NYMA Cadets
Learning, Leading, Earning Respect
We believe our committed community, experience as educators, and the sheer size and expansiveness of our campus have helped us develop a pandemic response that is unparalleled by any school in the vicinity.
New York Military Academy Courses
2020-2021(Updated Annually)
8th Grade- Identity and Society
Course Description:
English 8 is an exciting course filled with an array of texts that will keep you interested and engaged. In this course we focus on how to write comparative essays. We will be focusing on an in-depth author study of Edgar Allan Poe, read an ancient Greek Tragedy, explore Science Fiction, myth, mystery and complete a poet study of the works of Maya Angelou and Alicia Keys. We also will be creatively writing individual and original sci-fi short stories.
Required texts:
Speak, Anderson ISBN-10: 0312674392
Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck ISBN-10: 0140177396
To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee ISBN-10: 0060935464
Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom ISBN-10: 1401308589
“Oedipus” (NYMA has)
Also Ray Bradbury Unit, Poet study of Maya Angelou/ Alicia Keys
9th Grade – Relationships, Duty and Consequence
Required Texts:
“The Glass Menagerie” T. Williams ISBN-10: 0811214044
Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury ISBN-10: 1451673310
Romeo and Juliet By William Shakespeare ISBN-13:9780743477116
A Separate Peace, Knowles ISBN-10: 0743253973
Animal Farm, Orwell ISBN-10: 0451526341
Ethan Frome- Wharton ISBN-10: 0486266907
Class Description: English 1 is all about relationships and how people relate to other people and the world around them. There will be a particular emphasis on comparative, in depth essay writing with using parenthetical documentation to support our claims. We will get our first look at a Shakespearean play that has thrilled audiences for hundreds of years; Romeo and Juliet. In this class we read, write, listen, speak, reflect and share. We will get creative with both our thoughts, the ways we read and our writing. As always, we will cover a variety of genres including poetry, science fiction, nonfiction, and mystery.
Sophomore English Course Description: 10th grade English seeks to improve your skills as a reader, writer, and critical thinker. It does so first by asking you to read a wide variety of texts drawn from the length and breadth of Global literary traditions. It then asks you to respond to those texts through a variety of means including class discussion, in class writing, in class worksheets, and out of class assignments. In addition, we’ll devote a certain amount of time each week to developing your vocabulary through chapters in Book 10 of the Wordly Wise workbook. Throughout the class, we’ll work on improving your writing by revisiting strategies for successful composition.
While we’ll find all manner of connections among these texts as we go through them, I would like to foreground the theme of duty. So as you read each text, you should ask yourself, “What is the role of duty in this narrative? What is the protagonist’s duty? What is standing in the way of it? How does s/he complete it?”
Required Texts:
Achebe, Chinua Things Fall Apart (978-0385474542)
Golding, William Lord of the Flies (978-0399501487)
Hodkinson, Kenneth(ed.) Wordly Wise 3000 Book 10 (978-0838876107)
Homer The Odyssey (in Elements of Literature textbook [9th grade])
Mo Yan The Garlic Ballads (978-1611457070)
Orwell, George 1984 (978-0451524935)
Shakespeare, William Hamlet (978-0743477123)
Wiesel, Ellie Night (978-0374500016)
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Intensive Study in a Literary Text: Don Quijote: This course will be devoted to a detailed consideration of selections from Miguel de Cervantes’s seventeenth century masterpiece, Don Quijote. After orienting ourselves in Cervantes’s life, the literary context of the day, and the cultural-historical milieu of late sixteenth and early seventeenth Spain, we’ll plunge into the text widely regarded as the very first novel. Due to time constraints, we won’t be able to read all of the book, but we should be able to finish a generous portion of it. Along the way, we’ll find ourselves returning to a number of thematic concerns. Perhaps the most important of these is the relationship between imagination and reality, and the extent to which each shapes and is shaped by the other. We’ll also examine the novel as an example of Modernity, particularly as regards its attitudes towards the possibilities available for the individual. By the end of the term, we’ll have a sense of the reasons for Don Quijote’s continued importance to western, and indeed world, literature.
The format of the class will consist of lectures, discussions, and a few films. We’ll use Burton Raffels’ translation of Cervantes’s text, which does a fine job of bridging the gap between seventeenth century Spanish and contemporary English. The Norton Critical Edition of the text we’ll be using includes excerpts from several important essays about Don Quijote; we’ll sample all of them, paying particular attention to those by Fuentes, Bloom, Cascardi, and Rivers. We’ll also view a number of related films, among them The Fisher King, Don Juan de Marco, and The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Students will write short response essays and complete a longer project.
