A complete 10th grade homeschool curriculum

1. Unit 1: Reading Closely, Reading SuspiciouslyThis unit isn't teaching brand-new stuff so much as checking what actually stuck from 9th grade and nailing it down with precise names: the difference between an inference and a guess, what makes a tone word justified, and a four-level way to rank how strong a piece of evidence is (explicit, strongly implied, inferred, speculative). Everything later in the year assumes this vocabulary is solid.8 skills ▸close ▾

   • What a text directly statesGiven a short passage, students correctly sort five statements about it into 'explicitly stated' and 'not explicitly stated,' matching a teacher-provided answer key on at least 4 of 5.
   • Inference versus assumption when readingStudents distinguish an inference (conclusion built from textual detail plus reasoning) from an assumption (a belief imported from outside the text) when given six labeled reader-statements about a passage, explaining in one sentence what evidence or lack of evidence justifies each label.
   • How word choice creates toneStudents identify the specific word or phrase that creates a given tone in a passage and explain, in a claim-evidence-explanation sentence, why that diction produces that effect rather than another.
   • Ranking competing evidence for a claimGiven two pieces of textual evidence for the same claim about a short passage, students rank them using the four-level evidence hierarchy (explicit > strongly implied > inferred > speculative) and justify the ranking in writing by naming what level each piece occupies and why.
   • Writing a paragraph that defends its evidenceStudents construct a full claim-evidence-explanation paragraph about an unfamiliar short passage in which they select the stronger of two available pieces of evidence and explicitly justify why the piece they rejected was weaker.
   • Obvious readings versus best-evidenced readingsWhen given a passage where the most immediately obvious reading and the best-evidenced reading diverge, students argue for the obvious reading first, then identify specifically which evidence-hierarchy level it relies on and why a competing reading outranks it.
   • Ranking evidence in an unfamiliar genreGiven a brand-new genre the class has not analyzed this unit (e.g., a print advertisement or a short informational blurb), students apply the evidence hierarchy to rank two pieces of evidence for a claim about that text's implied message, without teacher-provided category cues.
   • The four evidence levels in orderStudents recall the four-level names of the evidence hierarchy (explicit, strongly implied, inferred, speculative) in correct order from memory, without text support, at the start of Day 11.
2. Unit 2: The Narrator You Can't TrustNow the question gets specific: how much should you believe a first-person narrator? Using stories like 'The Tell-Tale Heart' and 'The Lottery,' your child builds a case — using the evidence-ranking skill from Unit 1 — for exactly how and how much a narrator can be trusted, rather than just slapping the label 'unreliable' on anyone who seems off.10 skills ▸close ▾

   • Four types of unreliable narratorsGiven a definition and one modeled example of each, students classify a narrator's unreliability as naive, deceptive, mad/disturbed, or self-deceived, citing the textual signal that indicates the type.
   • Narrator claims versus story evidenceStudents explain how a specific gap between what a narrator claims and what the story's other evidence shows (a character's action, another character's reported speech, a physical detail) reveals that gap rather than merely locate a quotation.
   • Ranking evidence for unreliable narratorsStudents rank three or more pieces of textual evidence for a claim about a narrator's reliability from strongest to weakest, justifying the order using the evidence-hierarchy criteria from Unit 1 (directness, corroboration, resistance to alternative explanation).
   • Narrative distance in two storiesStudents compare the narrative distance (how much the narrator's perspective is endorsed or undercut by the text) in two different short stories and explain what causes the difference in each case.
   • Author withholding versus narrator unreliabilityStudents infer the likely reason an author chose to withhold a key piece of information from the narrator's account (a structural choice) rather than state it directly, distinguishing structural withholding from narrator unreliability.
   • Classifying an unfamiliar unreliable narratorGiven a short unfamiliar first-person narrative excerpt never discussed in class, students determine the most defensible unreliability classification, produce two ranked pieces of supporting evidence, and explain why the evidence favors that classification over the strongest plausible alternative a peer might argue, within 20 minutes.
   • Writing your own unreliable narratorStudents generate an original short first-person passage (150-250 words) in which the narrator's claims are subtly contradicted by details the writer plants, deliberately applying at least two techniques of unreliable narration studied in this unit.
   • Writing an essay on narrator unreliabilityStudents write a multi-paragraph literary analysis essay arguing a specific type and degree of a studied narrator's unreliability, organizing at least three ranked pieces of evidence to support a single defensible claim.
   • Responding to peers about narrator reliabilityDuring a Socratic-style discussion, students build on a peer's claim about a narrator's reliability or respectfully challenge it with a counter-example from the text, rather than restating their own prepared point.
   • Reviewing inference, tone, and evidence termsStudents recall the definitions of inference, tone, and the evidence-hierarchy criteria from Unit 1 with at least 80% accuracy on a short retrieval quiz, before applying them to new content this unit.
3. Unit 3: Sustaining a Judgment Across a NovelThis is the big jump: from short stories to a full novel (Frankenstein, The Great Gatsby, or Their Eyes Were Watching God — whichever you can get copies of). The real question is whether your child can hold a judgment about a character loosely enough to actually change it as new chapters complicate the picture, instead of just defending their first impression for 300 pages.9 skills ▸close ▾

   • Revising your judgment of the protagonistGiven two chapters read one week apart, students state their current judgment of the protagonist's central trait and identify the specific textual detail that changed or confirmed it since the last judgment.
   • Tracking a motif through a chapterStudents identify each occurrence of an assigned motif (e.g., light/dark, cold/warmth) in an assigned chapter and record the surrounding context.
   • How structure controls what readers knowStudents explain how a specific structural choice (withheld information, embedded narration, an achronological chapter) shapes what the reader is permitted to know at that point in the novel.
   • Character development versus character revelationStudents distinguish instances where the text shows a character genuinely changing (development) from instances where the text merely reveals a trait that was present all along (revelation).
   • Social determinism versus individual agencyStudents compare social determinism and individual agency as two critical lenses and classify a given plot event as better explained by one, the other, or both.
   • Arguing what causes the protagonist's fateStudents construct a claim about whether the protagonist's fate is primarily a product of choice or circumstance and support it with motif evidence and at least one structural observation, in a novel-length essay.
   • Responding to peers about character motivationIn a Socratic seminar, students build on a peer's claim about a character's motivation or challenge it with contrary textual evidence.
   • Remembering the order of eventsGiven a plot-sequence quiz item about an event from an earlier third of the novel, students recall the correct sequence of events without rereading, at least one week after finishing that section.
   • Choice versus circumstance in a new textStudents apply the choice-versus-circumstance framework to a character or scenario from a text not studied in this unit, using only the framework and no new instruction.
4. Unit 4: Watching Instead of Reading: Shakespeare and Dramatic IronyA full Shakespeare play (Romeo and Juliet or Macbeth are common choices), read and ideally watched or listened to performed. There's no narrator in a play — your child has to figure out what a character really thinks from soliloquies, asides, and how the verse is written, instead of being told what to believe.9 skills ▸close ▾

   • Dramatic irony and who knows whatGiven a scene, state which character(s) know a key fact and which do not, and identify the resulting gap as dramatic irony.
   • Dramatic irony versus unreliable narrationCompare dramatic irony (audience/character knowledge gap in performed drama) to narrative unreliability (reader/narrator credibility gap in prose), stating what structural feature makes each possible.
   • How soliloquies reveal private thoughtsExplain how a specific soliloquy reveals a gap between a character's public speech (to other characters) and private thought (to the audience alone), citing diction and verse form as evidence.
   • Public and private in a new soliloquyGiven an unfamiliar soliloquy from the same play (a later act, not modeled in class), produce a written explanation of the public/private gap it reveals, using the same evidence categories (diction, verse form, direct address) taught earlier.
   • Tracking a motif across actsTrack a chosen motif (e.g., light/dark, poison, blood) across three or more acts and explain how its recurrence marks a shift in a character's fate or society's judgment of them.
   • What blank verse and prose signalDistinguish blank verse from prose passages in the assigned play and infer what the shift in form signals about a character's social status or emotional state at that moment.
   • Staging choices and a character's thoughtsIn a small group, stage and justify one interpretive choice (blocking, delivery, aside timing) for a scene, explaining how that choice changes what the audience infers about a character's interiority relative to a different staging choice.
   • Irony and asides in new playsGiven a scene from an unfamiliar Shakespeare play (not the one studied), identify at least one moment of dramatic irony and one aside or soliloquy, applying the definitions learned without teacher cueing.
   • Writing an essay about a soliloquyPlan and draft an essay arguing how one soliloquy reveals a gap between a character's public and private self, organizing evidence from diction, form, and staging into a single supported claim.
5. Unit 5: The Architecture of PersuasionA shift from stories and plays to real persuasive writing — a classic speech paired with a modern opinion piece on a related theme. Your child learns to ask who's speaking, to whom, why, and in what situation, and then to see ethos, logos, and pathos as deliberate choices a writer makes for that specific audience, not just decorations.9 skills ▸close ▾

   • The rhetorical situationGiven a short unfamiliar persuasive passage, identify the speaker, audience, purpose, and occasion and state how each constrains the rhetor's choices.
   • Ethos, logos, and pathosClassify a given persuasive move in a text as primarily an ethos, logos, or pathos appeal and justify the classification using a textual detail.
   • What an appeal does for audiencesExplain how a specific appeal functions for the stated audience of a classic speech: what work it is doing, not merely that it is present.
   • Comparing appeals in two textsCompare how the classic speech and the contemporary op-ed each adapt ethos, logos, and pathos differently for their distinct audiences and occasions, on a shared theme.
   • Concession and rebuttalLocate the concession and rebuttal in an argumentative text and explain what the placement of the concession does for the rhetor's credibility with a skeptical audience.
   • Which appeals persuade the mostRank two or three appeals used in a text by how much persuasive work each does for the specific audience, and defend the ranking against a plausible alternative ranking.
   • Redesigning a weak appealGiven a persuasive text and audience never discussed in class, identify which appeal is least effective for that specific audience and generate a revised version of that appeal that would work better for them.
   • Well argued versus actually trueEvaluate whether a well-constructed argument in an unfamiliar text is nonetheless wrong, distinguishing rhetorical skill from soundness of the claim.
   • Persuasion vocabulary reviewRecall the definitions of ethos, logos, pathos, rhetorical situation, concession, and rebuttal on demand.
6. Unit 6: Adjudicating Sources: The Research ArgumentYour child picks a genuinely contested question and builds a research paper using 6-8 sources — but the real work is judging those sources before citing any of them, and specifically hunting for disagreement between credible sources rather than collecting six that all say the same thing.9 skills ▸close ▾

   • Judging a research source's appealsGiven a source (article, report, or website), identify its author's likely purpose, intended audience, and use of ethos/logos/pathos appeals before deciding whether or how to cite it.
   • Ranking sources by strength of evidenceRank a set of five sources on a contested question from strongest to weakest evidence for a given claim, and justify the ranking in writing using named criteria (primary vs. secondary status, corroboration by other sources, authorial expertise, recency, appeal-to-evidence ratio).
   • MLA quotes, paraphrases, and citationsLocate the paraphrase-vs-quotation boundary in a research paragraph and correctly cite each in MLA in-text format.
   • Deciding between contradictory sourcesGiven two sources that directly contradict each other on a factual claim relevant to the research question, write a paragraph that states the contradiction, evaluates which source's evidence is stronger and why, and explains what a fair reader should conclude.
   • Finding disagreement in your own sourcesIndependently find a genuine, source-level contradiction or point of live disagreement within their own self-chosen research topic's source set, without teacher identification of which sources conflict.
   • Conceding before you rebutConstruct a counterargument-and-rebuttal paragraph that concedes genuine strength in the opposing evidence before rebutting it, rather than restating a weakened version of the opposing view.
   • Persuasive does not mean trueExplain why a claim's persuasiveness and a claim's truth are not the same property, using a specific source from their own research where a strong rhetorical appeal is paired with weak or unstated evidence.
   • Organizing a whole argumentative essayTake a coherent, defensible position on a genuinely contested question that could reasonably be argued the other way, and organize a full essay draft so that the strongest available evidence for the counterclaim appears before it is rebutted, not omitted.
   • Four MLA Works Cited formatsRecall the MLA Works Cited entry format for the four source types most common in their bibliography (website, news article, book, journal article accessed via database).
7. Unit 7: Compression: Reading Poetry and VoiceShort, dense poems that force your child to do everything they've learned all year in miniature: track a device, compare a speaker's claim to what the poem actually supports, and figure out where two poems on the same topic actually disagree. Three new terms show up — extended metaphor, apostrophe, and volta (the 'turn' in a poem) — but most of the heavy lifting is reusing Unit 3's motif-tracking and Unit 4's soliloquy, now compared to a dramatic monologue.10 skills ▸close ▾

   • Extended metaphor across a poemGiven an unfamiliar short poem, identify where an extended metaphor is introduced, sustained, and (if applicable) abandoned or revised across the poem.
   • Apostrophe and what speakers can claimExplain how a poem's use of apostrophe (direct address to an absent, dead, or non-human addressee) changes what the speaker is able to claim compared to a poem that does not use apostrophe.
   • Finding the volta in a poemLocate the volta in a sonnet or other turn-structured poem and state what changes (in claim, tone, or address) on either side of it.
   • Dramatic monologue versus soliloquyCompare a dramatic monologue's implied listener to a soliloquy's absence of an on-stage listener, and explain how that difference constrains or frees what each speaker can admit.
   • Tracking a motif through a poemTrack how a single image or motif (e.g., a recurring object, color, or natural image) develops or accumulates meaning across a short poem, using the same tracking logic applied to novel-length motifs in Unit 3.
   • Where two poems disagreeGiven two thematically linked poems from distinct periods/traditions, generate a 'fork' statement identifying a specific point where the two poems' claims about the shared theme diverge, rather than a statement true of both.
   • Analyzing an unseen poemGiven an unfamiliar third poem outside the taught set, on a shared or adjacent theme, determine independently which device(s) among extended metaphor, apostrophe, volta, or motif are present and argue what work they do in that poem's specific claim.
   • Spotting claim differences in proseGiven a short unseen prose passage (e.g., an op-ed excerpt or personal essay excerpt, never poetry) making a claim about a topic already explored in the unit's poetry (e.g., grief, love), decide whether the fork-sentence divergence logic developed for comparing two poems can be applied to compare this prose passage against one of the unit's poems, and justify the decision using the passage's actual argument structure rather than its genre.
   • Writing a two poem comparison essayConstruct a comparative analysis essay arguing where two poems diverge in their claim about a shared theme, using at least one poem-scale device as evidence for each poem and integrating the Unit 3/Unit 4 comparison point as part of the argument rather than as a separate closing note.
   • Figurative language terms from memoryRecall the definitions of extended metaphor, apostrophe, and volta from memory without the poetry set present, at least one week after instruction.
8. Unit 8: Capstone: Defending a Claim Across TextsNo new vocabulary here — this is the test of everything. Your child picks a big question, builds a claim that spans at least three texts from across the whole year, defends it in writing, and then defends it again live, answering questions from people who bring counter-evidence they didn't pick themselves.9 skills ▸close ▾

   • Choosing a claim and three textsGiven a course essential question, the student selects a claim and identifies three texts from the year (spanning at least two genres studied) capable of testing it, and states, before drafting, what evidence from each text would count for and against the claim.
   • Ranking evidence from the class exampleUsing the same claim and the same two quotations the teacher ranked and explained aloud in the Day 3 worked example, the student reproduces that ranking (strongest to weakest) and states the specific criterion (specificity, or resistance to alternative explanation) the teacher used to justify it.
   • Ranking evidence from new quotationsThe student ranks a NEW set of textual evidence (not seen in the Day 3 worked example) for a given claim from strongest to weakest, explaining what makes evidence high-ranking in the hierarchy taught in Unit 6 (specificity, resistance to alternative explanation, source authority where applicable).
   • Deciding between conflicting evidenceThe student writes a cross-text argumentative essay that adjudicates between at least two pieces of conflicting or competing evidence across texts, explicitly stating why one interpretation is favored over another rather than presenting both as equally supportive.
   • Ethos logos pathos in your essayGiven their own completed argumentative essay, the student identifies which rhetorical appeal (ethos, logos, pathos) dominates their argument and evaluates whether that balance is well-suited to a skeptical academic audience, citing specific sentences as evidence.
   • Defending your claim in discussionDuring the Socratic seminar, the student responds to a peer's counter-evidence by either revising the claim's scope, providing rebuttal evidence, or conceding a limitation, without abandoning the claim wholesale or ignoring the counter-evidence.
   • Five literary terms from memoryThe student recalls the definitions of unreliable narration, narrative distance, dramatic irony, motif, and the rhetorical appeals without reference notes, when cued only by the term.
   • Telling similar literary lenses apartGiven a two-sentence excerpt from a text studied this year, the student classifies which of the five prior-unit analytical lenses (unreliable narration, motif, dramatic irony, rhetorical appeal, evidence-hierarchy ranking) is most relevant to analyzing it, and identifies one surface feature that could mislead a student into choosing the wrong lens.
   • Judging evidence in an unfamiliar textGiven a claim about a course essential question applied to a text NOT studied this year (provided by the teacher, e.g., a short unfamiliar story), the student determines whether the year's evidence-hierarchy and adjudication procedures still apply and constructs a claim following that procedure.

