Senior Tutorial Program

Instructor: Mr. Meier

All too often, we think of creativity as something that we either have, or don’t have; like a gift that may, or may not, have been bestowed on us at birth. The reality is that creativity is more like a skill that is developed and nurtured like any other skill, through consistent hard work and practice. It is a muscle that we all have that requires exercise, training, and a bit of flexing. More than anything, creativity is something that lives in all of us as humans and can be accessed whenever we want. This tutorial is for anyone who wants to learn the daily habits necessary to build creativity, and begin to find creative inspiration in unexpected places. We will also explore the mental roadblocks that all of us have that prevent us from being as creative as we want to be. The course is a combination of reading, writing, and short, hands-on exercises that put us in the habit of flexing our creative muscle on a consistent basis. We will be working through Rick Rubin’s new book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being, as our primary text, and will supplement that with various videos and excerpts from other writings on creativity.

Instructor: Mr. Honsel

My desire to teach a course on this topic stems from the fact that the coming-of-age experience is universal. We all go through the awkward middle school years, navigate the separation from our parents or guardians, and discover who we are. Our culture, gender, race, socioeconomic status are all factors that contribute to our development as unique individuals. Of course, many of these factors can lead to stereotypes that others may use to limit us. In addition, most of us deal with the pressure to conform and not stand out in a crowd. As we watch films and TV shows, and read short stories, I want us to wrestle with ideas such as: How has the coming-of-age story evolved over the years? Does this representation vary across gender, race, and socioeconomic class? Are these representations realistic? How has this idea of becoming a grown-up evolved? Films and shows may include: “Ladybird,” “Blackish,” “Freaks and Geeks,” “Bottoms,” and “Clueless.”

Instructor: Mrs. Hurtt

This tutorial will explore some of the most well-known, popular poets of our time—Mary Oliver, Billy Collins, Amanda Gorman, and others. Students will have input on the poets and poems we study. We will experience each writer’s unique voice, context and style, primarily by reading their poems, and also by listening to recordings and studying critical reviews. Paper assignments will vary each week, ranging from the creative to the analytical. Our goals are to help readers appreciate a variety of poetic voices, discover their own taste in poetry, and consider the role of poetry in their lives today.

Instructor: Mr. Skeen

This tutorial briefly traces the historical and theoretical underpinnings of current Western criminal legal practices, ultimately using the American justice and carceral systems as a case study and chance for deeper inquiry. In addition to a variety of documentaries, reports, podcasts, and articles, students can expect to engage with excerpts from a few key texts, including, Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, Heather Ann Thompson’s Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy, John Pfaff’s Locked In, Danielle Sered’s Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair, and Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Davis. This course will afford students various opportunities for interdisciplinary and experiential learning, including, but not limited to, conversations with criminal justice experts in cities with unique legal landscapes—New Orleans and Washington, D.C., to name a couple—as well as a guided tour of America’s first prison: Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary. Pairing philosophy with policy, this tutorial encourages students to wrestle with the thorny and complex issues inherent within debates regarding justice and punishment.

Instructor: Mr. Horgan

Have you ever wondered what role the humanities play in environmentalism? This tutorial will explore one form of environmental expression and engagement: ecopoetics. Ecopoetry is poetry written in and/or about the natural world with a particular focus on environmental harms. These poems can be situated deep in forests, like those of St. Andrew’s, or in nontraditional natural spaces, such as cities. Our study of ecopoetics will be contextualized through the writings of Indigenous authors who connect the 21st century to the traditional teachings of the original stewards of the land, Indigenous communities. These texts will include “Braiding Sweetgrass” by Robin Wall Kimmerer and “What Kind of Ancestor Do You Want to Be?” by John Hausdoerffer. Assignments in this course will take the form of short analytical essays and opportunities to write and share original works of poetry.

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 draw 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 like Chinatown, Brick, and Momento. We’ll examine character development, lighting and composition, plot elements, and music and sound, and we’ll find and uncover film noir’s tangled connections to many present-day movies.

Instructor: Dr. Shrem

For centuries, French cuisine has been an international symbol of gastronomic pleasure, providing a culture in which people could live out their food fantasies. Whether it’s the celebrity chef and their luxurious ten-course haute cuisine meals or the ubiquitous Michelin guide and cinema’s iconic depictions of restaurant critics, such as Anton Ego from the animated film Ratatouille, popular culture worldwide is not merely fascinated by French gastronomy, but it is also fixated on replicating everything from its language and rituals to its professionalization of the kitchen.

