St. Monica Catholic Academy
St. Monica Academy provides a college preparatory core curriculum of transferable high school courses with a classical pedagogy and a traditional liberal arts curriculum. Parents looking for a place to prepare their children to excel at top colleges will find that here. They will discover comprehensive instruction in the conventional subjects that include theology, literature & writing, history, mathematics, laboratory science, and Latin.
Parents of current and potential St. Monica Academy students are invited to let us know which courses you would be interested in for the 2021-2022 school year! This survey is for planning purposes only. Completion of this survey does not register your child for the courses. We will need to assess interest before offering the courses. We will be opening enrollment in mid-January.
2021/2022 Intent to Enroll for SMA High School Courses
Typical Liberal Arts Curriculum
| Freshman Year | Sophomore Year | Junior Year | Senior Year |
| Sacred Scripture | Doctrine | Apologetics | Moral Theology |
| Ancient Literature | Medieval Literature | Renaissance/ Modern Literature |
U.S. Literature |
| Ancient History | Medieval History | Renaissance/ Modern History |
U.S. History |
| Algebra I or Geometry | Geometry or Algebra II |
Algebra II or Pre-Calculus* |
Pre-Calculus* or AP Calculus AB* |
| General Science or Biology | Biology or Chemistry | Chemistry or Physics* or Honors Physics* | Physics* or Honors Physics* or AP Chemistry* |
| Latin I | Latin II | Latin III* | AP Latin* |
| Concert Choir I | Performance Choir I |
Performance Choir II |
Performance Choir III |
| PE 9 | PE 10 | U.S. Government/ Economics | |
| Drama/Art | Anatomy | Computer Science* or Classical Literature Seminar* |
For more information about the high school course offerings, contact Martha Ritter at mritter@stmonicasea.org
2020/2021 Course Offerings
Latin
This course is designed for the enthusiastic and disciplined learner. It is a grammar-based course with students reading original and edited works by the Ancients from day one. It is structured to follow an advanced High School curriculum; Latin I and II the first two years, Latin III – Selected Authors (or UWHS 103), and Latin IV – Caesar & Vergil (Advanced Placement).
Theology
Students will gain knowledge and appreciation of Sacred Scripture from the Old Testament to the New Covenant in Christ and the early Church. Includes a special focus on the Gospels where students will meet Jesus Christ and develop a deeper faith in Him. Students will be led to deeply understand the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, the living Word of God. They’ll learn who He is and what he calls each of them to be.
Geometry
Geometry is available to qualifying middle and high school students. As part of St. Monica’s Walk to Math program, this course uses Saxon Geometry. Saxon’s classic “spiral” approach means that mathematical concepts are not segregated by chapter as is typical in traditional math courses. This constant review is beneficial within a Geometry course as it provides a natural bridge between Algebra I and Algebra II. Throughout the course, Geometry students will constantly be building upon concepts introduced in Algebra I (ex: simplifying radicals, factoring, and solving algebraic expressions) while entering the world of Euclid’s Geometry. By the end of the course, students will also be introduced to Algebra II foundations such as graphing linear functions, matrices, and trigonometry.
Algebra II
In this course, students will learn about the beauties and truths of numbers. Algebra is the branch of mathematics concerned with manipulating numbers and variables and their mixture through the study of polynomials. In Algebra II, we strengthen the foundations for all other advanced mathematics. By learning the rules of the language of mathematics, students will be able to harness the power of abstraction. They will know how to convert problems from the English language to mathematical sentences (expressions, equations, and inequalities) and back. Along the way, we will hope to understand the world of Mathematics in the context of its long and deep history. In mathematics, we discover a reflection of the order, rationality, and immutability found in God’s own divine nature. For, life—this created world—is good.
Biology
In this course, students will familiarize themselves with the emergence and continuation of biology’s modern scientific enterprise. They will widen their understanding of the world around them. In contextualizing and encountering primary texts, students will develop a holistic understanding of the world of biological studies. Like all other disciplines, biology is a rich and living conversation, not a static collection of facts. By encountering great biologists’ original writings and experiments throughout history, students will hone the same tools of thought and observation. They will also begin to critique the nature of the modern scientific inquiry thoughtfully. They may hope to recover and reconcile with modern science the world’s vision as articulated by the ancient Natural Philosophers: wonderous, beautiful, and worth understanding for its own sake. For, this created world is good.
American Literature
Flannery O’Connor wrote that fiction is concerned with “mystery as it is incarnated in human life.” In this course, we study the Great Books of the American literary canon and seek to learn the transcendent truths American writers have incarnated in their stories. We study authors like Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, Martin Luther King Jr., and Flannery O’Connor, and poets like Longfellow, Dickinson, Frost, Poe, and Hughes. Students learn to take charge of their own education through weekly seminars and self-designed papers. By the end of the course, students are ready to continue reading, writing, conversing, and learning outside of school, which is the mark of an educated person.
The Constitution of the United States
This high school-level class covers American History from the American continents’ discovery until the end of the Cold War. It includes a history of the Spanish, French, and English explorers in North America, the English colonies’ founding, the American Revolution. It’s causes, course, and outcome, the Constitutional Convention, Westward Expansion, the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Industrial Revolution, the Great Depression, 2 World Wars, and the Cold War. Coursework includes frequent quizzes, tests, daily reading/writing assignments, participation in class discussion, mapwork, 2 presentations, and portfolio work, memorization, and recitation.