Try a real English 10: Identity, Society, and the Stories We Tell lesson, no account needed →

1. Unit 1: Transformations and the Definition of Congruence/SimilarityThis unit sets the rule for the whole year: two shapes are congruent only if you can show a slide, flip, or turn maps one exactly onto the other — not because they look the same size. Similar works the same way but allows a resize. Your child will build coordinate rules for each move, then learn to tell them apart just by looking at what changed.8 skills ▸close ▾

   • Plotting translations, reflections, and rotationsGiven a figure and a stated translation vector or reflection line or rotation angle/center, execute the correct coordinate rule to plot the image.
   • Telling rigid motions apartGiven a preimage and image pair with a transformation not named, determine which single rigid motion (translation, reflection, or rotation) produced it by testing for a fixed point, distance preservation, and orientation.
   • Why rigid motions prove congruenceExplain why a rigid motion mapping a preimage onto an image is sufficient to prove the two figures are congruent, in contrast to citing matching measured angles and sides as proof.
   • Dilating shapes with coordinatesGiven a scale factor and center of dilation, execute the coordinate rule to produce the image of a polygon.
   • What rigid motions and dilations preserveCompare a rigid-motion mapping and a dilation mapping applied to the same figure and identify which measurable properties (distance, angle measure, orientation) each preserves or fails to preserve.
   • Similarity from dilations and rigid motionsGiven two figures where one is a scaled, reoriented, and repositioned version of the other, determine whether they are congruent, similar, or neither, and justify the determination by describing a composite mapping (dilation plus rigid motion, or rigid motion alone).
   • Spotting transformations in real designsGiven a real-world image (e.g., a floor tile pattern or a logo) with no coordinate grid and no stated transformation, determine whether a repeated design element is related by a rigid motion or a dilation, and justify the choice using the general preserved-property argument rather than any coordinate rule.
   • Testing an unfamiliar transformationGiven an entirely unfamiliar transformation-like rule described in words (e.g., a 'shear' or a non-uniform stretch that scales x and y by different factors) never named or taught in this unit, determine whether it preserves distance, preserves angle measure, or neither, by applying the same general reasoning strategy (test specific point-pairs, check ratios) used for rigid motions and dilations.
2. Unit 2: Triangle Congruence and the Logic of ProofThis is where 'same shape because of a mapping' turns into an actual system of rules — SSS, SAS, ASA, AAS — and where proof-writing itself gets taught as a skill: every line needs a reason, not just a claim. It ends with isosceles triangle theorems, which require chaining two proven facts together.10 skills ▸close ▾

   • Finding corresponding parts after motionsGiven a rigid-motion mapping between two triangles (translation + rotation + reflection composition described in words or coordinates), state which sides and angles are corresponding without being told directly.
   • Why SSS, SAS, and ASA workExplain why checking three corresponding parts (in an SSS, SAS, or ASA arrangement) is logically sufficient to guarantee a rigid motion exists mapping one triangle onto the other, using the construction argument (a unique triangle is determined by that information).
   • Why SSA and AAA failConstruct a counterexample (two non-congruent triangles sharing an SSA or AAA correspondence) to demonstrate that SSA and AAA are not valid congruence criteria.
   • Choosing a criterion with inferred partsSelect the correct congruence criterion (SSS, SAS, ASA, or AAS) that applies to a given diagram with marked parts, including diagrams with shared sides, vertical angles, or parallel-line angle relationships requiring an inferred additional pair.
   • Two-column proofs about lines and anglesWrite a two-column proof of a stated theorem about lines and angles (vertical angles are congruent, or alternate interior angles are congruent given parallel lines) using only definitions and previously given facts as justifications.
   • Proofs with overlapping triangles and CPCTCConstruct a complete two-column or flowchart proof of triangle congruence for a diagram containing overlapping or shared triangles, choosing and justifying the correct criterion and applying CPCTC to draw a conclusion beyond the congruence itself.
   • Proving the isosceles triangle theoremProve the isosceles triangle theorem (base angles of an isosceles triangle are congruent) by constructing an auxiliary segment (the angle bisector from the apex) and chaining SAS congruence with CPCTC.
   • Fewest measurements for real-world congruenceGiven a real-world stability or design context (e.g., a triangulated bridge truss or a bracing structure) with no diagram provided, determine what minimal set of measurements would need to be verified equal to certify two triangular sections are congruent, and justify the choice.
   • Explaining why an SSA claim failsGiven a diagram with a marked SSA correspondence and a claimed congruence, write an explanation of specifically why the SSA information fails to guarantee congruence in that diagram (not merely state that SSA is invalid), identifying the specific ambiguous configuration.
   • Planning a proof for a new claimGiven a novel geometric claim outside the taught theorem list (e.g., the diagonal of a kite bisects the angles it connects), decide which combination of congruence criteria and prior theorems would need to be chained to prove it, without executing the full proof.
3. Unit 3: Similarity and Proportional Reasoning in TrianglesThis unit builds the similarity version of Unit 2's rules — AA, SAS~, SSS~ — and makes clear these are not just the congruence rules with a symbol added. It also proves the Pythagorean theorem a new way (through similar triangles formed by an altitude) and ends with indirect measurement: shadows, mirrors, and scale drawings, where the whole trick is spotting a hidden similar triangle.9 skills ▸close ▾

   • The AA similarity criterionGiven the dilation/scale-factor definition of similarity from Unit 1, state and use the AA similarity criterion to determine whether two triangles are similar, without checking side lengths.
   • Choosing among AA, SAS, and SSS similarityClassify a pair of triangles as similar by AA, SAS~, SSS~, or neither, given a diagram with a mix of marked angles and side lengths.
   • Why similarity needs less evidenceExplain why one pair of congruent angles is sufficient evidence for triangle similarity (AA) while one pair of congruent sides is never sufficient evidence for triangle congruence.
   • Using the triangle proportionality theoremApply the triangle proportionality theorem to find an unknown segment length when a line is drawn parallel to one side of a triangle.
   • Proving triangle proportionality and its converseProve that a line divides two sides of a triangle proportionally if and only if it is parallel to the third side, using the AA similarity criterion as the justification engine.
   • Geometric means in right trianglesDerive the geometric-mean relationships in a right triangle with an altitude drawn to the hypotenuse, by identifying the three similar right triangles created.
   • Proving the Pythagorean theorem with similarityProve the Pythagorean theorem using the similar triangles formed by the altitude to the hypotenuse, without reference to an area-based proof.
   • Finding similar triangles before measuringIdentify and justify the pair of similar triangles implicitly created by an indirect-measurement setup (shadow, mirror, or scale drawing) before computing an unknown length.
   • Congruent, similar, or neitherGiven a mixed set of triangle pairs, decide whether the pair is congruent, similar-but-not-congruent, or neither, and name the specific criterion or counterexample that justifies the decision.
4. Unit 4: Coordinate Geometry: Proof and Measurement on the PlaneThis unit moves proof off the diagram and onto the coordinate plane, using slope and the distance formula — both from Algebra I — to prove facts about quadrilaterals. It includes a strong focus on placing figures strategically (like putting a vertex at the origin) to make the arithmetic easier without changing what's being proved.10 skills ▸close ▾

   • Distance formula from the Pythagorean theoremDerive the distance formula from the Pythagorean theorem applied to a right triangle formed by horizontal and vertical legs between two coordinate points, and use it to compute the length of a segment.
   • Slopes of parallel and perpendicular linesApply the slope criteria (equal slope for parallel, negative reciprocal slope for perpendicular) to determine the relationship between two lines given as coordinates or equations.
   • Midpoints and segments split by ratioCompute the midpoint of a segment and the point that partitions a directed segment in a given non-1:1 ratio, connecting the ratio to a weighted average of coordinates.
   • Why slope and distance prove parallelogramsExplain why establishing that opposite sides of a quadrilateral are both parallel (equal slope) and equal in length (distance formula) is sufficient to conclude the figure is a parallelogram, connecting the coordinate evidence to the definition of a parallelogram.
   • Coordinate proofs for rectangles and rhombusesConstruct a coordinate proof that a given quadrilateral is a rectangle or rhombus by selecting and sequencing the correct combination of slope and distance computations.
   • Placing a figure on the axesJustify a strategic placement of a figure's vertices on the coordinate axes (e.g., a vertex at the origin, a side on an axis) that simplifies the arithmetic of an upcoming proof, without altering the shape or the property being proved.
   • Coordinate proofs from a written descriptionGiven only a verbal description of a quadrilateral (no diagram, no coordinates supplied), generate an original coordinate placement and complete proof of a stated property, without a template to match against.
   • Looks equal versus proven equalCritique a proposed coordinate argument that relies on the visual appearance of a figure on a grid (e.g., 'the sides look equal so it's a rhombus') rather than on computed slope/distance values, identifying exactly where the argument fails to establish the claim.
   • Two ways to prove parallelogram factsCompare a synthetic (Unit 2 triangle-congruence-based) proof and a coordinate proof of the same parallelogram property, identifying what each method takes as given and what work each does to reach the same conclusion.
   • Distance, midpoint, slope rules from memoryRecall the formulas for distance, midpoint, and slope criteria without reference materials.
5. Unit 5: Right Triangle TrigonometryThis unit takes the fixed similarity ratio from Unit 3 and gives it names: sine, cosine, tangent. Your child first confirms with actual measurement that the ratio doesn't change with triangle size, before any trig vocabulary appears. From there it's solving for missing sides, missing angles, and real angle-of-elevation/depression problems.9 skills ▸close ▾

   • Constant ratios in similar right trianglesGiven several right triangles with a shared acute angle but different side lengths, a student measures corresponding sides and computes the ratio opposite/hypotenuse for each, and states that the ratio is constant across triangle size because the triangles are similar.
   • Sine, cosine, and tangent as ratiosStudent states the definitions of sine, cosine, and tangent as ratios of specific side pairs (opposite/hypotenuse, adjacent/hypotenuse, opposite/adjacent) relative to a named acute angle in a right triangle.
   • Finding a missing side with trigGiven an acute angle measure and one side length of a right triangle, student sets up and solves the correct trig equation to find a missing side length, selecting sine, cosine, or tangent based on which sides are known and unknown relative to the given angle.
   • Finding an angle with inverse trigGiven two side lengths of a right triangle, student uses an inverse trig function to find the measure of an acute angle, and explains why the inverse operation undoes the ratio rather than treating it as an unrelated calculator button.
   • Drawing angles of elevation and depressionGiven a real-world description involving a line of sight to or from a horizontal, student draws and labels a right triangle diagram correctly distinguishing angle of elevation from angle of depression before selecting a trig ratio.
   • Sine and cosine of complementary anglesStudent proves that sin(theta) = cos(90 - theta) for any acute angle theta by relating the two acute angles of a right triangle as complements and showing that the side labeled 'opposite' for one angle is the side labeled 'adjacent' for the other.
   • Justifying your choice of triangleGiven an indirect-measurement scenario with no diagram provided and multiple plausible right-triangle setups (e.g., a shadow problem where the observer's own height matters or doesn't), student selects and justifies which right triangle and which trig ratio actually models the situation, stating the similarity relationship that licenses the ratio's use.
   • Trig in triangles without right anglesGiven a novel context outside right triangles entirely (e.g., a non-right triangle broken into two right triangles by an altitude, or a problem set in an unfamiliar unit system requiring unit conversion mid-solution), student generalizes right-triangle trig methods to solve the new problem without being told to split the triangle or convert units first.
   • Why similarity and trig agreeStudent compares the similarity-proportion method (Unit 3) and the trig-ratio method (this unit) applied to the same indirect-measurement problem and explains why both produce the same answer.
6. Unit 6: Circles: Angles, Arcs, Segments, and EquationsEvery circle fact in this unit comes from one starting point: all radii of a circle are equal, so any triangle made of two radii is isosceles. From there come inscribed angles, tangent lines, and chord relationships — all proved with Unit 2's congruence or Unit 3's similarity, not new rules. The unit ends with the circle's equation, which turns out to just be the distance formula from Unit 4 wearing a disguise.11 skills ▸close ▾

   • Two radii make an isosceles triangleGiven a circle diagram with two radii drawn, students state that the two radii are congruent by definition and identify the resulting triangle as isosceles.
   • Proving the inscribed angle theoremStudents derive that an inscribed angle measures half its intercepted arc, using the isosceles-triangle argument applied to two central-angle triangles formed by a radius to the inscribed angle's vertex.
   • Proving tangent segments are congruentStudents prove, citing the HL or SSS congruence criterion, that two tangent segments drawn from the same external point to a circle are congruent.
   • Intersecting chords and equal productsGiven a diagram of two intersecting chords pre-partitioned into two triangles with angle markings, students derive the equal-products relationship without being shown the rule, citing AA similarity.
   • Choosing the right segment product ruleStudents distinguish, from an unlabeled diagram, whether a segment-intersection problem is the chord-chord, secant-secant, or secant-tangent case, and apply the correct product relationship.
   • Arc length and sector areaStudents calculate arc length and sector area by setting up a proportion of the central angle to 360 degrees, in either direction (solve for arc/area given angle, or angle given arc/area).
   • Deriving the circle equation from distanceStudents derive the standard-form equation of a circle from a given center and radius using the distance formula, before being shown the general formula.
   • Completing the square for circlesStudents convert a circle's equation from general form to standard form by completing the square on both variables, and identify the resulting center and radius.
   • Distance, slope, or circle equationGiven an unlabeled coordinate-geometry problem, students identify whether the distance formula, slope, or circle-equation method applies and execute the correct procedure.
   • Area of circle and polygon figuresGiven a novel composite figure (e.g., an inscribed regular hexagon and its circumscribed circle) never presented during instruction, students combine sector-area, triangle-area, and segment reasoning to find an unrequested region's area.
   • Checking reasons in circle proofsStudents critique a peer's (or provided sample) circle proof to identify whether each line is justified by a previously established criterion or merely restates the diagram's appearance.
7. Unit 7: Three-Dimensional MeasurementThis unit moves from flat shapes to solids. Surface area turns out to be flat-shape area applied to the faces of a net; volume is built by stacking up flat cross-sections (Cavalieri's principle). The unit's other big idea — that doubling every dimension of a solid multiplies its volume by 8, not 2 — deliberately fights a strong, wrong intuition most kids have.8 skills ▸close ▾

