Senior Capstone: The Hyde Words in Life and Literature English | Fulfills one third 12th Grade English Requirement (Spring Term: Seniors & post- graduates except those enrolled in AP Literature & Composition) By the spring of their senior year, students will have learned Hyde’s Five Words and Five Principles. They will also have spent time asking what those words actually demand of them — not as abstractions, but as daily commitments. This capstone course challenges students to take this knowledge and experience to the next level by exploring the ways in which courage, integrity, leadership, curiosity, and concern have been wrestled with by writers, philosophers, and ethical thinkers across centuries. The guiding conviction of the course is that character is not a fixed trait but a practice, something built through deliberate effort, honest self-examination, and the willingness to close the gap between the values we claim and the choices we actually make. Students select a Hyde word that resonates with them and spend the trimester tracing its meaning across two texts: a major work of literature and a work of philosophy or ethics. The pairing is intentional. Literature shows us what these values look like when tested by circumstance — how curiosity can illuminate or destroy, how integrity holds or fractures under pressure, how concern for others shapes or complicates a life. Philosophy asks us to think rigorously about why these things matter and what a life genuinely organized around them would require. What would it mean to lead not just skillfully but well? What is the difference between appearing courageous and being courageous, and does it matter if no one else can tell? Is concern a feeling, a habit, or an obligation? The course culminates in a capstone oral thesis defense in which students present a unified analysis of their chosen word, their literary text, and their philosophical source, arguing not just for an interpretation, but for a way of living.
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