How does the Circa Project Work?
Curious about becoming a Circa Project student? Read below to learn more about how the Circa curriculum works.
While many high school students learn facts and important events in history, they often miss out on the crucial skills needed to study history for themselves: skills like research, close reading, and making an argument.
It is a real shame that students miss out on these skills. They are less prepared for demanding college courses. They do not get to practice using these skills in academics and in the real world. And perhaps most importantly—there is a real sense of empowerment to be gained by answering your own questions about the past with research you do yourself. Memorizing history facts falls well short of the knowledge and satisfaction gained from historical research.
Circa structures its courses to teach students the skills needed to research the past. Students can choose one of three programs, based on their academic goals. These are skill-driven programs, AP history test prep programs, and individualized programs.
Skill-Driven Programs
Skill-driven programs are for students who want to target their history skills generally. Maybe you want to improve your academics. Or maybe you want to work on a passion project to stand out in college admissions. This is the program for you!
All of the courses are based around the skills that students will learn, not the facts that they know. Students doing full Circa programs move through 4 levels of skills: analyze, argue, communicate, and explore.
Each of these skills is then broken down into a series of subskills, each of which is the topic of its own course. For instance, the skill ‘analyze’ is broken into two parts: textual analysis and visual analysis.
Students can choose to take one course or multiple courses in each level, based on their current skill sets and their academic goals.
To practice using these skills, all Circa courses use engaging historical case studies. For their case studies, students can choose one of three tracks: US History, Modern European History, and Modern World History. Each course in the program then centers around a particular topic from that track. For instance, students in Textual Analysis study the Age of Revolutions. As students move through the skills of the Circa program, they also move chronologically through history.
The final level in the program guides students through the process of working on a project themselves. This project is perfect for practicing putting all of the history skills that students have learned to use. It also gives students a project to showcase to their teachers, schools, friends, and to potential admissions committees.
AP History Test Prep Programs
Circa also has a track for students preparing for any of the AP history exams. For these students, Circa offers a range of courses, which focus on different skills and knowledge. Students can take one or more AP history course, depending on their needs and goals.
Throughout the AP history test prep courses, our commitment to teaching skills remains at the forefront of the curriculum. Skills are crucial for succeeding on the test—students will be asked on the test to analyze primary and secondary sources, extract information from images, make arguments, organize information, and articulate ideas. In addition to these skills, Circa uses case studies from topics likely to appear on the exam.
Individualized Programs
For students who want to work one-on-one with Circa’s history experts to target specific skills aimed at their goals, we also offer individualized programs. Want to work on a major project with a professional historian? Need some more help with how to write sophisticated, nuanced arguments? Some targeted individual sessions with Circa’s historians can help you reach your goal.
If you want to improve your social science skills, learn how to answer questions you have about the past, and stand out academically, consider becoming a Circa student! We accept new applications on a rolling basis.