   • Cavalieri's principle and equal volumesGiven two solids with congruent bases and equal heights (one right, one oblique), state and apply Cavalieri's principle to conclude their volumes are equal without computing either volume.
   • Volume of prisms, pyramids, cylinders, conesExecute the volume formula for a prism, cylinder, pyramid, or cone given labeled dimensions, selecting the correct formula for the solid shown.
   • Surface area using netsCompute the surface area of a prism, cylinder, cone, or pyramid by decomposing its net into 2D shapes with previously justified area formulas.
   • Deriving the volume of a sphereDerive the volume formula for a sphere by comparing a hemisphere's cross-sectional area at height h to the cross-sectional area of a cylinder-minus-cone at the same height, and explain why Cavalieri's principle guarantees equal volumes.
   • Scale factor, area, and volumeGiven a linear scale factor k applied to a solid, predict the resulting factor by which surface area and volume change (k^2 and k^3 respectively), justifying the exponent from the number of linear dimensions each measure is built from.
   • Composite solids from real objectsGiven a composite real-world object description with no formula provided, decompose it into known solids, identify the measurements needed, and compute total volume and surface area, correctly excluding internal seams from the surface area total.
   • Using density to find massConvert a computed volume into a real-world mass or vice versa using a given density value, and identify which unit conversions are required.
   • Choosing solids to model objectsClassify a given real-world object (e.g., a silo, a lampshade, a piece of furniture) by which basic and composite solids best model it, distinguishing cases where a frustum or hemisphere is a better model than a full cone or sphere.
8. Unit 8: Geometric Probability and Modeling with MeasurementThis closing unit reframes probability as a ratio of measurements — length, area, or volume — instead of counting outcomes. There's almost no new math technique here; it's entirely about the judgment calls: is this situation actually uniform (every point equally likely), and does the ratio you built actually match dimension to dimension.9 skills ▸close ▾

   • Discrete or continuous sample spacesGiven a scenario described in words (e.g., 'a bus arrives at a random time in a 20-minute window'), state whether the sample space is best modeled as discrete (countable) or continuous (measurable) and justify the choice in one sentence.
   • Probability on a number line segmentConstruct the ratio P(event) = (favorable length)/(total length) for a point landing on a specified sub-segment of a number line interval, given the interval and sub-segment endpoints.
   • Area probability for a single regionConstruct the ratio P(event) = (favorable area)/(total area) for a single target region matching the exact structure of the Day 2 worked example (one shape inscribed in another, e.g., a circle inscribed in a square, target = land in the inscribed shape), reusing the area formulas established in Unit 6 (circles) and earlier units (polygons) without any added composite-subtraction step.
   • Area probability for nested target regionsConstruct the ratio P(event) = (favorable area)/(total area) for a target/dartboard-style region composed of shapes whose areas were established in Unit 6 (circles) and earlier units (polygons), including regions requiring subtraction of an inner region from an outer one.
   • Why probability ratios need matching dimensionsExplain, using the ratio-of-measures definition, why the numerator and denominator of a geometric probability must be measured in the same dimension (length/length, area/area, volume/volume), and identify the dimensional error in a flawed ratio (e.g., area over length).
   • Checking the equally likely assumptionGiven a real or described random process, identify whether the uniform-distribution assumption underlying a geometric probability model plausibly holds, and state a specific reason the assumption could fail (e.g., a dart-thrower more likely to hit center, a bus more likely to arrive near the scheduled time).
   • Building your own geometric probability modelDesign a geometric probability model for a self-selected or teacher-assigned real scenario: define the sample space geometrically, construct the correct measure ratio, compute the probability, and write a justification of the uniform-distribution assumption the model requires, including a stated limitation.
   • Density as count per areaGiven a scenario about population or resource distribution (e.g., persons per square mile, trees per acre, bacteria per cubic centimeter), compute a density value as a ratio of a count to an area or volume measure, and use that density to estimate a count in a differently-sized region.
   • Geometric versus classical probability modelsCompare a geometric (area/volume-based) probability model to a classical (counting-based) probability model for the same underlying random process, and explain what feature of the process determines which model is legitimate.

Try a real Geometry: Structure, Proof, and Measurement lesson, no account needed →

1. Unit 1: Describing Matter: Measurement, Properties, and ClassificationThis is where your child learns to describe stuff in the kitchen using numbers and evidence instead of just appearance — how heavy something is for its size (density), whether it's one substance or several mixed together, and whether a change is 'the same stuff rearranged' or 'now it's actually a different substance.' It also teaches that a measurement can only be as precise as the tool that made it — writing down more decimal places than your ruler can actually support is a false claim, not a nicety.9 skills ▸close ▾

   • Significant figures and instrument precisionGiven a measuring instrument (graduated cylinder, balance, ruler), record a measurement to the correct number of significant figures and identify the uncertainty implied by that instrument.
   • Significant figures in calculationsApply the rules for significant figures in addition/subtraction versus multiplication/division to compute a derived quantity (e.g., density) from two measured values, rounding the answer to the correct number of sig figs.
   • Classifying elements, compounds, and mixturesClassify a given sample of matter as an element, compound, homogeneous mixture, or heterogeneous mixture by citing evidence of composition (uniformity, separability, particle representation) rather than appearance alone.
   • Physical change or chemical changeDistinguish physical from chemical change in a novel, previously unseen example by identifying whether the substance's chemical identity changed, not by matching the example to a memorized list of 'signs.'
   • Why bubbles and color fall shortExplain why color, texture, or the production of bubbles/gas/light/heat is not by itself sufficient evidence to classify a change as chemical, using the counter-cases of dissolving CO2 escaping soda (physical) and rusting (chemical, slow, no visible bubbles).
   • Identifying materials by densityGiven density data (mass and volume, or mass and displaced volume) for an unknown material, calculate density and use it to identify the material from a reference table, justifying the identification as evidence rather than assumption.
   • Separating mixtures using physical propertiesPlan a two-step separation procedure (choosing from filtration, evaporation, and chromatography) for a novel kitchen mixture never used in class, justifying each step by the specific physical property it exploits (particle size, boiling point, solubility/polarity affinity).
   • Claim, evidence, reasoning with densityConstruct a claim-evidence-reasoning argument that identifies each recovered component of a separated mixture, using measured density data as evidence and the definition of a pure substance as the reasoning link.
   • Precision limits in everyday numbersGeneralize the principle that measurement precision must never exceed what the instrument can support to a context outside chemistry (e.g., a nutrition label, a news report of a poll percentage, a GPS coordinate) and explain why the reported precision is or is not justified.
2. Unit 2: Inside the Atom: Structure and the Periodic TableUp to now the periodic table has just been a chart to look things up on. This unit turns it into a record of what's actually inside an atom — protons, neutrons, electrons, and how electrons are arranged — and shows how that arrangement explains patterns like which elements are metals, which react similarly, and why atomic size changes as you move around the table. It also covers the historical detective work (cathode rays, the gold foil experiment) that changed what scientists thought atoms looked like.10 skills ▸close ▾

   • Counting protons, neutrons, and electronsGiven the number of protons, neutrons, and electrons in a neutral atom or ion, state the atomic number, mass number, and net charge.
   • Isotopes and neutron countsGiven the standard notation for an isotope (mass number and atomic number), determine the number of neutrons and distinguish it from other isotopes of the same element.
   • Writing electron configurationsWrite the electron configuration for a given main-group element in periods 1-4 using energy-level filling rules.
   • Gold foil and the nuclear atomExplain how the gold foil scattering evidence forced revision from the Thomson 'plum pudding' model to the Rutherford nuclear model.
   • Why periodic trends happenGiven unlabeled radius and ionization energy data for a set of elements not used in instruction, generate a rule connecting position on the periodic table to both trends and identify the underlying mechanism (nuclear charge and shielding).
   • Predicting trends from table positionPredict the relative atomic radius, electronegativity, and ionization energy of elements in an unfamiliar region of the periodic table (not drilled in class) and justify each prediction from position alone.
   • Emission spectra and energy levelsGiven an atomic emission spectrum (a set of discrete line positions) for an element, construct an argument for what the pattern of discrete lines implies about electron energy levels within the atom.
   • Bohr model versus electron cloud modelCompare the Bohr model and the electron cloud (quantum) model of the atom in terms of what each model can and cannot correctly predict.
   • Metals, nonmetals, and element familiesClassify a given element as a metal, nonmetal, or metalloid, and as belonging to a specific group (alkali metal, halogen, noble gas, transition metal) based on its position on the periodic table.
   • Valence electrons and ion chargeGiven the number of valence electrons for a main-group element, predict the ionic charge that element is most likely to form.
3. Unit 3: Chemical Bonding: Why and How Atoms ConnectThis is where the electron ideas from Unit 2 turn into an explanation for why atoms stick together at all. Your child will build ionic compounds (formula units) and covalent molecules (Lewis structures), figure out when a bond is polar versus nonpolar versus ionic, and learn to name and write chemical formulas as a skill, not a puzzle. A key move: comparing CO2 and H2O side by side to see that a molecule can have polar bonds but still be nonpolar overall, depending on shape.10 skills ▸close ▾

   • Valence electrons and group numberGiven an element's group number, state its number of valence electrons and whether it tends to lose, gain, or share electrons to reach a noble-gas configuration.
   • Balancing charges in ionic formulasConstruct the formula unit for a binary ionic compound from two given main-group elements by balancing positive and negative charge to net zero.
   • Drawing Lewis structures for moleculesDraw a correct Lewis structure for a simple covalent molecule (up to 3 atoms, single bonds only) by distributing valence electrons to satisfy the octet rule.
   • Why atoms transfer or share electronsExplain why an atom transfers or shares electrons in terms of relative electrostatic stability, without using goal-directed language ('wants', 'tries').
   • Electronegativity and bond typesGiven electronegativity values or qualitative electronegativity trend position for two bonded atoms, classify the bond as nonpolar covalent, polar covalent, or ionic.
   • Bond polarity versus molecule polarityGiven contrasted molecular data (bond polarity vs. molecular symmetry) for two molecules such as CO2 and H2O, infer and justify whether each whole molecule is polar, distinguishing bond polarity from molecular polarity.
   • Writing formulas with polyatomic ionsName and write the correct formula for an ionic compound containing a polyatomic ion, given the ion's name and charge from a reference table.
   • How bond type explains propertiesGiven melting point, conductivity, and solubility data for an unfamiliar substance never discussed in class, argue in writing whether the substance is ionic, covalent-polar, or covalent-nonpolar, citing specific data points as evidence for the structural claim.
   • Reading for limits of the octet ruleGiven a short excerpt from a chemistry reference text describing an exception to the octet rule (e.g., BF3 or SF6), determine what specific textual evidence signals the model's limitation and explain why the octet model fails in that case.
   • Ion charge and melting pointPredict the relative melting point ranking of two ionic compounds never discussed in class, using only their ions' charge magnitudes as evidence, and justify the prediction in terms of electrostatic attraction strength.
4. Unit 4: Counting the Uncountable: The Mole and StoichiometryThis is the quantitative heart of the whole course: how you count particles too small to see, by weighing them instead. Your child learns the mole as a fixed count (like 'a dozen,' but for a huge number), separate from mass, then learns to balance chemical equations as conservation of atoms, and finally uses balanced equations to predict how much product a reaction will make. It ends with a real sealed-bag reaction where they predict a result mathematically and then test it.9 skills ▸close ▾

   • Finding molar mass from formulasGiven a chemical formula, calculate its molar mass by summing atomic masses from the periodic table.
   • Converting grams to moles and particlesConvert a given mass of a pure substance to number of moles and to number of particles using molar mass and Avogadro's number.
   • Why a mole is a countExplain why the mole is defined as a fixed count of particles rather than a unit of mass or volume, using the dozen/golf-ball/bowling-ball comparison as evidence.
   • Balancing chemical equationsBalance a chemical equation by adjusting coefficients so that the number of atoms of each element is equal on both sides, without altering subscripts.
   • Grams of reactant to grams of productGiven a balanced equation and a known mass of one reactant, calculate the mass of a specified product using mole ratios and molar mass conversions.
   • Finding the limiting reactantIdentify the limiting reactant in a qualitative scenario (e.g., a recipe with a capped ingredient) by comparing the ratio of available reactants to the required ratio.
   • Why mass seems to changeApply conservation of atoms to explain an observed change in measured mass during a reaction in an unfamiliar closed or open system not used in instruction.
   • Solving a new stoichiometry problemGiven an unpracticed reaction and a mass of reactant, generate the complete solution path (balance, convert to moles, apply ratio, convert to mass of product) without being told which steps apply.
   • Theoretical yield versus lab resultsCompare predicted (theoretical) mass of product to measured mass from the sealed-bag lab and construct an evidence-based explanation for any discrepancy.
5. Unit 5: Gases and the Kinetic Molecular ModelIf gases are just countless tiny particles bouncing around, why do they behave so predictably? This unit builds that particle picture (kinetic molecular theory) and uses it to explain pressure, and to derive the classic gas laws (Boyle's and Charles's) from real data before naming them. It ends at the ideal gas law, which uses the mole conversion skill from Unit 4 directly, and finishes with your child designing their own gas experiment (a balloon in hot and cold water, or a syringe) and explaining any mismatch between prediction and result.10 skills ▸close ▾

   • The four assumptions of kinetic theoryState the four core assumptions of kinetic molecular theory (particles in constant random motion, negligible particle volume relative to container, no intermolecular attraction, elastic collisions) and identify which assumption is violated in a given real-gas scenario.
   • How collisions create gas pressureExplain why gas pressure results from the frequency and force of particle collisions with container walls, connecting an increase in temperature to an increase in average particle kinetic energy and collision force.
   • Discovering Boyle's and Charles's LawsGiven a pressure-volume or volume-temperature data set for a fixed amount of gas, classify the relationship as directly or inversely proportional and generalize it into a rule (Boyle's Law or Charles's Law) without being told the law's name in advance.
   • Calculating with the gas lawsSolve for an unknown pressure, volume, or temperature using Boyle's Law, Charles's Law, or the combined gas law, correctly converting temperature to Kelvin before substitution.
   • Choosing the right gas lawGiven an unfamiliar gas scenario description (no equation or law named), determine which variable is held constant and select and apply the correct gas law (Boyle's, Charles's, combined, or ideal gas law).
   • Molar volume of gases at STPCalculate moles, mass, or volume of a gas at STP using molar volume (22.4 L/mol) and the mole concept from Unit 4, distinguishing cases where mole count, mass, and volume diverge for different gases.
   • Ideal gas law starting from gramsApply the ideal gas law (PV = nRT) to solve for an unknown quantity (P, V, n, or T) in a multi-step problem that first requires converting mass to moles using molar mass from Unit 4.
   • When real gases stop behaving ideallyExplain, using the kinetic molecular model, at least one specific condition (high pressure or low temperature) under which real gas behavior deviates measurably from ideal gas law predictions, citing particle volume or intermolecular attraction as the mechanism.
   • Kitchen experiment testing a gas lawDesign and carry out a kitchen-safe gas investigation (balloon in hot/cold water or syringe compression), collecting quantitative data and using it to test a specific gas law prediction, then reconciling any discrepancy between predicted and observed results using KMT rather than attributing it solely to measurement error.
   • Critiquing explanations of gas behaviorCompare and critique a peer's or provided sample explanation of a gas behavior scenario, identifying whether the explanation relies on goal-directed or substance-transfer language (e.g., 'the gas wants to expand,' 'heat enters the balloon') versus correct particle-collision mechanism.
6. Unit 6: Solutions: Concentration and SolubilityThis unit answers why things dissolve (using the polarity ideas from Unit 3) and how to measure how much is dissolved (using the mole math from Unit 4). Your child will figure out 'like dissolves like' by testing solutes in water versus oil, then move into molarity and dilution calculations, and finally build and read a solubility curve from real data they collect by heating water and dissolving a solid in it to the saturation point.10 skills ▸close ▾

