Themes and Stimuli for HS DBAs
Grade
12
Theme
Doubt &
Certainty
Assessment #1: PreStimuli
(A) Gup, “In Praise of the Wobblies” (speech)
(B) Szymborska, “Utopia” (poem)
(C) Emerson, “Self-Reliance” (essay)
(D) Brown, “What is Truth?” (short essays)
(E) Certainty/doubt (cartoon)
(F) Quotes by William Lyons Phelps and Bertrand
Russell
Grade
11
Conformity
&
Individuality
Grade
10
Self
(A) “The Magic of Truth and Lies (and iPods)”
Preservation (B) Hemingway, “Soldier’s Home” (short story
& The
excerpt)
Common
(C) Twain, “On the Decay of the Art of Lying”
Good
(satirical essay)
(D) Dimitrius, “Liars” (essay)
Lens:
(E) Quote from Allison Kornet, “The Truth About
Honesty
Lying”
Grade
9
Innocence &
Experience
Lens:
Growth
(A) Vedder, “Society” (song)
(B) Cather, excerpt from “Paul’s Case” (fiction
passage)
(C) Fridman, “American Needs its Nerds” (article)
(D) Quotes by Scott Russell Sanders and Henry
David Thoreau
(A) “The Key to Success? Grit.” (video excerpt)
(B) Excerpt from Black Boy
(C) Buchanan, “The Death of Childhood” (article)
(D) English, “The Wounded: Adrianne Haslet and
Adam Davis” (article)
(E)Quote from Victor Frankl, Man’s Search for
Meaning
Assessment #2: Formative
Stimuli
(A) Faulkner, “Address to The Graduating Class”
(video speech)
(B) Auden, “Unknown Citizen” (poem)
(C) Stanton, “Declaration of Sentiments” (primary
document/speech)
(D) Brown, “Challenge Authority” (short essays)
(E) Arab Spring (cartoon)
(F) Quote by Daniel Boorstin
Empowerment & (A) Sandberg, “Lean In” (video)
Circumstance
(B) Childress, “The Pocketbook Game” (short
story)
(C) Malcolm X, “A Homemade Education”
(autobiographical excerpt)
(D) Quotes by Victor Hugo, Alvin Toffler and John
Stuart Mill
Personal
(A) “Partners” (video clip)
Influence &
(B) Wolff, “Concrete was a Company Town”
Social Influence
(excerpt from This Boy’s Life)
(C) Lewin, “Single Sex Education is Assailed in
Report” (article excerpt)
(D) Tyre, “Boy Brains, Girl Brains” (article)
(E) Quotes from Doris Lessing, The Golden
Lens: Gender
Notebook and bell hooks
Theme
Dissent &
Disagreement
Autonomy &
(A) “Mean Girls” (video excerpt)
Interdependence (B) Excerpt from The Hunger Games
(C) Simmons-Brown, “School Vending Machine
Lens: Balance
Laws Would Help Kids Lose Weight”
(D) “Why Crowds Make Us Callous” (Psychology
Today article)
(E) “No Man is an Island” (poem by John Donne)