In this tutorial, students will study the development of the cultural field of gastronomy from the 18th Century “Age of Enlightenment” to Napoleon’s empire. By focusing on the cultural figure of the gourmand—the person who eats plenty and appreciates fine food—students will examine the ways in which eating went from being an act of survival to a form of artistic expression. Our culinary exploration will start with a feast for the eyes—18th Century prints and paintings of festivity, namely Jean-François de Troy’s Lunch of Oysters (1735) and Jacques-Philippe Le Bas’s The Attributes of Fine Food (1739). By placing these works in correlation with Voltaire’s poem “Le Mondain” (1736), Condillac’s Treatise on Sensations (1754), and Montesquieu’s Essay on Taste (1757), students will examine the semantic transformation of the French noun “gourmandise,” from indicating gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins, to suggesting culinary knowledge and patriotic virtue.

This tutorial will study the progression (domestication) of the gourmand from being perceived as lowbrow to highbrow, from being characterized as a buffoon to a civilized professional, that of the restaurant critic. After reading some of the first examples of restaurant reviews from Grimod de La Reynière’s Almanach des Gourmands (1803-1812), students will develop their own food writing.

Instructor: Ms. Lazar

The development of this tutorial arose from controversial issues around gender that have been a part of our society for quite some time, but have come to the forefront of popular discussion as a result of the 2016 presidential election. This tutorial will examine the following issues through the lens of gender: healthcare, immigration, science and environment, 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, I look forward to engaging in discourse with you about these topics.

Instructor: Mr. Walsh

“Goddess, sing of the cataclysmic wrath / of great Achilles, son of Peleus ...” So begins Emily Wilson’s acclaimed new translation of Homer’s Iliad, one of the great epic poems in world literature. The Iliad concerns the ten-year long Trojan War, which features larger than life heroes like Achilles and Hector, as well as Olympian gods and goddesses like Athena and Aphrodite. The Iliad is a grand poem that wrestles with big ideas like mortality, memory, and divine will; it also centers the human experience of war. Heroes endure rage, loss, trauma, and grief; they also perform incredible acts of bravery, friendship, and leadership. In this tutorial, we will read most of the Iliad in English translation, and we will explore aspects of ancient Greek culture, history, and civilization. Writing assignments will vary: in-class reading responses, short analytical essays, and creative assignments with critical postludes.

Instructor: Dr. Pitts

Many folks believe that sports and politics do not and should not mix. In this tutorial, we will explore this belief, engaging the intersections of sports with larger social and political concerns such as racial justice and equality, gender identity and equity, mental health awareness, and equal pay. The tutorial is organized both thematically and mostly chronologically. We will begin the course with a viewing of David Zirin’s compelling documentary, Not Just a Game: Power, Politics & American Sports, which provides a good overview of the numerous connections between politics and sports. Then we will delve into specific political issues that have been manifested in specific sports such as American football, boxing, basketball, soccer, tennis, volleyball, cheerleading(!), and more. Readings will include excerpts from Michael Serazio’s The Power of Sports: Media and Spectacle in American Culture and Robert Scoop Jackson’s The Game is not a Game: The Power, Protests and Politics of American Sports, in addition to articles from journals and popular magazines.

This tutorial is also about writing and academic inquiry, where you will continue to learn to read, question, and respond to the arguments of others and to write about issues that you’re interested in. Over the course of the tutorial, you will learn to discern nuance, identify uses of rhetoric, and gain an understanding of language’s power that will allow you to think beyond potentially easy or misleading narratives. Assignments will include summary/response essays, an essay related to a topic/sport you deeply care about, and a student-created short documentary about sports culture at SAS. Currently, your instructor is not the biggest sports fan (except for the sports her children play), although she is a former soccer mom and a 1990s NBA superfan.

Instructor: Mr. Hill

“A long way off our journey started, and many roads will take us home,” says Catullus. Seniors, in this final spring of high school, you find yourself on the eve of a great departure. Together we will explore the literature of journeys, travel, foreign lands, and the haunting call of home. Written work will consist of diary-like “entries” in which students put their own experiences of independence and travel into conversation with the texts. Accessible, fluent non-fiction writing skills will be emphasized. This means: factual accuracy, scene construction, character description, dialogue, pacing, setting, and generation of theme, among other concerns. In the way of field work, trips to points of interest in the Delmarva Peninsula may be taken.

Instructor: Sra. Ramírez

In this tutorial, we will read Richard Blanco’s novel The Prince of Los Cocuyos, a memoir about place, self and family. Richard Blanco was born in Spain of Cuban parents who emigrated to the United States. His coming-of-age memoir narrates the life of his Cuban family and traditions as they encounter a new world living in America. His narrative dwells in humor, homesickness of the original land and construction of a new identity and home. We will also read poems by Richard Blanco from his recently published book, “Homeland of My Body.” Richard Blanco is the fifth inaugural poet. He was the first Latino immigrant and the first openly gay poet to be selected for the honor.