   • Polarity, shape, and solubilityGiven a solute and solvent pair not used in class demonstrations, students will classify whether it will dissolve using bond polarity and molecular shape reasoning.
   • Calculating molarity of a solutionStudents will calculate the molarity of a solution given moles or grams of solute and volume of solution, using M = mol/L.
   • Solving problems with the dilution formulaStudents will calculate a new molarity or volume after dilution using M1V1 = M2V2, given three of the four quantities.
   • Why dilution keeps the same molesStudents will explain why the total moles of solute remain constant during dilution even though the solution appears more dilute, in response to a claim that dilution destroys some of the solute.
   • Choosing formulas for multistep problemsGiven a novel multi-step problem combining mole conversion, molarity, and dilution with numbers not matching any practiced problem, students will select and execute the correct sequence of formulas.
   • Dynamic equilibrium in saturated solutionsStudents will explain that a saturated solution at equilibrium continues to have particles dissolving and recrystallizing at equal rates, rather than describing dissolving as having stopped.
   • Collisions and the rate of dissolvingStudents will predict the effect of temperature, agitation, and surface area on the RATE of dissolving, citing particle collision frequency from the kinetic-molecular model, for a scenario not explicitly demonstrated in class.
   • Graphing a solubility curveStudents will construct a solubility curve graph from experimentally collected temperature and mass-dissolved-at-saturation data, with correctly labeled axes and units.
   • Classifying solutions using solubility curvesGiven an unfamiliar solubility curve for a solute not studied in class, students will classify a data point as unsaturated, saturated, or supersaturated and justify the classification using the curve's shape.
   • When like dissolves like falls shortGiven a completely unfamiliar polar molecule with an unusual structure (e.g., an amino acid or surfactant not discussed in class) and asked whether 'like dissolves like' correctly predicts its solubility behavior, students will identify the specific structural feature that makes the simple rule an incomplete explanation and generalize a refined account.
7. Unit 7: Rates and Equilibrium: Reactions in MotionThis unit shifts the question from 'how much' to 'how fast, and does it ever actually stop.' Your child explains reaction speed using particle collisions (frequency and energy), and equilibrium as a state where forward and reverse reactions are happening at equal rates — not a state where reaction has stopped. It moves through rate factors and energy diagrams (fully explained with worked examples), then into equilibrium and Le Chatelier's principle (mostly figured out by observing a real reversible system), and ends with Keq expressions and a rate-investigation lab.11 skills ▸close ▾

   • Four factors that change reaction rateGiven a reaction scenario, state which of the four rate factors (concentration, temperature, surface area, catalyst) was changed and predict whether rate increases or decreases.
   • Collision theory and temperatureExplain, using a collision-frequency argument, why increasing temperature increases reaction rate through two distinct mechanisms: more frequent collisions and a greater fraction of particles with energy above the activation energy threshold.
   • Reading reaction energy diagramsInterpret an unfamiliar energy diagram (not used in instruction) to identify activation energy, whether the reaction is exothermic or endothermic, and the relative energy of reactants versus products.
   • Recognizing dynamic equilibrium in dataGiven observational data from a reversible color-change or dissolving/precipitating system over time, classify whether the system has reached dynamic equilibrium or is still net-shifting toward one side.
   • Why equilibrium is not stoppedExplain why a system at equilibrium is still undergoing reaction in both directions, using the rate-equality definition rather than describing it as stopped or balanced 50/50.
   • Equilibrium shifts with concentration and temperaturePredict the direction an equilibrium system will shift when a familiar type of stressor (concentration change or temperature change, both practiced in class) is applied, and justify the prediction using rate reasoning.
   • Le Chatelier's principle in new situationsPredict and justify the equilibrium shift for a stressor type not explicitly practiced in class (e.g., a volume/pressure change in a gas-phase system, or continuous removal of a product), using the same rate-based reasoning developed for familiar stressors.
   • Writing equilibrium constant expressionsWrite a correct equilibrium constant (Keq) expression for a given balanced chemical equation, using the coefficients as exponents.
   • Reading the size of KeqGiven a Keq expression and its numeric value for an unfamiliar reaction, infer whether the reaction favors products or reactants at equilibrium and compare two such reactions' relative extent.
   • Designing a fair tablet rate testPlan and carry out a controlled investigation varying one factor (surface area or temperature) affecting the rate of a tablet-dissolving reaction, collecting time-based rate data with appropriate controls.
   • Analyzing tablet dissolving rate dataAnalyze a peer or provided data set from a rate investigation (time vs. amount reacted, under varied surface area/temperature) to determine which condition produced the fastest rate and identify a plausible source of experimental error.
8. Unit 8: Acids, Bases, and Electron Transfer: Chemistry in ActionThe year's final unit ties everything together: acid-base reactions and redox (electron-transfer) reactions are both explained as one particle moving from one substance to another — a proton in acid-base chemistry, an electron in redox. Your child moves from the simple Arrhenius definition to the more general Bronsted-Lowry one, tests household substances with homemade red cabbage indicator, runs a real titration to find an unknown concentration, and reframes rusting, combustion, and batteries as electron-transfer reactions.11 skills ▸close ▾

   • Arrhenius and Bronsted Lowry definitionsState the Arrhenius and Bronsted-Lowry definitions of acids and bases and identify which one applies to a given reaction.
   • Finding conjugate acid and base pairsIdentify the conjugate acid-base pair in a Bronsted-Lowry proton-transfer reaction, including in reactions not shown during instruction.
   • The pH scale and cabbage indicatorPredict the relative pH and color change of a red cabbage indicator solution for common household substances based on their particle-level proton concentration.
   • Finding concentration by titrationCalculate the unknown molar concentration of an acid or base from titration volume and concentration data using mole ratios from a balanced neutralization equation.
   • Titration with uneven mole ratiosDetermine an unknown solution's concentration from titration data when the acid or base is polyprotic or the mole ratio is not 1:1.
   • Rules for assigning oxidation numbersAssign oxidation numbers to atoms in a compound or ion using periodic-trend-based rules.
   • Finding what is oxidized and reducedIdentify the species oxidized and the species reduced in an unfamiliar redox reaction by tracking change in oxidation number.
   • Rust, fire, and batteries as redoxExplain rusting, combustion, and battery discharge as everyday examples of electron transfer between specific chemical species.
   • Using pH data to argueConstruct a written, evidence-based argument connecting measured pH data to a particle-level claim about relative proton concentration and direction of proton transfer.
   • Designing and running a titrationDesign and carry out a titration procedure to determine the unknown concentration of a household acid or base, selecting appropriate indicator and calculation method.
   • Protons and electrons as transfersCompare the particle transferred (proton vs. electron) across acid-base and redox reactions and explain why both are classified as transfer reactions.

Try a real Chemistry in the Kitchen and Beyond: Matter, Energy, and Change lesson, no account needed →

1. Unit 1: Land Empires and Exchange Networks, c. 1200-1450This opens the course by showing that the world was already tightly connected — through trade, religion, and conquest — centuries before Europeans crossed the Atlantic. Your child will trace the Silk Roads, Indian Ocean trade, and Trans-Saharan routes, look at the Mongol Empire as the era's biggest connector and disruptor, and study the Black Death as a disease that spread along the same roads merchants used.8 skills ▸close ▾

   • Three trade networks and their goodsGiven a thematic map of Afro-Eurasia c. 1300, students will trace and label the three major trade networks (Silk Roads, Indian Ocean, Trans-Saharan) and identify at least two goods characteristic of each.
   • Tribute versus direct ruleStudents will explain how the tribute system functioned as a mechanism of imperial control, distinguishing it from direct territorial administration, using the Yuan or Mali empire as the case.
   • Two accounts of Mongol ruleGiven two accounts of Mongol rule (one Persian, one Chinese chronicle excerpt), students will compare how each source characterizes Mongol governance and infer what each author's position explains about the difference.
   • Three kinds of diffusionStudents will classify a list of historical developments (e.g., spread of gunpowder, spread of bubonic plague, spread of paper money, spread of a specific religious practice) as primarily cultural diffusion, technological diffusion, or pandemic diffusion, and justify borderline cases.
   • Why disease spread along trade routesStudents will infer, from mortality and trade-route data for the Black Death, why the disease spread faster along trade corridors than across regions without trade contact, without being told the mechanism directly.
   • Unintended effects of global networksGiven a contemporary case of a global supply-chain disruption (e.g., a shipping-lane blockage or a modern pandemic) that was NOT discussed in class, students will generalize the unit's network-effects principle (connection produces unintended, unplanned winners and losers) and apply it to explain the new case.
   • Were the Mongols purely destructiveStudents will evaluate a claim ('The Mongols were purely destructive') against a 5-6 source document set, determining which sources support, complicate, or contradict the claim, and produce a written argument that takes a defensible position using at least two source types.
   • What makes an empireStudents will recall the definition of empire and correctly identify three examples of land-based empires operating in Afro-Eurasia c. 1200-1450 (Mongol, Mali, Yuan/Ming or Delhi Sultanate).
2. Unit 2: Encounter and Exchange: The Atlantic World, 1450-1750This unit asks how sustained contact between the Americas and Europe/Africa after 1492 produced huge, unplanned consequences — mass death from disease, forced-labor economies, a trade system spanning three continents. Your child will work with conflicting accounts from European, Indigenous American, and West African points of view, and the unit deliberately does not resolve them into one clean story.11 skills ▸close ▾

   • Which way the Columbian Exchange flowedGiven a map of Atlantic trade routes and a list of items (crops, animals, disease pathogens, people), students correctly sort each item into 'Old World to New World' or 'New World to Old World' as taught in the worked example. This is a factual recall/pattern-matching task, not evidence of understanding why direction is fixed. That reasoning is assessed separately by the companion objective below.
   • Predicting exchange direction from originsGiven an unfamiliar item (a crop, animal, or pathogen not used in any prior worked example or practice set) and a brief note on where it was domesticated or first endemic, students correctly determine its direction of exchange and justify the judgment using domestication/endemic-origin logic (e.g., 'this animal was domesticated in Eurasia thousands of years before 1492, so it could only have moved Old World to New World') rather than by resemblance to a memorized category.
   • Why disease devastated Indigenous AmericansStudents explain why the demographic collapse of Indigenous American populations after 1492 resulted primarily from disease rather than from direct violence, citing epidemiological reasoning (lack of prior exposure/immunity) rather than only citing death totals.
   • Encomienda and chattel slavery comparedStudents compare encomienda and chattel slavery as forced-labor systems, identifying at least two structural similarities (labor coercion, economic extraction for a colonial power) and at least two structural differences (legal status of the laborer, hereditability of status).
   • Spotting mercantilism without the wordGiven a primary source excerpt describing colonial trade policy, students infer whether the policy reflects mercantilist logic (colonies exist to enrich the mother country) even when the source never uses the word 'mercantilism.'
   • The triangular trade leg by legStudents analyze a triangular trade diagram to explain how profit was generated at each leg of the voyage (Europe to West Africa, West Africa to Americas, Americas to Europe), attributing specific goods and their economic function to each leg.
   • Two accounts of one Atlantic eventStudents construct a written comparison of how a European colonizer's account and a West African or Indigenous account describe the same historical event (e.g., an encounter, a labor arrangement, a trade transaction), identifying which details each author includes, omits, or emphasizes and explaining why the author's position might account for that difference.
   • Mercantilism in other times and placesPresented with a case of economic exploitation from an entirely different historical period not covered in this course (e.g., a resource-extraction economy the student has not studied), students determine whether mercantilist logic is present, absent, or only partially present, and justify the judgment using the definitional features of mercantilism taught in this unit.
   • Contact, collapse, and extraction elsewhereGiven a novel dataset or timeline (e.g., population estimates from a region/period not studied in this unit, such as a Pacific island contact scenario), students generalize whether the pattern of contact, demographic collapse, and forced-labor economy documented for the Atlantic World applies, and identify what additional evidence would be needed to decide.
   • System versus individual responsibilityStudents evaluate whether the claim 'individual actors in a forced-labor system can be morally blameless while the system itself is evil' is defensible, using specific evidence about how encomienda or chattel slavery operated (legal codification, institutional routine, intergenerational scale) rather than general statements about morality.
   • Key terms of the Atlantic WorldStudents recall the definitions of Columbian Exchange, demographic collapse, mercantilism, encomienda, chattel slavery, and triangular trade well enough to use each term correctly in a written sentence about the Atlantic World.
3. Unit 3: Revolutions and the Language of Rights, 1750-1850This unit compares the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions on one shared question: who actually gained legal rights, and who didn't, once the speeches were over. It starts with direct teaching of unfamiliar words — natural rights, popular sovereignty, social contract — because none of that has come up yet in the course.9 skills ▸close ▾

   • Enlightenment ideas and their thinkersStudents state, from memory, the definitions of natural rights, popular sovereignty, and the social contract, and correctly attribute each to its associated Enlightenment thinker (Locke, Rousseau).
   • Enlightenment ideas in three declarationsStudents classify specific clauses from the Declaration of Independence, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man, and the Haitian Declaration of Independence as expressing natural-rights, popular-sovereignty, or neither idea.
   • When rights on paper contradicted lawGiven a founding-document excerpt and a contemporaneous legal document (a slave code or a property-qualification voting law) from the same society, students identify the specific point of contradiction between the document's rhetoric and the legal condition it describes.
   • Why revolutions ended slavery differentlyStudents explain why the Haitian Revolution abolished slavery immediately while the U.S. Revolution did not, citing at least two specific structural factors (demographic ratio of enslaved to free population; economic dependence of planters on enslaved labor) rather than a general cultural explanation.
   • Who gained rights after revolutionsStudents compare the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions along a single shared dimension, which specific group gained legal rights and which did not, and generate a general statement about the relationship between pre-revolutionary economic structure and post-revolutionary outcome that holds across all three cases.
   • Nationalism and who it excludesStudents differentiate nationalism as a mobilizing political idea from patriotism or general national pride, by identifying who a specific nationalist text explicitly excludes from the nation it defines.
   • Revolutionary words versus real conditionsGiven a previously unseen founding or revolutionary document from a society and period not covered in this unit (e.g., a Latin American independence declaration), students apply the rhetoric-vs-structural-condition analytic frame developed in this unit to predict which groups likely did and did not gain rights, and identify what additional evidence would be needed to confirm the prediction.
   • Building a revolution comparison chartStudents execute the structural comparison chart procedure (who led, who was excluded before, who was excluded after) for a fourth revolution-era document set provided independently, without teacher modeling on that specific document set.
   • Writing a comparative thesis on rightsStudents draft and revise a comparative thesis statement for the summative essay that names a specific group and states whether that group's legal status changed consistently with, or contrary to, the revolution's founding rhetoric, incorporating Unit 2 forced-labor vocabulary as evidentiary support.
4. Unit 4: Industrialization and Its Discontents, 1750-1900This unit holds two true things at once: industrialization created real new wealth, and it created new kinds of poverty that the old political language (rights, sovereignty) wasn't built to describe — until people bent that language to cover it. It opens with three days of direct teaching on capital, wage labor, and social class as one connected system, because everything else in the unit and two later units depends on that.9 skills ▸close ▾