Required Texts:
de Cervantes, Miguel. Don Quijote. Translated by Burton Raffel. Ed. Diana de Armas Wilson. New York: W.W. Norton 1999. (978039397281X)
In Lord of The Rings, the hope and intention is to have the students read and grow to appreciate (perhaps even learn to love?) J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic tale, a story that has been read by millions around the world and has been translated into many languages, and which continues to influence and inform the lives of readers to this day. Along the way, while not losing track of the story itself, we will be examining characters and character development, plot, theme, and other more technical aspect of literature. However, the larger goal is to have students understand how stories, good stories, can guide us in how we think, the way we see the world, the choices we make, the values we strive to uphold, and even how we live our lives. For this course we are using the 50th Anniversary edition of this amazing epic.
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Course Description:
This class students will focus on learning about, identifying and understanding key characters of mythology from different cultures and recognize their continued relevance in today’s society. Students will read one classic, award winning ancient Greek drama, comparing it to modern day text and movie plots. Students will also become familiar with the fairy/ folk tales of more modern French and German and African writers. Students will be reading the texts for specific psychological implications, gender, class norms and archetypes. Students will also rewrite a classic fairy tale, for today’s society in a creative writing piece. Class will culminate with an introduction into Freudian and Jungian interpretations of fairy tales and specifically the novel Peter Pan. There will be a final presentation in lieu of a final exam.
Required Texts:
Oresteia by Aeschylus ISBN-10: 0872203905
Favorite African Folktales Paperback – by Nelson Mandela ISBN-10: 0393326241
The Brothers Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales Paperback –by Jacob Grimm Wilhelm Grimm ISBN-10: 198198044X
Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie ISBN-13 : 978-1949982510
The African American Experience through Literature- 10th-12th Grade
This is a look into primary, narrative and fictional texts that illuminate the African American experience from the 1700’s to current times. This course has both historical and celebratory aspects of the accomplishments of great African American writers and storytellers. It explores the obstacles of racism, the quest for equality and the literary trail blazers searching to break the color divide and barriers. Some of the texts we will be covering include. Slave Songs of the United States, the poetry of Philis Wheatley, Uncle Tom’s Cabin , Martin Luther King Jr. “Not long” speech to Selma, Langston Hughes’ poem “Madam and the Minister”, Invisible Man, The Bluest Eye and more. ** only required book for purchase is
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
ISBN-13 : 978-0061120060
Almost all colleges and universities in the United States now require a first-year writing course, regardless of a student’s prior background and preparation. College Writing, as the name implies, is intended to provide students with a good and thorough, though not exhaustive, understanding of the components, requirements, and expectations of college-level writing, whether expository essays or research writing. The first trimester of the course will focus on college application essays. The added intent is that students themselves will become increasingly strong and confident thinkers and writers. In the course we will be using examples of published writing, as well as strong examples of student essays, research papers, and journalism pieces.
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8th Grade Capstone
This is a teacher- guided research project enabling the student to produce a well-crafted research paper and presentation showing mastery on the chosen topic. Topics are of the student’s own choosing, requiring the student to commit to a particular topic while planning, researching and executing a final project. In addition, the student must also focus on how the topic has civic/ societal implications on the world, today. 8th grade students will also be introduced to the MLA format and be required to document their final paper, accordingly.
There are four major parts to the Capstone project:
Topic
Field work and research
Research paper
Presentation
The purpose of this class is to immerse ourselves in reading and writing that is both useful and relevant to today’s society and world. We will be delving into reading short passages of every kind of genre and media and well as writing expository reactions and creative pieces. There will be a focus on acquiring new vocabulary words and grammar skills. We will learn how to communicate more clearly and effectively. We will also be writing for THE RAMBLE, our campus newspaper.
Earth Science Course Description:
This course enables students to explore and gain a better understanding of our interactions with, and interdependence upon, the Earth processes and the changes in these processes over time. There are four main interconnected fields in this discipline: Geology, Oceanography, Meteorology, and Astronomy. Students will gain and master the skills of georeferencing, identification of minerals, analyzing seismic waves and earth quark, interpretation of station modeling/ the weather pattern, astronomy, and impact of climate change through laboratory/field work.
Textbook: Glencoe, G. Earth & Space Science: McGraw-Hill Education, 2008. ISBN:978-0-07-874636-9
- Notebook and a scientific calculator.