Instructor: Ms. Barnett

“What I will propose here by way of a first foray, as entrance into this book of monstrous content, is a sketch of a new modus legendi: a method of reading cultures from the monsters they engender.” So starts Jeffery Jerome Cohen’s “Monster Culture (Seven Theses),” a fundamentally revolutionary theoretical text that reimagines some of the western world’s most iconic monsters—think Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, and Beowulf—as reflective of the cultures in which they were created. In this course, students will apply Cohen’s theory to present-day monsters, specifically feminine monsters, as perpetrators of violence and fear. By combining analysis of literary works by Carmen Maria Machado, Mariana Enriquez, Octavia Butler (among others), and films such as The Exorcist, Us, Jennifer’s Body, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, and The Hunger, students will explore the pervasiveness of feminine monstrosities in modern media. Students will seek to answer the when, how, and why these characters become monsters—or are monstrified by others—and how these answers reflect the social anxieties and cultural paradigms in today’s world.

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, many artists within these genres use their music as a poetic outlet, creating music that rails against mainstream views and societal norms: a signal within the noise. This music is hard-hitting and emotive—at times seemingly deliberately offensive, even—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. This tutorial explores examples of such music to decipher the messages and arguments being expressed and seek to understand what might have influenced these artists and their views. We will examine songs by a variety of artists from the 1970s until the present day: songs that condemn war and its horrors; songs that rage about the damage we are doing to our planet and ourselves in the form of pollution, climate change, and nuclear weapons; songs that tackle police brutality, gun violence, and the pandemic of school shootings in America; songs that deal with love, loss, and grief. Artists we will sample from include Rage Against the Machine, Metallica, NOFX, Gojira, The Clash, System of a Down, Bad Religion, Bruce Springsteen, Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, and many more.

Instructor: Dr. Tisdale-Fisher

The beauty pageant stage has been considered an insignificant space, void of any real or considerable meaning. From the bathing beauty contests of the 1920’s, to the most recognized and consistent American beauty contests like the Miss America and Miss USA pageants, most critical thought has assailed the triviality of beauty pageants. Commonly, beauty pageants have been regarded as part of commoditization, power, and control that reinforces narrow cultural expectations and understandings of women, gender, and sexuality. Recently, scholars have provided critical analysis of beauty pageants to more carefully consider the cultural production of these performative spaces and to illuminate the ways in which meaning is produced through the presentation of “ideal” (and also subversive) bodies. As such, beauty pageants must be read “as elements of mass consumer culture, [and as] a kind of entertainment that subtly influences the ways we see ourselves and our communities” (Cohen, et. al. 10).

This senior tutorial will explore the pageant stage as a space where meaning has been ascribed to ideals of beauty, the feminine body, and womanhood. Conversely, we will explore the ways the pageant model has been used by historically marginalized communities to subvert notions of ideal womanhood and to present new imaginings of beauty, the feminine body, and womanhood/personhood (i.e. drag culture, ethnic/race-specific and disability pageants, etc.). We will examine popular cultural representations of pageantry (documentaries, film, television, etc.) and engage the works of scholars like Maxine Leeds Craig, Elwood Watson, Darcy Martin, Colleen Ballerino Cohen, Judith Butler and others, and will specifically center Black feminist theories that provide valuable frameworks through which to interrogate racialized constructions of beauty, womanhood and femininity.

Instructor: Mr. O’Connell

Do you ever have the nagging sense that you are wasting your time? If so, this course will provide you with philosophical, psychological, and religious authors who agree. We will explore why we seem to lack the time needed to pursue our most cherished goals. Then, after hearing comforting and discomforting answers to this question, we will ask: what is worth paying attention to, and why do we so often attend to the unworthwhile? Principle texts include 4000 Weeks by Oliver Burkeman, Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life by Winifred Gallagher, and The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World by Adam Gazzaley. We will also read articles by zen masters, and hear podcasts by Sam Harris, a neuroscientist and meditation expert.

Instructor: Mr. Miller

The United States has a unique relationship with Latin America due both to historical coincidence and to 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 U.S. since before its independence from Spain. (Indeed, Cuban independence followed directly from United States military intervention.) The relationship has gone through many phases, beginning when both countries 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.

Instructor: Ms. Browne

Much has been written about the current “golden age” of dramatic television; this course takes as one of its precepts that the finest television dramas being created today aspire to literary quality. We will approach the writing of television drama like any other form of fiction writing, as a craft. To that end, we will closely read original scripts of critically-acclaimed series (ex. include: Scandal, Breaking Bad, Gilmore Girls) from a diverse range of creators. By the end of the course, students will be responsible for creating a series document, which will include formal story and world descriptions, character biographies, a pilot outline, and one or more acts of an original series pilot. In short, students will have the opportunity to experience in real-time the development process professional writers follow when preparing a television series concept for presentation at a studio or network.