   • Capital and wage laborGiven a diagram of a factory owner's capital and a worker's labor, students correctly label which party owns the means of production and which sells labor for a wage.
   • Sorting people into social classesStudents classify a set of six historical figures (factory owner, mill worker, small shopkeeper, sharecropper, land-owning aristocrat, factory foreman) into the social-class categories taught in Lesson 3, citing each person's relationship to capital as the basis for classification.
   • Why factory conditions variedUsing two primary-source factory accounts from different decades or countries, students explain why a single generalization about 'factory conditions' is unsupported by the evidence, citing the specific dates and locations of each source.
   • Telling early from late industrializationGiven a new primary source describing labor conditions in a country not covered in class (e.g., Belgium or Japan), students infer whether the source is more consistent with early or late-stage industrialization based on the mechanisms taught (capital source, regulation level, urbanization rate) without being told which stage it represents.
   • Smith and Marx on factoriesStudents compare Adam Smith's and Karl Marx/Engels's accounts of the same factory evidence, identifying the specific mechanism each theorist proposes to explain or resolve the condition described.
   • Natural rights language in labor reformStudents explain why reformers and radicals in this unit used the natural-rights vocabulary of Unit 3's revolutions to argue for labor protections, citing at least one specific rights claim and the specific labor condition it was applied to.
   • Why Britain industrialized firstGiven partial economic and geographic data (coal deposits, colonial capital inflows, existing textile trade volume) for three countries, students generate a ranked explanation of why Britain industrialized first, identifying which factor was necessary versus merely contributing.
   • Choosing the best response to industrializationStudents construct a source-based written argument taking a position on whether reform, revolution, or unregulated growth was the response the evidence best supports, integrating at least three primary/secondary sources they themselves select and sort from an unsorted summative packet, and one paragraph connecting the argument to Unit 3's natural-rights vocabulary.
   • Key words of industrial economiesStudents recall the definitions of capital, wage labor, social class, and urbanization from memory on a closed-note check.
5. Unit 5: Empire and Its Costs: Global Imperialism, 1850-1914This treats imperialism as a system with actual moving parts, not a list of countries and colonies. The core claim: imperialism fuses Unit 3's nationalism with Unit 4's industrial competition, dressed up in the language of national greatness and, increasingly, racial hierarchy.9 skills ▸close ▾

   • Three ways empires controlled territoryGiven a short case description of a territory (e.g., Egypt, the Congo, Korea), state whether the mechanism of control described is a concession, a protectorate, or direct rule, and identify the textual clue that signals which.
   • Mutual benefit or extractionExplain why a colonial administrator's description of a policy as 'mutually beneficial' and a colonized author's description of the same policy as extractive can both be accurate accounts of what happened, by naming what each account foregrounds and omits.
   • What each side leaves outGiven two primary sources on the same imperial policy (one colonizer, one colonized), identify at least two specific details that one source includes and the other omits, and state what including or omitting that detail does for the author's argument.
   • The Berlin Conference's purpose and effectRecall the sequence of the Berlin Conference (1884-85) and state its stated purpose versus its actual effect on African political boundaries.
   • Why social Darwinism came laterConstruct a causal argument for why social Darwinism emerged as a popular justification for empire AFTER most territorial seizures were already underway, using the timeline evidence and economic motive evidence studied in this unit, rather than treating racial ideology as the unit's sole or first cause.
   • Weighing the causes of imperialismCompare the economic-motive explanation, the nationalist-competition explanation, and the racial-ideology explanation for imperial expansion, and produce a written argument stating which explanation the student weighs as most necessary (not merely contributing) for a specific case, with textual evidence.
   • Spotting imperial control todayGiven a previously unseen 20th- or 21st-century case of a powerful state exercising indirect economic or political control over a weaker one (not covered in this unit), identify which imperial-era mechanism (concession-style resource extraction, protectorate-style political dependency, or direct administrative control) it most resembles, and justify the match with specific parallel features.
   • How anti-imperial resistance succeeded or failedGiven a resistance movement not studied in this unit's case examples (e.g., a movement from a region other than the ones covered in class), generate a plausible argument for why it succeeded, failed, or achieved partial goals, drawing on the categories of resistance strategy (armed conflict, diplomatic maneuvering, cultural preservation) studied in Lesson 8.
   • Explaining colonial policy using two sourcesIn a paired-source DBQ response, integrate evidence from both a colonizer's official justification and a colonized author's account to name the underlying economic or ideological mechanism, using Unit 4's vocabulary of capital and wage labor accurately.
6. Unit 6: Total War and Its Ideologies, 1914-1945This traces how the rivalries and alliances from Unit 5 escalated into a war that pulled in entire societies, and how fascism and totalitarianism became most dangerous not as fanatical belief but as routine bureaucratic policy. The unit's main tool is a test for telling a necessary cause from a merely contributing one, and it gets applied three times: to WWI's outbreak, to the rise of fascist institutions, and to the mechanics of the Holocaust.12 skills ▸close ▾

   • How alliances pulled countries into warStudents can trace the specific treaty-obligation mechanism by which one alliance commitment (e.g., Germany's backing of Austria-Hungary) obligated a second power to act.
   • Necessary or contributing causes of warStudents can classify a given candidate cause of WWI's outbreak (e.g., militarism, colonial rivalry) as necessary or contributing by applying the counterfactual removal test.
   • Ranking why World War I beganGiven a full set of five candidate causes and evidence cards, students can rank the causes by necessity and justify the ranking with the counterfactual test in connected prose.
   • Persuasion techniques in war propagandaStudents can name the specific persuasive technique (fear appeal, dehumanization, appeal to unity, bandwagon) used in an unfamiliar propaganda poster and cite the visual/textual evidence for it.
   • Same propaganda technique, then and nowStudents can identify the same named propaganda technique operating in both a historical WWI/WWII poster and a self-selected contemporary media example, with matched evidence for each.
   • How bureaucracy carried out the HolocaustStudents can explain, using at least two cited pieces of primary-document evidence, how a specific ordinary bureaucratic role (e.g., railway scheduling, census registration) contributed to the mechanics of the Holocaust.
   • Resistance and the limits of bureaucracyStudents can identify a specific instance of individual or institutional resistance to genocide policy and explain what it reveals about the limits of the bureaucracy-as-full-explanation account.
   • Home fronts in both world warsStudents can compare WWI and WWII home-front mobilization using a shared comparison framework and state a specific claim about what was structurally new versus repeated.
   • Wartime government powers after 1945Students can evaluate a post-war data set (labor participation, taxation, conscription policy) to determine whether wartime government powers persisted or reverted after 1945, citing specific data points.
   • Ranking causes in a new conflictGiven an unfamiliar historical conflict outside this unit's taught content, students can apply the necessary-vs-contributing counterfactual test to rank its causes, generalizing the method beyond WWI.
   • Key terms from the world warsStudents can recall the definitions of total war, propaganda, totalitarianism, fascism, genocide, and bureaucracy from memory without notes.
   • Writing an essay on WWI causesStudents can write a five-paragraph causal argument essay that cites at least three causes of WWI, ranks them by necessity, and defends the ranking with textual evidence.
7. Unit 7: Cold War and Decolonization, 1945-1991This holds two big stories together: the US-USSR standoff, and the collapse of European empires across Africa and Asia. Neither one fully makes sense alone — superpowers competed for new states' loyalty, and new states used that competition as leverage even while it limited their choices.10 skills ▸close ▾

   • Why empires lost their coloniesGiven a map and timeline of decolonization in Africa and Asia 1945-1975, students will explain at least two distinct mechanisms (financial exhaustion from WWII, rising nationalist movements using WWII-era rhetoric) that ended formal European empire in a given case.
   • Nonalignment versus neutralityStudents will correctly define and give an original example of 'non-alignment' distinct from 'neutrality' as used in Cold War diplomacy.
   • Proxy wars in the Cold WarStudents will classify a set of six Cold War conflicts (Korea, Vietnam, Angola, Afghanistan, Congo, Nicaragua) as proxy wars or civil wars with external intervention, justifying the classification with at least one piece of textual evidence.
   • Major Cold War crises and datesStudents will recall the years and blocs involved in three named Cold War crises (Berlin Blockade, Cuban Missile Crisis, Korean War).
   • One Cold War event, two sourcesGiven primary source excerpts from a superpower-aligned newspaper and a non-aligned nation's leader (e.g., Nehru, Nkrumah), students will compare how each source frames the same Cold War event and infer the underlying interest driving the framing.
   • Why economic dependence outlasted independenceStudents will explain why economic dependency persisted after formal political independence in a decolonized nation, citing Unit 2's forced-labor/cash-crop economies and Unit 4's industrial-capital patterns as antecedent structures.
   • Explaining paths after independenceGiven an unfamiliar decolonizing nation not covered in class (e.g., Guinea-Bissau, East Timor), students will construct an evidence-based argument for which explanatory pattern (forced-labor economy, industrial-capital extraction, ideological administration) best accounts for its post-independence trajectory, using only source packets provided.
   • Who gained from proxy interventionGiven a novel Cold War-era proxy conflict not studied in class (e.g., the Ogaden War), students will infer which superpower's interests were most served by intervention, using only the conflict's timeline and stated actors.
   • Decolonization granted or wonStudents will critique a textbook passage's claim that decolonization was 'granted' by European powers, identifying what evidence the claim omits.
   • Organizing evidence for your case studyStudents will organize evidence from three non-adjacent units (2, 4, 6) into a coherent written argument supporting one explanatory pattern for their chosen case-study nation.
8. Unit 8: A Connected World: Globalization and Its Fault Lines, 1991-PresentThis last unit isn't new content — it's the payoff. The first two weeks are cumulative review, but organized as sorting practice: given a historical episode, which of four course patterns (exchange network, revolution-vs-reform, industrial extraction, ideology-as-administration) explains it, and where does it break down? The second half applies that toolkit to unfamiliar modern cases — the WTO, the EU, migration crises, online-era nationalism — that were never taught with an answer key.9 skills ▸close ▾

   • Sorting history into four patternsGiven a short unfamiliar historical episode (pre-1991), correctly sort it into one of four course patterns (exchange network, revolution-vs-reform, industrial extraction, ideology-as-administration) and name the specific textual cue that signaled the match.
   • Terms for the four patternsRecall the defining vocabulary term and one diagnostic mechanism for each of the four course patterns without notes.
   • Four questions for sorting casesExecute the four-question sorting protocol (What changed hands? Who decided? Who administered it? What broke down?) on a new case to generate a preliminary pattern hypothesis.
   • When cases resist a single patternExplain why a given post-1991 case (e.g., the WTO dispute system, an EU regulatory fight, or a migration crisis) resists clean sorting into a single course pattern, citing at least two competing patterns and the specific evidence that supports each.
   • Comparing historic and modern displacementCompare the migration and displacement patterns of the contemporary period to the demographic collapse and forced-labor migration studied in Unit 2, identifying what is structurally similar and what is genuinely different (voluntary vs. coerced movement, disease vector vs. economic driver).
   • When sovereignty limits international institutionsInfer which specific institution (WTO, IMF, EU, UN Security Council) is most limited by national sovereignty based on a short case description of that institution failing to enforce a decision, and justify the inference with a named mechanism of limitation.
   • Critiquing a classmate's pattern argumentCritique a classmate's pattern-identification argument by identifying one piece of evidence that better supports a different pattern than the one claimed, using the unit's evidence-based argument rubric.
   • Argue which pattern fits a new caseGenerate an original argument, using an unfamiliar post-1991 case never discussed in class, for which course pattern best explains it, citing specific evidence from at least three non-adjacent units and explicitly addressing where the chosen pattern's explanatory power breaks down.
   • Claim, evidence, and linking explanationOrganize a written argument so that a claim about pattern-fit is followed by evidence drawn from named units and a linking explanation of how that evidence bears on the claim, distinguishing this structure from a list of facts about the case.

Try a real Patterns of Power: A World History Survey, c. 1200-Present lesson, no account needed →

1. Unit 1: Saying More Than You Did Last YearGetting back into Spanish, then breaking the one-sentence-answer habit: longer turns, joined-up sentences, real description, and asking questions that keep someone talking.7 skills ▸close ▾

   • Getting back into SpanishGet back into Spanish after a break
   • Answering in more than one sentenceAnswer with more than one sentence
   • Linking sentences so they flowLink my sentences so they flow
   • Describing someone in recognizable detailDescribe someone so well you'd recognize them
   • Saying what you like and defending itSay what I'm into and defend it
   • Asking questions that keep people talkingAsk questions that keep someone talking
   • Talking for two minutes straightTalk for two minutes without stopping
2. Unit 2: Telling and ExplainingStories that move around in time, explaining how things work and why they happened, giving instructions, and relaying what someone else said.7 skills ▸close ▾

   • Telling a story across different timesTell a story that jumps around in time
   • Explaining how something worksExplain how something works
   • Explaining why something happenedExplain why something happened
   • Describing a routine that changedDescribe a routine that changed
   • Giving instructions and warningsGive instructions and warnings
   • Reporting what someone else saidReport what someone else said
   • Explaining complicated ideas to beginnersExplain something complicated to someone who doesn't know it
3. Unit 3: Opinions That Hold UpReasons, arguing both sides, polite disagreement, answering objections, hedging, complaining, and hypotheticals.8 skills ▸close ▾

   • Giving an opinion with real reasonsGive an opinion with a real reason behind it
   • Arguing both sides of somethingArgue both sides of something
   • Disagreeing without being rudeDisagree without being rude
   • Answering an objection to your argumentAnswer an objection to my own argument
   • Speaking carefully when you are unsureSay something carefully when I'm not sure
   • Complaining and pushing back on problemsComplain or push back about a problem
   • Imagining what you would doTalk about what I would do if things were different
   • Holding a position in conversationHold a position for a whole conversation
4. Unit 4: Other People's WorldsRegional differences, speaking differently to a stranger than a friend, awkward requests, news, films, places, and following speech that isn't slowed down for them.7 skills ▸close ▾

   • Why Spanish is not one thingUnderstand that Spanish isn't one thing
   • Speaking to strangers versus friendsSpeak differently to a stranger than to a friend
   • Asking politely for awkward thingsAsk for something awkward, politely
   • Talking about the newsTalk about news or something happening in the world
   • Discussing films, shows and songsDiscuss a film, show or song in Spanish
   • Describing a place and its peopleTalk about a place and the people who live there
   • Following other people's conversationsFollow a conversation that isn't aimed at me
5. Unit 5: Talking Like YourselfHumour, fixing your own mistakes mid-sentence, hopes and regrets, plans after school, explaining your own culture, and repairing a conversation that goes wrong.7 skills ▸close ▾

   • Making a joke on purposeSay something funny on purpose
   • Correcting yourself while speakingFix my own mistakes mid-sentence
   • Expressing hopes, fears and regretsSay what I hope, fear and regret
   • Talking about study, work and plansTalk about my future — study, work, plans
   • Explaining your culture to outsidersExplain my culture to someone who doesn't share it
   • Recovering when a conversation goes wrongHandle a conversation that goes wrong
   • Talking at length about anythingTalk for a long time about anything at all

Try a real Spanish II lesson, no account needed →

1. Unit 1: Looking Closely: The Vocabulary of Visual AnalysisThis is where your child learns the actual words for how art is built — line, shape, color, composition, medium, scale — before they're allowed to say what anything means. For the first two weeks they'll look at images with almost no context (no title, no artist, no date) and just describe what's physically there. The habit being installed is catching themselves the moment they slide from 'the arm makes a diagonal line' into 'the figure looks sad' — that slide is the single most common mistake in student art writing, and this unit exists to interrupt it before it becomes automatic.8 skills ▸close ▾

