AMSA is introducing two new electives for the 2025-2026 school year. Electives are most often half-credit classes that students can take to learn about certain subjects without enrolling in an everyday class.
Paige Percoskie, a 9th and 11th grade English teacher, is introducing the course “Pop Culture and Media Analysis,” in which students will learn about current and past trends, looking at sources and seeing which have reliable information, and doing activities such as viewing three headlines from opposing news sources and reviewing the biases within them.
“There are far too many sources in the world right now that are unreliable, and I think there are more unreliable ones than reliable,” Mrs. Percoskie said. “The problem is people don’t know how to differentiate between them; especially using AI, you can make a picture look real, and if you pair that with a well-written headline and article, it can look real.”
The course will be available to students at all high school grade levels, and most of the work will be done in class with discussions and projects. One of the first projects will be dividing up decades and looking at the trends from those times, including topics such as fashion, politics, and music.
“I also want the students to teach me things, tell me about an artist they like that I may know nothing about, and they wrote this song about whatever was happening, and then I learn something in the process, too,” Mrs. Percoskie said.
As opposed to other classes with set book and supplementary reading lists, Pop Culture and Media Analysis will have topics that change based on current events.
“There’s no shortage of different events in pop culture occurring right now that could be discussed — what’s happening in TV, what’s happening in music, what trends are occurring on TikTok, so it will depend a lot on what is happening in the world,” Mrs. Percoskie explained.
The inspiration for her course started when Mrs. Percoskie began receiving comments from students saying they had seen or learned something on TikTok, and she wanted to show that good information can be learned from social media, but how it is important to learn what is good information and what is misinformation.
The other elective being introduced is “From Wizards to Wormholes: Intro to Fantasy and Sci-Fi Literature” with Jordan Hill, another English teacher. This course is being reintroduced after a three-year hiatus.
It’s an in-depth introduction to both science fiction and fantasy. Mr. Hill divides the class into two parts, starting with reading The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien over the summer and beginning the year with fantasy. The class will study the origin stories and mythology that inspired the course material.
“I don’t know that there are any other teachers who could teach this course, in the sense that this is what I do in my spare time,” Mr. Hill said. “It’s a big time hobby of mine. I have an entire YouTube channel devoted to exploring fantasy and sci-fi literature. I am passionate about it, and I really think that we need to start looking at fantasy and sci-fi in the same way that we look at classics.”
This year Mr. Hill is adding a new text, Homeland by R.A Salvatore, which is a dungeons and dragons book.
In the science fiction portion of the course, the first and main book is Dune by Frank Herbert.
“The beautiful thing about this course is I will walk you through everything you need to know about Dune,” Mr. Hill said. “I am an expert in Dune and then by the end of the course, you will be an expert in it too.”
Students can find more information about these unique courses in the program of studies on the AMSA website.