BIOLOGY
Our living environment is full of color, exuberance, and wonder. Life is more vibrant, brought about by TMI (too much information) or social media hype (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Tok-tok, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Roblox, Fortnite and endless other platforms) the fascination is endless. Biology weaves into our lives the same way. This course aims to always keep that spark and sense of awe for every student. The ten (10) Big ideas in Biology will make our study and appreciation more concise and simplified. From the very basic unit of life which are cells, to information and heredity (DNA, not to ignore cloning which is quite controversial these days) Stem Cell research and practice in the field of Medicine and Biotechnology, how organisms grow, develop and decay to support life itself, diversity ( no matter how different we all are we are still connected with every living organism: unity) , Balance or Homeostasis, structure and function ( do we consider a virus a living organism?) and Biology of today involving world health issues ( Covid-19 Pandemic), social and economic strata ( hunger, housing, jobs and social differences). The science of Biology has come a long way. This course will help our students understand the connection from our past to present day events and onward to our future.
We have a standard textbook issued including a workbook and laboratory manual. We will also investigate Science Journals and current science events locally and internationally. To complement the theory and practice of each Big Idea, laboratory investigations are partnered for each skill and concept. This will also include research, projects, virtual field trips and real time/place field trips soon. All we need is an inquiring mind, the exciting mode of wanting to learn more about our natural world, the willingness and patience to figure things out and always wanting to discover and rediscover new things. We hope each student will learn, practice some of these skills in real life and will forever be amazed.
Chemistry Course Description:
This course enables students to deepen their understanding of chemistry through the study of the properties of chemicals and chemical bonds; chemical reactions and quantitative relationships in those reactions; solutions and solubility; and the behavior of gases. Students will further develop their analytical skills and investigate the qualitative and quantitative properties of matter, as well as the impact of some common chemical reactions on society and the environment.
- Textbook: Pearson Chemistry 2012 (authors: D. Staley, A. Wilbraham, M. Matta, and E. Waterman). ISBN-13: 978-0-13-252580-0 or ISBN-10-0-13-252580-1
- Notebook and a scientific calculator.
FORENSIC SCIENCE
Welcome to the world of Crime Scene Investigation. Forensic Science is one of the most interesting, exciting, and amazing studies we have in today’s time. This course offers each student the experience and knowledge by observing and analyzing data through the eyes of the crime scene investigator. By stepping into the roles of detectives, investigators and even crime scene specialists, students will be able to interpret evidence they have collected. All these activities will link their skills and knowledge in several disciplines including (but are not limited to) math, sociology, psychology, analytics, computer science/engineering, art, biology, chemistry, and physics. Several resources will be incorporated within the duration of this course. Textbooks, manuals, short videos, laboratory exercises, re- enactments, mystery games, and crime scene investigations (mock scenes).
Forensic Science students will perform and analyze data by doing critical thinking investigations, employing Physical science experiments, incorporating life science laboratory procedures, and articulating studies on earth science, archaeology, and anthropology. Kits and materials including PPE (personal protective equipment) are all provided by our school. We hope that each student will enjoy every lesson and activity in this course but will also influence them to consider a challenging yet rewarding career in solving crimes.
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Course description: This course will allow the students to learn about the world of the Horticultural Sciences and to gain practical experiences in the design and maintenance of various landscape situations. Areas of study will include; plant growth and development, plant anatomy and physiology, plant reproduction and plant identification, floriculture (including floral design and greenhouse management), landscape drawing and design, safety, equipment operation, career exploration, turf, and lawn care. We will utilize our classroom and NYMA campus field extensively to demonstrate the scientific principles of plants.
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ALGEBRA 1
Algebra 1 aims to guide, teach, and help students practice mathematically correct, instructionally sound and student friendly concepts. Every student will have different learning styles, this course is designed to impart relevance, opportunities to challenging and high-quality mathematics and real-life applications that every student can appreciate and apply into. Algebra 1 is organized around families of functions with an emphasis on linear and quadratic functions. Students will learn on how to create, design, organize, analyze, and formulate a conclusion using models of real-world situations using functions to solve problems arising from these situations.
Probability, data analysis, geometry will also be part of their lesson proper. These math topics often appear on standardized tests. There is a standard Algebra 1 textbook that is issued for each student, a variety of exercise packets and handouts, multiple choice questions, short response exercises as well as extended response activities. The course aims to use both analog tools and digital materials incorporating several technologies as we tackle every day algebraic problems. A prerequisite course for Algebra 1 will be Math 8 and or Pre-Algebra. This course prepares the student for Algebra 2, Trigonometry but are not limited to only these courses.
