Essential Question
How did plague, war, and crisis end the medieval world and open a new age?
This week the student watches the high-medieval world come apart under the strain of plague, war, and a divided papacy. The Black Death kills a third of Europe; England and France grind through the Hundred Years' War; a teenage girl named Joan of Arc turns the tide and is burned for it; and the Church endures the scandal of two and then three rival popes. Out of this crisis the modern world begins to stir.
Liturgical note: Christmas season giving way to Ordinary Time (January); the new winter term opens.
Threads at a Glance
The Black Death and its toll; the Hundred Years' War; Joan of Arc; the Avignon Papacy and the Western Schism; the waning of the medieval order
Era of Good Feelings, Missouri Compromise, Market Revolution
Geoffrey Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales
France and England in the Hundred Years' War; the shifting territory, Orléans and Agincourt
International Gothic — the Limbourg brothers' Très Riches Heures; the danse macabre and memento mori
Guillaume de Machaut and the Ars Nova; the Messe de Nostre Dame (first complete polyphonic Mass setting by one composer)
St. Joan of Arc
Moral Courage (conviction against the tide)
YOUCAT Part Three intro: Life in Christ; society, justice and the common good (Q321-Q333)
Punctuation II — the semicolon and the colon
Analytical/persuasive — evaluate a historical figure's choices
Weekly Writing Assignment
Joan of Arc made a series of remarkable choices: to leave home, to seek out the dauphin, to lead soldiers into battle, and at her trial, to insist on her voices even when recanting could have saved her life. Choose ONE of these decisions and argue whether it was wise, courageous, reckless, or holy (you may argue it was more than one). Make a clear claim, then defend it with at least three specific reasons grounded in what you have learned this week.
The Week
Close the Week
Add each date to your running timeline notebook — one color for World History, another for US History.
Unit Reading · Renaissance, Exploration & Reformation
by E. L. Konigsburg
A witty, surprising novel that imagines the friendship between Leonardo da Vinci, his mischievous servant boy Salai, and the duchess Beatrice — and the mystery behind the Mona Lisa's smile.
by Robert Bolt
The acclaimed play about St. Thomas More, who would not betray his conscience even when the king demanded it — and paid with his life. A gripping portrait of integrity in the storm of the Reformation.
by Louis de Wohl
A sweeping novel of St. Francis Xavier, the friend of St. Ignatius who carried the Gospel across the seas to India and Japan during the Catholic Reformation. Adventure and holiness on a global stage.
by William Shakespeare
Shakespeare's most famous play: two teenagers from feuding families fall headlong in love, with tragic results. The classic introduction to Shakespeare for ninth graders, full of dazzling language about love, family, and rash choices. (Mature themes — young love and the lovers' suicides — make for rich discussion with a parent.)
by Miguel de Cervantes
An old gentleman reads so many tales of chivalry that he sets off to be a knight himself — tilting at windmills with his loyal squire Sancho Panza. The first modern novel: hilarious, tender, and wise. Best met in a good abridgment at this age. On the Cardinal Newman Society reading list.
by Elizabeth Borton de Treviño
The true-life story of Juan de Pareja, an enslaved man in the household of the great Spanish painter Velázquez, who secretly learns to paint and eventually wins his freedom and friendship. A quiet, beautiful novel about art, dignity, and faith. Listed on the Cardinal Newman Society reading list.