Brain Power`s Senior 3 course is

9600 Bathurst Street, Suite #313
Business: (905) 886-6721 / E-mail: [email protected]
Brain Power’s Senior 3 course is
designed to provide students with the critical
thinking, reading, and writing skills required
for success in the arts, humanities, and social
sciences in their last years of high school. In
addition, it will introduce them to important
issues and ideas in the arts humanities, and
social sciences. Our instructor, Jason, has
over fifteen years of experience at the
university level, and he has designed this
course with students’ success at both the highschool and university levels in mind. In
addition, the President and Founder of Brain
Power’s Language Arts Program, Karine, will
be dropping in during the course of the year to
a guest lecture on Surrealism, complete with
her own work!
Jason Boulet
Karine Rashkovsky
(Instructor)
(Guest Lecturer)
Associate Instructor – BP Language Arts
B.A., M.A., Ph.D.
English Language and Literature
Queen’s University
President and Founder – BP Language Arts
B.Sc, B.Ed., M.Ed., Ph.D.
Education Policy
York University
Students will practice the critical thinking, reading, and writing skills necessary
to a) improve their high-school grades; b) produce outstanding high-school essays; c) engage in
advanced intellectual discussion and debate; d) become familiar with the major disciplinary
differences and expectations of university subject areas; and e) think across paradigms as well as
approach intellectual questions in an interdisciplinary manner. In sum, this class is designed to
improve students’ high-school performance on essays, examinations, research assignments,
and presentations across all courses in the language arts, humanities, and social sciences
spectrum. Furthermore, Senior 3 begins their preparation to excel in a university-classroom
environment across an even wider variety of disciplines.
In 2015-2016, Senior 3 will cover several exciting subject areas, including
the classical traditions, myths, and legends that served as the basis of Western culture;
psychoanalysis, as developed and elaborated by Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Jacques Lacan,
with its explorations of the Oedipus Complex, the Unconscious, dream analysis, and more;
surrealism, which is perhaps the most influential twentieth-century art movement, and opened
the doorways to the irrational through methods such as automatic writing, the exquisite corpse,
the chain poem, and others (all of which we will employ for ourselves in class!); the philosophies
of controversial poststructuralist trouble-makers, like Jacques Derrida (deconstruction ), Jean
Baudrillard (simulation), Michel Foucault (discipline and surveillance), and Judith Butler
(performativity); and Lewis Carroll’s maddening and fascinating Alice books, which may seem
(at first glance) like simple nonsense stories for children, but have served as an inspiration for
artists, mathematicians, philosophers, and psychologists for the past century and a half.
All texts will be provided by Brain Power, either on Canvas or photocopied handouts.
Each disciplinary block will also include
research and writing components, such as the essentials
of essay writing (e.g. thesis statements, structure, etc.),
how to do relevant research for a variety of assignments,
effective PowerPoint presentations, how to form logical
arguments in speaking and writing, how to quote
selectively from resources, how to integrate quotations
into critical prose, how to cite resources in a variety of
common formats (MLA, APA, Chicago Style), etc.
We will explore each subject
through lectures and classroom discussions,
which will focus on a variety of short stories and
novels, poems, essays, and other media (e.g.
television and movies, advertisements, music
videos, etc.). The readings will also
acquaint students with seminal theorists in
various disciplines (e.g. psychology,
sociology, art theory, literary theory, philosophy),
while familiarizing them with these essential
authors’ most influential theoretical frameworks.
For example, in the 2015-2016 school year, we will examine (among others) Sigmund Freud’s
psychoanalytic theories, Salvador Dali’s paranoiac-critical method, and Jacques Derrida’s
deconstruction. Furthermore, classroom readings are designed to provide students with a deeper
and more nuanced understanding of intellectual tools, such as semiotics and hermeneutics,
which will enable them to think critically and produce outstanding essays.
Students are expected to read the
assigned readings in/for each class and to
demonstrate preparation through participation in
class discussions and in the written assignments.
Full attendance is beneficial for optimum learning.
In addition to the weekly readings, writings,
and grammar and vocabulary tests, students will
be actively engaged in small group and full class
discussion, in which they will have the opportunity
to engage and debate with each other.
Students will be assessed on
vocabulary quizzes, writing assignments,
mid-term and final vocabulary exams, and
a final cumulative exam. Homework
completion, novel studies, essay
assignments, and overall progress will be
evaluated on an ongoing basis throughout
the year. Students will have a final June
exam which will bring together all of the
knowledge gained over the course of the
year and report cards will be distributed
thereafter.
If you are interested in
joining Brain Power’s Senior 3 class
for the 2015-2016 school year,
please fill out the application forms
(PDF or paper). You can register in
person at 9600 Bathurst Street,
Suite #313.
If you would like further information
about registration, please contact
us at (905) 886-6721. If you would like
more information on the course, please
email: [email protected]