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This course provides an introduction to United States politics. The course topics include an introduction to America’s constitutional foundations, elements of mass public politics (public opinion and participation), the role of intermediary organizations (interest groups, media, parties), and the function of institutions (Congress, Presidency, Courts). In addition to mastering the fundamental organization of the national government, students will learn theories addressing “big questions” in American politics, and will discuss different arguments based on the evidence brought to bear on these questions.
AP US History Course Description: This course is a survey of America’s modern political, economic, intellectual, social, and religious development. The course examines the history of the United States, by analyzing the different experiences of Americans’ethnically, racially, and economically diverse population.
The format of the class will consist of lectures, discussions, and a few films. Lectures and the textbook will provide students with conceptual frameworks and facts for understanding American history. Students will also be called on to read and interpret a variety of primary sources, including fiction, autobiography, and other historical documents. The course culminates with students sitting for the AP US History Examination.
Textbooks:
America: A Narrative History by George Brown Tindal and David Emory Shi
The American Revolution: Core Documents by Robert M.S. McDonald
Hale, Edward Everett: The Man Without a Country
Opposing Viewpoints in American History: Volumes 1 & 2 by William Dudley
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The Introductory Latin class is designed to provide students with knowledge of the essential building-blocks of the Latin language, including the noun cases and verb conjugations, grammar and sentence structure, and vocabulary building. The emphasis is on learning to read the language at increasing levels of complexity, joined by increased confidence and mastery. The textbook we are using is Latin via Ovid, which combines a very good introduction to Latin grammar while also providing students an excellent selection of readings based upon the Ovidian myths as found in his poem, the Metamorphoses. We will also be exploring aspects of Greco-Roman culture: its history and its continued influence on the contemporary world, particularly in the West.
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The goal of the course is to develop students’ basic Chinese communicative skills in speaking, listening, reading, and writing, with more focus on speaking and listening. Starting with pinyin, students will gradually build up their communicative competency in Chinese. They will be familiarized with the
character writing system; unit topics include greeting; numbers; countries; family; sports; food and etc. Culture topics include history, geography, festivals, games. etc. Moreover, the course will integrate Chinese culture to promote students’ cross-cultural awareness and understanding.
This course introduces students to more challenging standard Mandarin Chinese language material in order to establish a solid foundation for the use of the language. Students in this course focus on building on past language exposure to improve speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills. Students expand their oral expression abilities by increasing vocabulary, improving understanding of grammar concepts, strengthening pronunciation abilities, focusing on listening comprehension, and building on previously studied Chinese characters. This course introduces new language concepts to allow students to speak about topics pertaining to their daily lives and also focuses on deepening knowledge of Chinese culture and customs. By the end of the semester, students are expected to be able to engage in basic daily conversations, read simple texts, and write for daily needs.
Mandarin II
Listening:
Understand paragraph-length utterances pertaining to a wide range of topics related to daily life(including lodging/living quarters, dining, shopping, the Internet, work, travel, etc.).
Speaking:
Handle a wide range of tasks and social situations related to the topic areas mentioned above, and participate in casual conversations. They will also be able to narrate, describe, and compare and contrast.
Reading:
Identify key facts and some details in descriptive material about daily life and discern connections between sentences in simple paragraphs. They will also be able to understand some authentic texts that serve a functional purpose, such as signs, public announcements, and short instructions.
Writing:
Compose notes and simple letters, summaries of biographical information such as work and school experience, and other multi-paragraph pieces of writing.
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As this is a NYMA Leadership course there will be elements of military education as well to include: unit cohesion, drill and ceremony, NYMA cadet rank structure, NYMA cadet chain of command, NYMA staff chain of command, NYMA procedures and SOP.
Role Models: Examples of Character & Leadership by Ph.D. Joseph M. Hoedel
As this is a NYMA Leadership course there will be elements of military education as well to include: unit cohesion, drill and ceremony, NYMA cadet rank structure, NYMA cadet chain of command, NYMA staff chain of command, NYMA procedures and SOP.
As this is a NYMA Leadership course there will be elements of military education as well to include: unit cohesion, drill and ceremony, NYMA cadet rank structure, NYMA cadet chain of command, NYMA staff chain of command, NYMA procedures and SOP.
