This is our catalog of courses. We will occasionally adjust the course listing to reflect the addition of new courses and the retirement of others.
The Broadway musical Hamilton is groundbreaking, exciting, thrilling – and historically accurate! Using the musical as our guide, we will explore the story it tells of early American history and the visionary dream of our founding fathers. We will also explore the deeply Christian elements of the story told by Lin Manuel Miranda.
Total classes: 12
Prerequisite: None
Suggested grade level: 9th to 12th
Suggested credit: One full semester History, Drama, or English
Description
The Broadway musical Hamilton is groundbreaking, exciting, thrilling – and historically accurate! Using the musical as our guide, we will explore the story it tells of early American history and the visionary dream of our founding fathers. We will also explore the deeply Christian elements of the story told by Lin Manuel Miranda.
PARENTS, PLEASE NOTE! Though I will be featuring the “clean” version of the Hamilton songs, with all vulgarities censored, both the Chernow biography, the Lin Manuel Miranda musical – and also the real-life events of history upon which both works are based – deal frankly with events that include or refer to sex or violence. Thus this course is PG-13, but the musical itself is profoundly Christian, which I will point out in these classes. Please contact me if you have any questions.
Outline
We will follow the plot of the musical and match it up with elements from the book on which the musical is based.
Materials and Homework
Course Materials: A sanitized version of some of the song lyrics will be provided in class. Also, students should obtain Hamilton by Ron Chernow, ISBN-10: 1524734500 (ISBN-13: 978-1524734503), though we will not read the entire book, which is very long. Note that it is also available as an eBook as well as an audiobook if you prefer one of those formats.
Homework: Selections from the book will be assigned each week. There will be weekly quizzes. Plan on about two to three hours of homework per week.
