for students, a high proportion of texts for this course are original pieces. English 10 also continues to develop students’ reading, listening, and speaking skills. Readings include poems, stories, speeches, plays, and a graphic novel, as well as a variety of informational texts. The readings represent a wide variety of purposes and cultural perspectives, ranging from the Indian epic The Ramayana to accounts of Hurricane Katrina told through different media. Audio and video presentations enhance students’ awareness and command of rhetorical techniques and increase their understanding of writing for different audiences.

Math

Mathematics I

Mathematics I builds students’ command of geometric knowledge and linear and exponential relationships. Students learn through discovery and application, developing the skills they need to break down complex challenges and demonstrate their knowledge in new situations. Course topics include relationships between quantities; linear and exponential relationships; reasoning with equations; descriptive statistics; congruence, proof, and constructions; and connecting algebra and geometry through coordinates. Mathematics II Mathematics II extends students’ geometric knowledge and introduces them to quadratic expressions, equations, and functions, exploring the relationship between these and their linear and exponential counterparts. Students learn through discovery and application, developing the skills they need to break down complex challenges and demonstrate their knowledge in new situations. Course topics include extending the number system; quadratic functions and modeling; expressions and equations; application of probability; similarity, right-triangle trigonometry, and proof; and circles with and without coordinates.

Science

The Living Earth

The Living Earth integrates biology with Earth and space science. Throughout the course, students apply fundamental biological concepts to better understand how living systems and Earth’s systems are interrelated and interdependent. Course topics include structure and function of living organisms, heredity, genetic variation, natural selection, evolution, the biosphere, types of ecosystems and biomes the ecology of populations and communities, the effects of change on the biosphere and its parts, the relationship of humans with the environment, and explorations of challenges humans face and sustainable solutions for the future health of Earth and its inhabitants.

Chemistry/ Honors Chemistry

Chemistry offers a curriculum that emphasizes students’ understanding of fundamental chemistry concepts while helping them acquire tools to be conversant in a society highly influenced by science and technology. The course provides students with opportunities to learn and practice critical scientific skills within the context of relevant scientific questions. Topics include the nature of science, the importance of chemistry to society, atomic structure, bonding in the matter, chemical reactions, redox reactions, electrochemistry, phases of matter, equilibrium and kinetics, acids and bases, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, nuclear reactions, organic chemistry, and alternative energy.

Social Science

World History/Honors World History

In World History, Culture and Geography, students study the major turning points that shaped the modern world including the Enlightenment, industrialization, imperialism, nationalism, political revolutions, the world wars, the Cold War, decolonization, and globalization. By presenting content from multiple perspectives and through diverse primary and secondary source materials, this course provides students with a solid foundation in the history of the modern era and prepares students to be active and informed citizens of the world.

Electives

Art Appreciation

Art Appreciation is a survey of the history of Western visual arts, with a primary focus on painting. Students begin with an introduction to the basic principles of painting and learn how to critique and compare works of art. Students then explore prehistoric and early Greek and Roman art before they move on to the Middle Ages. Emphasis is placed on the Renaissance and the principles and masters that emerged in Italy and northern Europe. Students continue their art tour with the United States during the 20th century, a time of great innovation as abstract art took center stage. While Western art is the course’s primary focus, students will finish the course by studying artistic traditions from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas.

College & Career Preparation

Health

Health Education is a valuable, skills-based health education course designed for general education in grades 9 through 12. Health Education helps students develop knowledge, attitudes, and essential skills in a variety of health-related subjects, including mental and emotional health, social health, nutrition, physical fitness, substance use and abuse, disease prevention and treatment, and injury prevention and safety.