Eye Catching Electives Part 2: Words As Sharp As Swords
Doc Nelson’s electives The Dark Ages and Word Origins are two lesser known course at DHS, one a lesson in history and the other a deep dive into the English language.
Dr. Nelson, the teacher of Word Origin & The Dark Ages, teaches his students during the third period. These two electives are popular but not as well-known.
Walking into room 130 one may hear the tales of ages darker and longer ago than zoom days or maybe the deep history and tidbits of words and their breakdown.
Latin teacher Dr. Nelson explores the Dark Ages and Word Origins with his students. Both are classes that students may not normally think of when scheduling but are very unique classes Dallastown offers.
Dark Ages
Cold harsh days no new knowledge nothing flourishing, declining after the great empire’s fall. Welcome to the Dark Ages.
The Dark Ages class takes students back in time, focusing mainly on the events of the years 390 AD to 1100 AD in Western Europe.
The course dives deep into the origins of the English, Spanish, French and Italian nations, languages, and pieces of literature and the impact of the Vikings and Normans on those origins.
Students also take a look at some origins of various modern customs, ideas, and institutions that arose during the time.
This single-trimester course has been offered since 2019 and it counts as 0.5 Humanities or Elective credit.
It’s a separate course and there aren’t any pre-requisite classes students need to take.
According to Nelson, the workload includes, “4-5 Major unit tests (including finals), frequent in-class quizzes, and homework exercises.”
There is no higher level offered for this course. Students also do not have to bring supplies or anything else to prepare themselves before the class.
There are also no materials students should bring before Dark Ages but an open mind and the urge to learn of days darker than night.
Dr. Nelson’s egregiously immense array of knowledge allowed me to ask anything and everything I could think of. Word Origins is by far my favorite and most fascinating elective I have taken senior year.
— Cooper Sentz
Word Origins
“Word origins has opened my mind to the intricacies and connections that are hidden in the language we speak to one another every day.” Says Senior Cooper Sentz one lucky student to have taken this class.
Learning anything is hard so why not start at the beginning with Word Origins. This class breaks down words to their basics of roots, prefixes, and suffixes. All from their base of Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, Greek, or Latin.
Word Origins prepares students to look at unfamiliar words and break them down to understand them taking away the need to google words.
This class helps to increase reading, spelling, and general vocab skills for students. For those who wish to take SAT ACT or any other standardized test, this class will help you understand those words meant to trick you.
Nelson says the course can help with future jobs in “Communications and Scientific/Medical/Technical jobs, because it gives you the tools to understand new vocabulary.”
Like Dark Ages, Word Origins is a stand alone, one-trimester elective course with no prerequisites.
Nelson lists the same structure for the course as well with 4-5 Major unit tests (including finals), frequent in-class quizzes, and homework exercises.
Word Origins not only teaches students the thought process to break down words but also just broadens the kind as a while altogether.
*This is Article 2 in the series of Eye-Catching Electives.
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