Integrated core program (grades 8-9): Mixed-grade class expands and hones core skills in academic writing, analysis, and research.

The difficult reading and increased individual time management demanded by this class require that students have a mature, focused attitude.        

World History students explore the impacts of historical revolutions. What defines a revolution? In what context did these major movements develop? How did these shifts in thought cause major changes in lifestyle, belief, political systems, land use patterns, technologies, economies, and more? Revolutions include:

The Scientific Revolution (and the impact of it and the Protestant Reformation on the European Enlightenment)

Political Revolutions: American, French, Haitian, Latin American, and Russian

The Industrial Revolution: Causes & Consequences

Students study causes & consequences, conflicts, the development of the West as a global power, context, and changes and continuity over time. By focusing on similarities & differences in these various processes, students see how each continues to shape the world as we know it today.

The class examines source documents, analyzing point of view, audience, and purpose. A third-quarter research paper will provide students with additional practice in research methods, sourcing, writing, and citing sources.

French language and culture offers students invaluable insight into the cultural forces that shaped ideas during The Enlightenment and the French Revolution, as well as an increased understanding of how the English language is structured.  Three thirty-minute classes per week introduce 3rd Year students to the joys and difficulties of language study.

Fine Arts includes twenty hours during the school year in which students explore the techniques of artists in the Renaissance, the French Impressionist Period, and Muslim cultural art. Art classes enhance students' understanding of the countries and time periods their courses will cover, as well as opening their eyes to new ways of seeing the world.

Third Year English includes further analysis of literature and formal essay-writing skills, as well as new techniques of "creative" writing, such as paradox & synesthesia in poetry, satire, and creative technical writing in resumes and application essays.

In the Third Year, we study British authors who affected ideas during the period from 1450 to 1950.  Selections from Sir Thomas More's Utopia, Thomas Hobbe's Leviathan, and John Locke's essay, Of Civil Government, reveal Man's view of humanity and how it has shaped the world; Well's story, The Time Machine, Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and George Orwell's Animal Farm all continue variations of this theme.

Shakespeare's exploration of human nature adds yet another element to our understanding of history in the third year. Beginning with a comedy, either As You Like It, or Taming of the Shrew, we read selected sonnets; Romeo and Juliet; Henry IV, Part I;  Othello; and The Tempest. Our study of poetry and satire includes the "Metaphysical" poetry of Donne, Marvell, Herbert, Herrick, Crashaw, & Vaughn.

In preparation for the SAT and other standardized tests, we cover elements of grammar, including diagramming sentences, vocabulary (including 1st & 2nd Year words) coordinated with the reading selections, and TIME MANAGEMENT SKILLS.

Third Year students are expected to keep assignments in a daily planner, and to take full responsibility for knowing what it is they have to do and WHEN it is due. Students learn to create a "Master Schedule" of their day, thus discovering "free time" they never knew they had.

The 3rd Year Program is a full-year course.  Students meet four days per week for two hours each day. 

Students who join North Fork School classes by the 2nd Year Program gain the most from our vertically-aligned core curriculum over the course of their middle and high school years. We believe that a slow, integrated, steady development of AP (college-level) skills is best begun in middle school, when academic habits are still forming.