Course Content
Free Minds offers a two-semester interdisciplinary course in the humanities, introducing students to works that are central to the study of literature, American history, philosophy, and theater. The program provides training in critical thinking and writing and prepares students for the college-level writing required in subsequent classes. Students attend theater performances and take museum tours. Local artists and writers visit the class, as well as other faculty members and experts in Texas government. Supplemental workshops prepare students for continuing their education at area colleges and universities.
What are the humanities? “We understand ‘the humanities’ to encompass all the forms of artistic expression, intellectual inquiry, and everyday experience through which people explore the meanings and challenges of human life.” —The Humanities Institute at The University of Texas at Austin
The reading list below reflects a sample of the poems, plays, novels, philosophical works, and historical documents Free Minds students read and discussed between 2006 and 2009. Future curriculums may include some of these works and others not listed.
- Plato, The Republic
- William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, and The Winter’s Tale
- Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, American Slave
- Tony Kushner, Angels in America
- Toni Morrison, Beloved
- The Declaration of Independence
- Robert Pinsky, editor, Americans’ Favorite Poems
- Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones
- Richard Etulain, editor, Cesar Chavez: A Brief Biography With Documents
- The Constitution of the United States of America
- Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman
- Tobias Wolff, “The Rich Brother”
- The letters of John Adams and Abigail Adams
- Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun
- Euripides, The Trojan Women
- “Brown vs. the Board of Education,” court case