   • Line, shape, form, space, textureGiven an unfamiliar image, the student identifies and labels instances of line, shape, form, space, and texture using correct terminology.
   • Hue, value, and saturationThe student distinguishes hue, value, and saturation as three independent properties of color and correctly classifies a change in a given swatch or image detail as a change in one, two, or all three.
   • How arrangement creates balanceThe student explains how a specific compositional choice (placement, diagonal, framing, use of negative space) creates visual balance or imbalance in a given work.
   • Describing versus interpreting artGiven a written description of a work, the student determines which statements are description (verifiable in the object) and which are interpretation (a claim about meaning, mood, or intent) by identifying the evidentiary basis of each claim.
   • How medium and scale shape artThe student compares two works of substantially different medium and scale (e.g., a fresco and a small bronze) and infers what constraints of that medium and scale plausibly shaped the visible formal choices.
   • Writing a formal analysisGiven a museum-collection image never discussed in class, the student produces a written analysis that describes formal properties before advancing any interpretive claim, using at least eight vocabulary terms correctly and marking the boundary between description and interpretation explicitly.
   • Description and interpretation beyond artThe student generalizes the description-before-interpretation principle to a non-art domain (e.g., a photograph in a news article, an advertisement, a data visualization) and explains why the same discipline of separating observation from claim applies there.
   • Vocabulary for an artwork's originsThe student recalls the standard definitions of patron, provenance, attribution, iconography, workshop, and commission when given the term or a one-sentence description.
2. Unit 2: Solving the Same Problem: Ancient Mediterranean and West African SculptureYour child compares Greek and Roman sculpture with Nok and Ife sculpture from West Africa — two different traditions that solved the same problems (how do you carve a standing human body, how do you tell a sacred story in stone or bronze) in very different, equally deliberate ways. The point isn't which one is 'better' — the course actively fights that framing — it's what each solution reveals about the culture that chose it.10 skills ▸close ▾

   • Contrapposto in standing statuesGiven an unlabeled photograph of a standing Greco-Roman figural sculpture, students identify whether contrapposto is present and point to the specific formal evidence (hip shift, weight distribution, S-curve of the spine) that supports the claim.
   • Why Greek sculpture idealized the bodyStudents explain why Classical Greek sculptors idealized the human body (proportion systems, civic/religious ideals of arete and divine perfection) rather than recording an individual's actual appearance, citing at least two functions the idealized body served in Greek civic or religious life.
   • Registers and continuous narrative in reliefsStudents classify an unfamiliar relief sculpture fragment as using register (banded/horizontal) composition or continuous narrative composition, based on how figures and ground lines are organized.
   • Roles of Nok and Ife sculptureStudents summarize the documented ritual and civic functions of Nok and Ife terracotta and bronze figures (ancestor commemoration, shrine use, kingship/ritual authority) using at least three pieces of textual or archaeological evidence from assigned sources.
   • Comparing a new sculpture pairGiven one Greco-Roman sculpture and one West African terracotta or bronze figure that neither addressed the same problem in class discussion, students infer what formal problem each artist/workshop was solving (representing weight-bearing stance, representing status, representing narrative sequence) by comparing the two side by side.
   • Questioning rankings of ancient sculptureStudents critique the claim, found in some older museum labels and textbooks, that Greek sculpture is "more advanced" than West African sculpture of the same period, by identifying the unstated assumption about what counts as artistic progress that the claim relies on.
   • Comparing sculpture from new traditionsGiven a completely new, previously unseen pair of ancient sculptural traditions from outside the Mediterranean/West Africa case studies (for example, Olmec and early Chinese Shang bronze figures), students generate a comparative argument about what formal problem each tradition solved, applying the same comparative method without being told to do so.
   • Questioning rankings in a new labelGiven a museum wall label describing a work from a sculptural tradition never named in this course (for example, an Andean Moche stirrup-spout ceramic figure or an Aboriginal Australian carved memorial pole), students critique whether the label's language relies on a single-hierarchy assumption about artistic progress, without being told the label contains such language or being cued to look for it.
   • Planning a paired-image comparison essayStudents plan the structure of a paired-image comparative essay by selecting one Greco-Roman and one West African work, identifying the shared formal problem each solves, and outlining the evidence they will use for each of three required claims (formal description, cultural function, comparative insight).
   • Sculpture unit vocabulary reviewStudents recall the definitions of contrapposto, idealization, register composition, patron, and workshop when given the term in isolation.
3. Unit 3: Image as Argument: Patronage, Iconography, and Belief in Medieval EuropeYour child learns to read a stained-glass window, altarpiece, or manuscript page the way a historian reads a legal document — as evidence of who paid for it and what they wanted it to do — while also learning that this reading is different from (and doesn't replace) how a medieval worshipper actually experienced the same image.8 skills ▸close ▾

   • Symbols in medieval Christian imagesGiven an unfamiliar Gothic stained-glass or altarpiece image, students identify at least three iconographic conventions (e.g., halo, specific color coding, attribute objects, scale hierarchy) and state the standard meaning each convention carried for a medieval viewer.
   • Pairing Old and New Testament scenesStudents explain how a typological pairing (an Old Testament scene positioned to visually predict or comment on a New Testament scene, e.g., Jonah/Resurrection) creates an argument about Christian history that neither scene makes alone.
   • Patron intent versus artist intentGiven a commissioned work's donor portrait, inscription, or placement within a building, students infer what the patron most likely wanted communicated to the original audience, distinguishing patron intent from artist's personal expression.
   • Image as evidence or ritual objectStudents compare a historian's evidentiary reading of a reliquary or altarpiece with a devotional/ritual reading of the same object, articulating what each reading can and cannot claim about the object's meaning.
   • Teaching, devotion, and civic displayStudents classify a set of unfamiliar medieval commissioned objects (a psalter page, a civic tapestry, a reliquary, a rood screen) by primary function (teaching, devotion, civic display) using evidence from scale, placement, and imagery rather than object category alone.
   • Arguing patron intent from new evidenceGiven two commissioned medieval images and a short period text (e.g., a donor's will or church record) that the student has not seen before, students construct a written argument for what a specific patron wanted communicated to a specific original audience, citing specific visual evidence and the text.
   • Testing attribution claims on museum labelsStudents critique a museum wall label's claim about a work's attribution or patron by identifying what evidence the label omits or overstates, given the same evidentiary standards taught in this unit.
   • Six key terms of medieval artStudents recall the definitions of iconography, typology, patron, commission, workshop, and provenance without reference to a specific image, using each correctly in a sentence about a medieval example from class.
4. Unit 4: Rules for Illusion: Perspective, Naturalism, and the Renaissance WorkshopYour child learns linear perspective and chiaroscuro as constructed technical systems — invented tools built inside a specific business of commissions and workshops — not as a neutral, automatic way of showing what the eye sees. They'll actually construct a one-point perspective drawing themselves, then move into attribution puzzles (whose hand painted this, really?) using real commission contracts.10 skills ▸close ▾

   • Finding the vanishing pointGiven an unlabeled Renaissance-era painting, identify the vanishing point and trace at least three orthogonal lines that converge on it.
   • Drawing a room in perspectiveConstruct an original one-point perspective drawing of a simple interior space using a ruler, a marked vanishing point, and at least four orthogonals.
   • Telling chiaroscuro from sfumatoDistinguish chiaroscuro from sfumato in an unfamiliar painting by identifying whether edge transitions are hard/high-contrast or soft/blended.
   • What a patron's contract revealsExplain how a documented Renaissance commission contract's specific demands (size, materials, prominence of donor portrait) reveal patron interests beyond religious devotion.
   • Arguing who painted a pictureConstruct an attribution argument for a disputed workshop painting, citing specific physical/stylistic evidence to support a claim about master-hand versus workshop-hand passages.
   • Two traditions for picturing spaceCompare how Renaissance linear perspective and a contemporaneous non-European spatial tradition (e.g., Chinese scroll painting's shifting-viewpoint space, or Persian miniature's hierarchical/multi-perspectival space) each solve the problem of representing depth on a flat surface.
   • Was perspective discovered or inventedEvaluate whether linear perspective should be characterized as a discovery of a true fact about vision or an invention of a persuasive convention, using evidence from at least two artists' varying uses of perspective.
   • Discovery or invention beyond perspectiveGeneralize the 'discovery vs. invention' argument structure used for linear perspective to a different representational system encountered in a prior or future unit (e.g., contrapposto in Unit 2, or academic realism referenced in Unit 5's preview) that the student was not shown analyzed this way.
   • Key terms for Renaissance paintingRecall the definitions of vanishing point, orthogonal, chiaroscuro, sfumato, workshop, and attribution when shown the term in isolation.
   • Reading museum labels about attributionInterpret a museum wall label's attribution claim about a Renaissance workshop painting as a simplified summary of an ongoing scholarly argument rather than a settled fact.
5. Unit 5: Breaking the Rules I: Impressionism and the Rise of the Avant-GardeYour child sees Impressionism the way its first audiences did — as an insult to serious painting, not a pleasant decoration. This only works because they now know, from Unit 4, exactly what 'finished' and 'serious' meant to a Salon jury in 1860s Paris. The unit walks through the institutions that enforced the old rule (Academy, Salon, jury) and then the specific technical break (visible brushwork, optical color, painting outdoors) that provoked real outrage.8 skills ▸close ▾

   • Spotting broken academic painting rulesGiven a Salon-era painting and an Impressionist painting of a comparable subject, identify which specific academic convention from Unit 4 (linear perspective, chiaroscuro modeling, or invisible finish) is absent or altered in the Impressionist work.
   • Who controlled the French SalonRecall the institutional role of the Academy, the Salon jury, and the Salon des Refusés in controlling which paintings the French public could see as legitimate art.
   • Optical color versus academic glazingExplain why optical color theory (juxtaposed unmixed strokes read as blended color at a distance) produces a different visual and physiological effect than academic layered glazing.
   • Subjects the Salon accepted or rejectedGiven an unfamiliar 1870s-1880s painting of modern leisure or labor, classify whether its subject matter would have been considered acceptable or transgressive by Salon hierarchy-of-genres standards, and justify using the genre hierarchy learned in class.
   • Reading Impressionist reviews as evidenceUsing a period review or critical response as a primary source, infer what specific formal choice provoked the critic's negative reaction and distinguish the critic's stated complaint from the critic's underlying assumption about what art should do.
   • Two critics review one exhibitionCompare two critics' reviews of the same 1874 or 1877 Impressionist exhibition for which details each emphasizes and what that emphasis reveals about each critic's standard of judgment.
   • Arguing how a painting broke conventionGiven a painting and a critical excerpt neither seen in class, construct a written argument identifying the specific Unit 4 convention broken, the formal evidence for the break, and the reception evidence explaining contemporary outrage, without being told which convention applies.
   • Avant garde beyond the ImpressionistsGiven a 20th or 21st century avant-garde movement never discussed in class (e.g., Fluxus, Dogme 95 filmmaking), argue whether the historical logic of 'avant-garde as rejection of an institutional standard' developed in this unit applies, and identify what would have to be true of the institutional context for the label to fit.
6. Unit 6: Breaking the Rules II: Cubism, Abstraction, and the Question of Meaning Without a SubjectThis is the hardest unit in the course, and it's worth knowing that going in. Your child moves from Cubism fragmenting a still-recognizable subject to abstraction dropping a recognizable subject entirely, landing on the real question: can a painting mean something if there's nothing to look at except shapes and color? The unit deliberately lets them wrestle with a nonobjective work before giving them any theory to lean on, then turns to how dealers, critics, and markets shape reputation — directly against the assumption that fame just tracks quality.9 skills ▸close ▾

   • Cubism and the single viewpointGiven an unlabeled Cubist work, students identify at least three facets/planes that represent the same object from physically incompatible viewpoints and state which rule of linear perspective each violates.
   • Collage, mixed media, and papier colléStudents recall the definition and one identifying visual feature each of collage, mixed media, and papier collé as introduced in this unit.
   • Telling Cubism from linear perspectiveGiven a Cubist work that has NOT been used as a worked example, and a distractor image containing modeled volume and a single vanishing point, students correctly classify whether the target image exhibits Cubist fragmentation or conventional linear perspective, and name the one visual feature that rules out the other category.
   • Why collage materials carry meaningGiven a specific papier collé's pasted material (e.g., a dated newspaper fragment) and its real-world referent, students construct an argument connecting that specific material choice to a claim about the work's meaning.
   • Multiple viewpoints across Cubist artistsStudents compare two Cubist works by different artists (e.g., Picasso and Braque, same period) and name the shared structural principle of multiple simultaneous viewpoints that both works embody, independent of their surface subject matter.
   • Finding meaning in abstract compositionPresented with a nonobjective work never discussed in class, students produce a formal-evidence-based claim about whether the work communicates meaning, with no access to the artist's own statements or critical commentary about that specific work.
   • How dealers and critics shape valueGiven a documented case (e.g., Kahnweiler's contracts with Picasso and Braque, or a comparable dealer/critic case) plus at least one timeline where the causal story is genuinely ambiguous or where promotion did not clearly precede the price/reputation change, students sequence the events of a work's creation, critical promotion, market price change, and museum acquisition, and infer which causal relationships the sequence does and does not support, including recognizing when the evidence is insufficient to support either a merit-only or a market-only claim.
   • Facts versus judgments in art criticismStudents identify the specific claim, warrant, and evidence structure used in a short excerpt of published art criticism about a nonobjective work, distinguishing the critic's factual observations about the work from the critic's evaluative judgments.
   • Can nonobjective art communicate meaningStudents select a nonobjective work from a provided museum-collection list never analyzed in class, take a position on whether it communicates meaning, and defend that position in a written position paper using formal evidence, at least one critical source, and an explicit rebuttal of the strongest counterargument.
7. Unit 7: The Camera's Argument: Photography, Framing, and the Claim to ObjectivityYour child turns the composition vocabulary from Unit 1 and the perspective vocabulary from Unit 4 onto photographs — something they look at constantly but have never formally picked apart. The unit exists to complicate one specific belief: that a photograph is more objective than a painting because a machine made it. They'll test that against everything a person actually controls — framing, cropping, staging, captions, what gets published or collected.9 skills ▸close ▾

   • Indexicality versus resemblance in photographsStudents will define indexicality as the physical/causal trace relationship between a photograph and the light reflected off its subject at the moment of exposure, and distinguish it from resemblance.
   • Reading framing and cropping choicesGiven an unfamiliar photograph, students will identify the specific framing and cropping choices (what is included, excluded, and centered) using the composition vocabulary from Unit 1 (balance, scale, framing).
   • Staged versus candid photographs as evidenceStudents will compare a staged/posed documentary photograph and a candid documentary photograph on a related historical subject, explaining what each can and cannot reliably support as historical evidence.
   • Photography's fight for art statusStudents will explain why early photography's claim to status as fine art was contested by critics and academies in terms parallel to the avant-garde/academy debate studied in Unit 5.
   • Photographic space and Renaissance perspectiveStudents will analyze how a photograph organizes pictorial space (depth cues, vanishing point behavior, flattening) in comparison to a Renaissance linear-perspective painting studied in Unit 4, identifying where the analogy holds and where it breaks down.
   • What two unseen photographs can showGiven two never-before-seen museum-collection photographs on a related but unannounced subject, students will construct a written argument, with cited visual evidence, about what each photograph can and cannot reliably tell a historian.
   • Telling staged from candid by cluesStudents will infer, from internal photographic evidence alone (lighting consistency, pose rigidity, subject gaze, arrangement of background elements), whether an unfamiliar photograph is more likely staged or candid, and justify the inference.
   • Machines and objectivity beyond photographyStudents will generalize the unit's central claim (mechanical production does not guarantee objectivity) to a self-selected non-photographic mechanical or digital medium (e.g., satellite imagery, an algorithmic recommendation feed, a security camera still) not studied in this course, identifying an analogous point of authored selection.
   • Defining documentary and staged imagesStudents will recall the definitions of documentary and staged image as used in this unit's case studies.
8. Unit 8: Capstone: Global Contemporary Practice and the Long Argument About ConventionThis is the last unit and it doesn't teach anything new — it makes your child use everything at once. They'll study contemporary artists from outside Western Europe who deliberately quote, borrow, or push back against conventions from earlier in the year (perspective, iconography, idealization, Cubist fragmentation, photographic truth-claims). Then each student picks one contemporary museum work, pairs it with any earlier work from the whole year, and argues the specific connection or break between them — in writing and out loud, answering real questions.8 skills ▸close ▾

   • Comparing works in four partsGiven two works separated by centuries or cultures, restate the four-part comparative method from Unit 2 (shared formal problem, each culture's/artist's solution, what the solution reveals about context, what the comparison cannot claim) and apply it to a new pair.
   • Citing and subverting historical conventionsExplain how a specific contemporary artist's use of a historical convention (e.g., citing devotional iconography, appropriating a readymade gesture, restaging a colonial-era photographic pose) functions as commentary on that convention rather than as ignorance or coincidence of it.
   • Museums shaping meaning and institutional critiqueGiven a museum wall label and the museum's own acquisition/display history for a contemporary work that critiques museums (e.g., work addressing looted objects, colonial collecting, or exclusion of non-Western artists from historical canon), analyze the tension between the institution's stated position and its function as gatekeeper of meaning.
   • Naming formal elements in artworksIdentify the formal elements (line, shape, color, composition, medium, scale) present in an unfamiliar contemporary work using the Unit 1 vocabulary set without teacher prompting of which terms apply.
   • Reading provenance and attribution recordsRecall the definition of provenance and attribution as used across the year (Unit 1 vocabulary, Unit 3's patronage extension) when reading a museum object record for a contemporary acquisition.
   • Arguing connection or rupture between worksSelect one contemporary museum-collection work and one work from any prior unit and construct a written argument, using the comparative method, that specifies a precise formal and historical connection or deliberate rupture between them, citing vocabulary from at least three prior units.
   • Separating evidence from speculation in argumentsDuring the oral defense, respond to a question that challenges a weak point in the written argument (e.g., 'you claim influence — what evidence would show it's coincidence instead?') by distinguishing which of the argument's claims are well-evidenced and which are speculative.
   • Matching new artworks to historical vocabularyGiven two contemporary works new to the student, one that cites a Renaissance perspectival convention and one that cites a non-Western sculptural convention studied in Unit 2, determine which historical unit's vocabulary correctly applies to each without being told which unit is relevant.

