Essential Question
What did the 'Age of Reason' get right, what did it get wrong, and where did it lead?
This week opens the Revolutions & the Modern Age unit. The student studies the Enlightenment — the eighteenth-century 'Age of Reason' — meeting the philosophes (Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Voltaire) and weighing their genuine achievements against their errors. We trace how these ideas crossed the Atlantic to shape American liberty, and how a Catholic mind should sift truth from error in any age of competing ideas.
Liturgical note: Late Lent, approaching Holy Week (April). The penitential season invites discernment — testing every spirit, as St. Paul urges, holding fast to what is good.
Threads at a Glance
The Enlightenment — reason, liberty, and the philosophes (Locke, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Voltaire); achievements and errors; the Catholic response; the stage set for revolution.
The Gilded Age: industry, fortunes, and labor's revolt
John Locke — government, natural rights, and consent.
The Atlantic world of ideas and trade (~1760); the Atlantic powers and the triangular trade.
Rococo and the turn to Neoclassicism — Watteau's elegance, then Jacques-Louis David's return to classical ideals.
The Classical era — Haydn and the birth of the symphony, the young Mozart; clarity, balance, and sonata form.
St. Alphonsus Liguori — moral theologian and founder of the Redemptorists.
Discernment — right judgment amid competing ideas.
YOUCAT — the seven petitions of the Our Father and the forms of prayer (Q485-Q510).
Cumulative review — parts of speech and sentence diagramming.
Literary analysis — analyze a primary text (a founding-era document excerpt).
Weekly Writing Assignment
Choose one short excerpt from a founding-era document (the opening of the Declaration of Independence, or a paragraph from John Locke's 'Second Treatise of Government,' or a passage from a Federalist essay). In 4-6 paragraphs, analyze HOW the author makes the reader believe and feel the argument. Examine word choice, sentence structure, appeals to reason and emotion, and any use of repetition or balance. Quote at least three short phrases and explain each. End by judging whether the passage persuades you, and why.
The Week
Close the Week
Add each date to your running timeline notebook — one color for World History, another for US History.
Unit Reading · Revolutions & the Modern Age
by Baroness Orczy
A masked Englishman risks everything to rescue innocent aristocrats from the guillotine while playing the fool in society. The original 'secret identity' adventure, set in the Terror of revolutionary France.
by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Ingalls family loads the wagon and heads west to build a new home on the open prairie. A beloved classic of homesteading, family, and the hard, hopeful work of the American frontier.
by Willa Cather
Two French missionary priests build the Church across the vast deserts of the American Southwest, among Native and Hispanic peoples. A luminous Catholic classic about faith, friendship, and a lifetime of quiet service.
by Charles Dickens
Dickens's masterpiece of the Revolution, moving from the Reign of Terror to one of the greatest acts of self-sacrifice in all of literature. A natural companion to The Scarlet Pimpernel and a standard high-school classic on the Cardinal Newman Society list.
by Stephen Crane
A young Union soldier marches off dreaming of glory, then flees in terror from his first battle — and must wrestle with shame, fear, and what courage really means. A short, vivid American classic on the Cardinal Newman Society reading list.
by Jane Austen
Sharp, funny, and wise, Austen's beloved novel follows quick-witted Elizabeth Bennet and the proud Mr. Darcy as they misjudge each other and slowly learn better. A perennial high-school classic on the Cardinal Newman Society list.