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1. Unit 1: Thinking Like a Computer: Algorithms Before SyntaxBefore any coding, your child learns the five ideas that the entire rest of the course keeps reusing: algorithm, sequence, selection, iteration, decomposition, and abstraction. They practice by hand-tracing simple step-by-step instructions (pseudocode and flowcharts), not by writing code.9 skills ▸close ▾

   • Six key programming termsStudents correctly define, in their own words, the six core terms of this unit, algorithm, sequence, selection, iteration, decomposition, and abstraction, matching each term to a short example given during Day 1-8 instruction.
   • Tracing pseudocode line by lineGiven a short pseudocode algorithm using only sequence, students correctly complete a trace table showing the value of every variable after each line executes.
   • Tracing if statements and loopsGiven a pseudocode algorithm containing one selection (if/else) or one iteration (loop) structure, students correctly trace it through a trace table, correctly updating the counter or condition variable at each pass.
   • Spotting sequence, selection, and iterationStudents correctly identify and label instances of sequence, selection, and iteration within an unfamiliar pseudocode or flowchart algorithm they have not seen before.
   • Finding off by one loop errorsGiven a pseudocode algorithm with a deliberately inserted off-by-one loop-boundary error, students trace the algorithm to locate the exact line and value at which the actual output diverges from the intended output, and explain in one sentence why that line causes the divergence.
   • Breaking a problem into stepsStudents decompose a stated real-world problem into an ordered set of named sub-steps at a level of detail sufficient for another student to diagram, and justify in writing why each boundary between sub-steps was drawn where it was.
   • Abstraction and what it hidesStudents explain, using a specific abstraction they did not encounter in class (e.g., a rideshare app's 'request ride' button, a thermostat's set-temperature dial, or a vending machine's item button), what detail is hidden from the user, why hiding that detail benefits the user, and one situation in which that hiding could put the user at a disadvantage.
   • Comparing decompositions when rules changeGiven two different correct decompositions of the same original problem produced by classmates, students compare the two decompositions and identify which one would be more robust if the problem's constraints changed slightly (e.g., the input list could now be empty), stating the specific constraint change that breaks one decomposition and not the other.
   • Converting between flowcharts and pseudocodeStudents translate a given flowchart into pseudocode (or a given pseudocode listing into a flowchart) such that every box/line in one notation corresponds to an identifiable line/box in the other, without changing the underlying logic.
2. Unit 2: Python as a Notation: Variables, Conditionals, and LoopsYour child starts actually writing Python: variables, if/elif/else, for loops, while loops. The point this unit hammers home is that most beginner mistakes are notation mistakes, not thinking mistakes — a correct flowchart can still produce a Python crash, and that's a spelling problem, not a logic problem.9 skills ▸close ▾

   • Assignment versus equality in PythonGiven a short Python snippet using = for assignment, students predict the value stored in a named variable after each line executes, distinguishing assignment from mathematical equality.
   • Variables changing across several linesStudents trace a Python program containing sequential variable reassignment (e.g. a running total updated across several lines) and correctly state the final printed value.
   • Tracing if, elif, and elseGiven an unseen if/elif/else block and a specific input value, students trace execution to determine which single branch runs and justify why the earlier branches did not.
   • Reading IndentationError, NameError, and TypeErrorStudents classify a Python runtime error message (IndentationError, NameError, or TypeError) by its type and identify the specific line and likely cause without being told which error category it is.
   • Running totals with a for loopStudents write a for loop that iterates a specified number of times to accumulate a running total, given a new but structurally similar word problem not seen in class.
   • Fixing while loops that never endGiven a while loop that never terminates, students identify why the boolean condition never becomes False and rewrite the loop so it terminates correctly.
   • Deciding between conditionals and loopsGiven a word-problem specification never seen in class, students decide unassisted whether the solution requires a conditional, a loop, both, or neither, and justify that choice before writing code.
   • Writing a program and predicting outputStudents write and run an original Python program from a word-problem spec that combines at least one conditional and one loop, then compare their program's actual run output to their own hand-traced predicted output and explain any discrepancy.
   • Syntax errors versus logic errorsStudents explain, in their own words using a specific traced example, why a program with correct algorithmic logic can still crash, distinguishing a syntax error from a logic error.
3. Unit 3: Organizing Data: Lists, Strings, and Iteration PatternsYour child moves from one-variable-at-a-time to lists: storing many values together and writing one loop that processes all of them, using the index as the link between position and value. It closes with cleaning a genuinely messy dataset with no rulebook provided.11 skills ▸close ▾

   • Counting list positions from zeroGiven a list and a target position, retrieve the correct 0-based index needed to access the first, last, and nth element.
   • Looping through every list itemExecute a for-loop that iterates over every element of a list and prints each value, without using an explicit index variable.
   • Looping by index or by itemCompare the for-item-in-list pattern and the for-i-in-range(len(list))-with-list[i] pattern for the same task, and explain in writing when the index-based form is necessary rather than optional.
   • List length and valid indexesClassify a given code snippet that indexes into a list as either producing a valid access or triggering an IndexError, by comparing the index used to the list's valid index range.
   • Reading an IndexError tracebackGiven a Python traceback showing an IndexError, infer the specific line and index value responsible for the failure and state what value would have been valid instead.
   • Sum, count, and max with loopsImplement an accumulation pattern (running total, running count, or running maximum) using a for-loop over a list, given only a problem statement and no skeleton code.
   • Sorting, filtering, and lost dataPredict, then verify by running code, whether the original order and removed values of a list survive after a sort() or filter operation, and state the general rule for when data is recoverable.
   • Cleaning and summarizing unfamiliar dataGiven a novel dataset structure never used in this course (e.g., a list of dictionaries representing sensor readings with timestamps), design and write a cleaning-and-summary program that removes invalid entries, preserves a record of what was removed, and reports at least three summary statistics.
   • When filtering throws away dataGiven a real-world scenario where a filtered dataset is later needed for a purpose the filtering did not anticipate (e.g., a school later wants to know how many students scored exactly 0, but 0 was treated as invalid and discarded), argue what information was permanently lost and what design change would have prevented the loss.
   • Strings and lists comparedExemplify the difference between a list and a string as sequence types by identifying two operations (e.g., indexing, iteration) that work identically on both and one operation that does not.
   • Using error messages to fix codeSummarize, in a written explanation accompanying the summative program, one specific bug encountered, quoting the exact error message and explaining how its wording pointed to the fix.
4. Unit 4: Abstraction in Code: Functions and Program DesignYour child learns to name a repeated block of code as a function — the same 'hide the detail, expose the name' move as Unit 1's abstraction and Unit 2's print()/input(). It ends with taking a messy 40-line program someone else 'wrote' and reorganizing it into functions.10 skills ▸close ▾

   • What a function promises to doGiven a 5-8 line function definition with a docstring-free header, students state in one sentence what the function does (its contract) without reading its body line by line.
   • Tracing values through function callsStudents trace a program by hand, recording the value of each parameter and each variable at each function call and return, for a program with at least two nested function calls.
   • Local and global variable bugsStudents explain why a function that modifies a global variable inside its body produces different output than a caller expects, using a specific mis-scoped code example.
   • Spotting what repeats in codeGiven a duplicated-logic program from Unit 3 (the same 4-line block appearing 3 times with different variables), students identify which lines are truly identical across all three copies versus which lines merely look similar but differ in a way that matters for correctness.
   • Replacing repeated code with a functionStudents write a function with at least one parameter and a return statement that correctly replaces a specified block of duplicated code, verified by running it against the original program's output.
   • Splitting a program into functionsGiven an unfamiliar 40-line program students have not seen before, students propose a decomposition into 3-5 functions, name each function, specify its parameters and return value, and justify why each boundary was drawn where it was rather than elsewhere.
   • Comparing ways to split a programStudents compare two different valid decompositions of the same program (one function-per-loop vs. one function-per-task) and explain what each version makes easier and harder to change later.
   • Four common function bugsStudents diagnose the specific cause of a broken program from among four seeded bug categories (missing return, mismatched argument order, mismatched argument count, scope confusion) by running it and reading the error or wrong output, without being told which category applies.
   • Designing functions for a new problemGiven a program from a domain never used in this course (e.g., a recipe-scaling calculator or a simple grading-curve tool), students design a function-based decomposition from scratch and defend it in writing against a specific alternative decomposition a partner proposes.
   • Rebuilding and extending a programStudents refactor a given unstructured 40-line program into at least three functions with parameters and return values, extend it with one new feature using their new function structure, and write a rationale explaining why each function boundary was chosen over at least one plausible alternative.
5. Unit 5: Data Underneath: Bits, Encoding, and RepresentationYour child stops thinking of a file as 'a picture' or 'a song' and starts thinking of it as bits whose meaning depends entirely on which encoding rule is being used to read them. This covers binary place value, bytes, lossy versus lossless compression, and bias in how data gets collected in the first place.8 skills ▸close ▾

   • Converting between binary and decimalConvert a positive whole number up to 255 between binary and decimal representation using place value.
   • Decoding bytes into ASCII textDecode a given sequence of 8-bit bytes into ASCII text using a provided ASCII lookup table.
   • Same bits, different meaningsExplain why the same 8-bit pattern can correctly represent a number, an ASCII character, or a component of a color, depending on which encoding the reading program assumes.
   • Lossy and lossless compressionCompare a lossless and a lossy compression approach applied to the identical short artifact by identifying what information is discarded in the lossy version and what is preserved in the lossless version.
   • Choices hidden inside a datasetGiven a small, unfamiliar real dataset (CSV), identify at least one specific choice made during data collection or encoding that constrains what conclusions can validly be drawn from it.
   • Designing your own binary codeDesign an original small-scale binary encoding scheme (fewer than 8 bits) for a novel, self-chosen symbol set, and justify whether the chosen bit length is sufficient.
   • Sampling bias and encoding biasClassify a given real-world data collection scenario as an example of sampling bias, encoding bias, both, or neither, distinguishing it from a simple data-entry error.
   • Decoding ASCII step by stepSummarize, in the student's own words, the sequence of decoding steps used to turn a raw byte sequence into readable ASCII text.
6. Unit 6: How the Internet Works: Networks and ProtocolsThis builds the layer picture of the internet: client and server, packets, IP addresses, DNS, routing, TCP/IP, HTTP/HTTPS, and the tradeoffs between bandwidth, latency, and fault tolerance. It closes by using free browser developer tools to trace what actually happens when a real web page loads.10 skills ▸close ▾

   • Layers of a network requestGiven a diagram of a network request, students correctly label each layer (client, DNS, IP routing, packet, server) using the standard term for each.
   • Protocols are rules, not hardwareStudents explain why a protocol is a set of agreed-upon rules rather than a physical device, using the turn-taking/etiquette analogy taught in class.
   • Putting packets back in orderGiven a scrambled set of index-tagged packet fragments (some delayed, none lost), students reconstruct the original message and explain why packet order at arrival does not need to match send order.
   • How TCP resending changes outcomesStudents compare a network scenario with TCP's reliability guarantees against an otherwise identical scenario without them, and identify which specific behavior (retransmission of lost packets) accounts for the difference in outcome.
   • Bandwidth, latency, or fault toleranceStudents classify a set of short network scenarios by whether the described problem is best explained by bandwidth, latency, or fault tolerance, distinguishing cases that superficially resemble each other.
   • Tracing a new URL's journeyUsing only free browser developer tools, students trace and annotate the actual sequence of steps (DNS lookup, IP routing, packet exchange, server response) that occurs when a real, previously-unexamined URL is requested.
   • Predicting which layers a failure hitsGiven a novel scenario describing a network failure that does not match any case discussed in class (e.g., a submarine cable cut affecting one region's routing), students predict which named layers are affected and which continue functioning, and justify the prediction using the layer model.
   • Who is accountable for internet harmGiven a scenario about responsibility when something on the internet causes harm, students construct an argument identifying which specific actor(s) in the layer chain (ISP, DNS provider, server owner, platform, or none uniquely) bore responsibility in a real, previously undiscussed incident, and defend the argument against the objection that decentralization means no one is responsible.
   • What DNS doesStudents recall the definition of DNS as the system that translates human-readable domain names into IP addresses.
   • Why packets are more fault tolerantStudents summarize, in their own words, why breaking a message into packets sent independently is more fault-tolerant than sending the entire message as one continuous stream, integrating the routing, packet-reassembly, and fault-tolerance concepts taught across the unit.
7. Unit 7: Attack Surface: Cybersecurity and PrivacyThis unit asks whether any system can be fully secure and argues no — anything that stores or moves data creates something attackable. It covers encryption (explicitly reframed as encoding with a secret key), human-layer attacks like phishing and social engineering, network-layer attacks like packet sniffing and man-in-the-middle, and the tradeoffs behind personal data collection and targeted ads.9 skills ▸close ▾

   • Encoding and decoding with one keyGiven a stored piece of plaintext and a simple substitution/XOR-style key example, students execute the encoding and decoding steps by hand to produce ciphertext and recover the original plaintext.
   • Five attack terms and mechanismsStudents correctly recall the definitions of phishing, malware, social engineering, packet sniffing, and man-in-the-middle attack, matching each term to its one-sentence mechanism.
   • Sorting attacks into three typesGiven a short, previously unseen incident description, students classify which single attack category (human/social-engineering, network-layer, or encryption/key-compromise) it represents, citing the specific textual evidence that rules out the other two.
   • Spotting phishing by checkable cluesStudents compare a genuine and a fabricated (phishing) message side by side and explain which specific, checkable features (sender domain, link destination, urgency framing) distinguish them, rather than relying on surface polish.
   • Attacking the pipeline, not the encryptionStudents explain why a fully encrypted communication channel can still be compromised, by identifying the specific point in the data pipeline (key storage, key transmission, or an unencrypted endpoint) where a described breach actually occurred.
   • What makes data collection concerningBefore receiving the formal usability-cost-risk framework, students examine two contrasting real-world data-collection scenarios and generate their own criterion for what makes one collection practice more or less concerning than the other.
   • Judging a company's security tradeoffGiven a completely novel data-breach report not discussed in class, students argue in writing whether the affected organization's security tradeoff was reasonable, using specific evidence from the report about cost, usability, and risk rather than asserting a general judgment of competence.
   • Inferring app data from permissionsStudents infer which specific personal data an unfamiliar app or service is likely collecting and why, based only on the app's stated functionality and permission requests, without being told the answer.
   • Specific fixes versus generic security adviceStudents differentiate between a mitigation that closes a specific named vulnerability and a generic security recommendation that does not name what it blocks, when evaluating sample mitigation proposals.
8. Unit 8: Capstone: Computing and Its ConsequencesThe last 16 days pull everything together into one Python program and one written argument about a real computing system's effect on people. The central skill is telling apart three things: a bug, an unequal outcome with no evidence of intent (disparate impact), and an unequal outcome with evidence of intent (disparate treatment) — and separately, realizing that a system 'working as specified' doesn't settle whether it should exist that way.9 skills ▸close ▾

   • Outcome evidence versus intent evidenceGiven a real-world computing system's design description and de-identified outcome data disaggregated by group, the student correctly labels each of five provided claims about the system as supported by outcome evidence, supported by intent evidence, or unsupported by the given evidence.
   • Deciding between bug, impact, and treatmentGiven a new, previously undiscussed case of an algorithmic system with both design rationale and outcome data, the student determines whether the available evidence supports a claim of bug, disparate impact, or disparate treatment, and identifies what additional evidence (if any) would be needed to support a stronger claim.
   • Writing a function for group summariesThe student writes a function that takes a list of records (dictionaries or tuples) loaded from a real dataset and a group-membership key, and returns a per-group summary statistic (e.g., selection rate, average value) using iteration and conditionals from Units 2-3.
   • Adapting your group summary functionGiven a dataset with a different shape or grouping variable than the one used in the worked example (e.g., three groups instead of two, or a numeric threshold instead of a category), the student adapts their disaggregation function to compute the correct per-group statistic without re-deriving the loop structure from scratch.
   • How the digital divide skews dataThe student explains, in a labeled two-column comparison, one specific way the digital divide (unequal access to devices, bandwidth, or skills) could bias which population is represented in a given real-world dataset, using vocabulary from Unit 5 (data representation) and Unit 6 (network access).
   • What open source licenses requireGiven two real open-source license summaries (e.g., MIT and a copyleft license), the student identifies at least one obligation each license imposes on someone who reuses or redistributes the code, and states which license would apply if the student redistributed a modified version commercially.
   • Does it work, should it existThe student writes a structured argumentative paragraph evaluating whether a named real-world computing system 'should' exist in its current form, distinguishing this claim explicitly from whether the system 'works as specified,' and supporting the should-exist claim with cited evidence rather than stated opinion.
   • Using course vocabulary in contextThe student correctly uses at least four distinct pieces of vocabulary from four different prior units (e.g., iteration from Unit 3, function/parameter from Unit 4, encoding from Unit 5, protocol/packet or attack surface from Unit 6-7) in context within the written report, applying each term to the specific case rather than defining it generically.
   • Digital divide bias in new dataGiven a description of a data-collection system from a domain never discussed in class or offered on the report's case list (e.g., a municipal smart-traffic sensor network or a university wearable-fitness research study), with NO causal-chain diagram, worksheet, or framing question supplied, the student identifies whether and how unequal access to devices, connectivity, or digital skill could bias which people or places are represented in the resulting dataset, and names the specific access factor responsible using Unit 5/6 vocabulary without being told which prior concept applies.

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1. Unit 1: Listening Critically, Reading an AudienceYour child spends most of this unit listening to other people's recorded speeches, not making their own. The goal is to build a shared vocabulary — claim versus support, organizational pattern, bias, audience profile — that every later unit in the course reuses. Think of it as sharpening the ear before asking the mouth to do anything.9 skills ▸close ▾

   • Claim versus reasons in speechesGiven a short transcript or recording, students state the speaker's central claim in one sentence, distinguishing it from the supporting reasons offered for it.
   • The four organizational patterns (problem-solution, chronological, cause-effect, comparison), applied via the taught signal-phrase testGiven a recorded excerpt following a previously modeled organizational pattern (problem-solution, chronological, cause-effect, or comparison), students name the pattern and point to the specific signal phrase the speaker used to indicate it, using the same signal-phrase test demonstrated in the worked example.
   • Spotting four organizational patternsStudents classify a short speech excerpt as following a problem-solution, chronological, cause-effect, or comparison organizational pattern, and identify the specific phrase or transition that signals the pattern.
   • Spotting bias and missing evidenceStudents identify at least one instance of bias or unsupported assertion in a recorded speech and explain, in writing, what specific evidence is missing that would be needed to support the claim.
   • How structure shows point of viewGiven two recordings of speakers arguing opposite sides of a similar issue, students compare how each speaker's choice of organizational pattern and use of evidence serves their differing points of view.
   • Building a profile of your audienceStudents construct a written audience profile for a real, named individual (e.g., a parent, grandparent, sibling), specifying that person's likely prior knowledge, values, disposition toward a given topic, and at least two specific likely objections, with a one-paragraph justification for each prediction grounded in evidence about that person rather than a stereotype of 'people like them'.
   • Impressions versus rubric evaluationStudents distinguish between a self-rated impression of how well a speech communicated ('it went well') and a criteria-based evaluation of the same speech using a named rubric, and explain at least one instance where the two would disagree.
   • Analyzing two brand new speechesGiven two never-before-heard recorded speeches on unfamiliar topics, students independently complete a structured listening guide identifying claim, organizational pattern, and at least one instance of bias or unsupported assertion for each, without teacher prompting during listening.
   • Stereotypes versus knowing your audienceStudents explain why predicting an audience's likely objections by assuming shared characteristics of a demographic group (e.g., 'grandparents don't like technology') produces a less accurate profile than gathering specific evidence about the named individual.
2. Unit 2: Building the Spoken CaseNow your child builds their own argument — for delivery, not for reading. The core idea: a listener only gets one pass, in real time, they can't re-read a sentence, so everything about how support is chosen, ordered, and phrased has to be built around that. This unit uses the real audience profile from Unit 1 as its foundation.10 skills ▸close ▾

   • Choosing evidence for your audienceGiven a spoken claim and three candidate pieces of evidence, select the two strongest for a specific named audience and state why the third is weaker for that listener.
   • Three patterns for spoken argumentsRecall the three organizational patterns for spoken argument taught in this unit (problem-solution, comparative/point-by-point, cause-effect) and state one defining feature of each.
   • Matching pattern to your listenerGiven their own Unit 1 audience profile and a set of three supports, justify in writing which of the three organizational patterns best fits this specific listener and purpose, connecting a named feature of the audience profile to a named feature of the pattern.
   • Essay outlines versus speech outlinesDistinguish a written essay outline from a spoken-argument outline by identifying which features of a sample written outline would fail if delivered aloud without modification (e.g., dense subordinate clauses, absent verbal signposts, citation-page dependence).
   • Verbal signposts for listenersCompose two verbal signpost phrases (a preview and a transition) for a given point in a spoken argument that a reader's paragraph break or header would otherwise signal in print.
   • Citing sources out loudCite a source aloud within a spoken sentence (naming who, what, and why-credible in under two seconds of speech) rather than reading a citation as a reader would see it on a slide or page.
   • Critiquing pattern and audience fitCritique a peer's draft spoken outline by identifying one place where the chosen organizational pattern does not actually match the stated audience profile, citing a specific mismatch rather than a general impression.
   • Outline structure versus what listeners hearGiven a 3-minute recording of their own draft delivery and their written outline, identify at least two specific points where the structure audible in the recording diverges from the structure written in the outline.
   • Matching patterns to a new audienceGiven an unfamiliar persuasive scenario and an audience profile the class has never analyzed (e.g., a workplace, civic, or cross-cultural listener), select and justify an organizational pattern for that new context using the same reasoning taught for known audiences.
   • When adapting changes the argumentEvaluate a claim about how far an argument can be adapted to an audience before it stops being 'the same argument,' using a specific case (e.g., the same claim reshaped for two audiences with opposing values) not discussed in class, and take a defensible position with reasons.
3. Unit 3: Controlling and Evaluating DeliveryThis is the unit about how something is said, not what's said. The big idea your child needs to actually believe, not just agree with on paper, is that feeling confident while speaking is not the same as communicating clearly — a recording will show filler words, lost eye contact, or a pace nobody could follow, even when it felt smooth in the moment.9 skills ▸close ▾

   • How delivery reveals or hides structureGiven a short recorded speech excerpt, identify the organizational pattern used (e.g., problem-solution, chronological) and state whether delivery choices obscured a structural transition.
   • The nine delivery criteriaDefine and correctly label each of the nine delivery criteria (rate, volume, articulation, vocal variety, filler words, pause, gesture, posture, eye contact) when shown an isolated example of each in a short video clip.
   • Defining the six vocal criteriaGiven the definition and a labeled worked example of each of the six vocal-delivery criteria on the reference card, match a new one-line audio description to the correct criterion name using the taught definitions, without needing to detect the behavior in a full unscripted clip.
   • Rating strong and weak vocal deliveryGiven a paired set of clips of the same script delivered with strong vocal delivery versus weak vocal delivery, rate each clip against the vocal-delivery portion of the rubric (rate, volume, articulation, vocal variety, filler, pause) and cite the specific moment supporting each rating.
   • Delivery and structure scored separatelyExplain why a clip with confident, fluent-sounding vocal delivery and a clip with hesitant vocal delivery can receive the SAME organizational-pattern score, using specific evidence from both clips.
   • When words and body language conflictGiven a video clip where a speaker's verbal claim (e.g., confident assertion) and physical delivery (e.g., avoided eye contact, closed posture) conflict, predict what a listening audience would most likely believe and justify the prediction using named physical-delivery criteria.
   • Evaluating your own recorded deliveryUsing the full course delivery rubric, self-evaluate a recording of one's own delivery of the Unit 2 spoken argument, citing a specific timestamp as evidence for each of the six required criteria ratings.
   • Planning practice for two delivery habitsGiven one's own self-evaluation results, name the two lowest-scoring, most fixable delivery behaviors and generate a concrete rehearsal plan (specific practice actions, not general intentions) targeting those two behaviors.
   • Measuring change between two recordingsAfter a delayed re-recording at least one week later, compare the new self-evaluation ratings on the two previously targeted behaviors to the original ratings and determine, citing timestamp evidence from both recordings, whether the targeted behaviors changed.
4. Unit 4: Argument Under Pressure: The Defended AddressEverything comes together here — audience profile, structure, delivery — plus one brand-new skill: answering a real objection out loud, inside a live-feeling speech, without falling apart or restarting the argument. The final task is delivered to an actual family member and then checked against what that person actually thought.11 skills ▸close ▾

   • Review of key speech vocabularyGiven a mixed-unit warm-up quiz covering audience profile, claim/support, organizational pattern, and delivery-criteria vocabulary from Units 1-3, students correctly define and apply each term to a short example.
   • Finding the weakest claim or evidenceGiven a recorded speech excerpt, students identify which specific piece of evidence or claim in it is most vulnerable to counterargument.
   • Straw objections versus real objectionsStudents distinguish a straw-man objection from the strongest real objection an audience is likely to raise, when given three candidate objections to a sample argument.
   • Rebuttals that answer the objectionGiven a new claim/objection pair structurally identical to the Day 6 worked example (one candidate rebuttal that merely restates the claim, one that directly engages the specific content of the objection), students correctly identify which rebuttal actually answers the objection.
   • Your listener's strongest objectionStudents generate the single strongest likely objection a specific, named real audience member (not a generic audience) would raise against their own draft claim, using that audience member's profile.
   • Fitting a rebuttal into your structureStudents write a rebuttal segment that answers the identified objection without abandoning or restarting their argument's existing organizational pattern.
   • Scoring with the four part rubricStudents apply the cumulative Units 1-3 rubric (audience adaptation, argument structure, delivery criteria) plus the new rebuttal criterion to score a peer's rehearsal recording, citing timestamped evidence for each score.
   • Rebuttals strengthen structure, not deliveryStudents explain why anticipating a counterargument is a structural addition to an argument's case rather than a delivery-polish technique.
   • Evaluating your own recorded speechStudents self-evaluate their own delivered address against the cumulative rubric using timestamped evidence from their own recording, before seeing the listener's response.
   • When you and your listener disagreeGiven their own self-evaluation and their real listener's recorded or written response to the same address, students identify specific points of discrepancy and generate a plausible explanation for each.
   • Deciding whose judgment guides revisionStudents propose a general principle for deciding whether self-evaluation or audience response should govern revision when the two disagree, and test that principle against a hypothetical higher-stakes scenario (e.g., a job interview or public testimony) not covered in class.

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1. Unit 1: Train With a PlanNine weeks learning to train rather than just exercise: rating effort honestly, adding a little each week, balancing push and pull, and taking a deliberately easy week before re-testing.9 skills ▸close ▾

   • Retest and set your numbersComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on re-test and set this year's numbers.
   • What hard enough feels likeComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on learn what 'hard enough' feels like.
   • Adding a little on purposeComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on add a little, on purpose.
   • Push and pull trainingComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on push and pull.
   • Legs that hold upComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on legs that hold up.
   • Midsection that does its jobComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on midsection that does its job.
   • A harder weekComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on a harder week.
   • An easier week on purposeComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on an easier week, deliberately.
   • Time to retestComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on re-test.
2. Unit 2: Sport and SkillNine weeks on one sport or skill of their choosing — deliberate practice of single elements, practicing under pressure, getting fit for that sport specifically, and filming themselves.9 skills ▸close ▾

   • Choosing a sport and starting pointComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on choose a sport and find out where you are.
   • Practise one thing at a timeComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on practice one thing at a time.
   • Practise under some pressureComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on practice under a bit of pressure.
   • Add a second elementComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on add a second element.
   • Fitness for your sportComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on get fit for your sport specifically.
   • Play it properlyComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on play it properly.
   • Learn from someone betterComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on learn from someone better.
   • A harder week in sportComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on a harder week in your sport.
   • Show what you can doComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on show what you can do.
3. Unit 3: Capacity and ResilienceBuilding an aerobic base slowly, mobility that targets an actual restriction, warm-ups, training around niggles, sleep, and eating to fuel training.9 skills ▸close ▾

   • Build a bigger aerobic baseComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on build a bigger aerobic base.
   • Mobility that actually helpsComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on mobility that actually changes something.
   • Warm up and cool downComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on warm up and cool down properly.
   • Look after the sore partsComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on look after the parts that complain.
   • Sleep and recoveryComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on sleep and recovery.
   • Eating to trainComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on eating to train.
   • Train when you don't want toComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on train when you don't want to.
   • A harder weekComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on a harder week.
   • Deload week and retestComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on deload and re-test.
4. Unit 4: Your Own ProgramChoosing one measurable goal, writing an eight-week plan for it, running it, deloading, revising it from their own data, tapering, and testing.9 skills ▸close ▾

   • Decide what you are training forComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on decide what you're training for.
   • Write your training planComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on write the plan.
   • Run your plan, part twoComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on run it, week two.
   • Run your plan, part threeComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on run it, week three.
   • Your own deload weekComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on deload — your own.
   • Run the revised planComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on run the revised plan.
   • Push your goal furtherComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on push the goal.
   • Taper your trainingComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on taper.
   • Test and plan what comes nextComplete about 150 minutes of activity this week, focused on test, and plan what's next.

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