Electives Courses
Fall 2024
Fellowship Hour (12-12:55 PM)
First Hour (1-1:55 PM)
Freshman Foundations
Teacher: Tiffany Parsons
Class Fee: $5
Think of this as the icebreaker for BU! In this class, students will get to know their classmates while learning life skills, tips, and tricks for navigating the high school years and beyond. Our main goal is to form friendships and have FUN. Many seniors report they made their first BU friends in this class. We aim for it to be a memory-maker and a positive kickstart to their time at BU. *This class is mandatory for incoming freshmen.
Fellowship of Christian Athletes
Teacher: Heather Summers
Class Fee: $10
FCA is an international ministry with a mission to reach coaches and athletes with the Gospel. We are blessed to have FCA huddles across Central Kentucky and beyond. In this class, students will enjoy hearing from guest speakers (some of them college athletes), will learn how to share their own stories/testimonies, will have fun doing some team building exercises, and will learn how to share their faith with teammates and others whom they influence. This elective, while being taught with a focus on athletics, is open to any student who would like to participate. The content will be applicable to anyone who desires to use their God-given talents and gifts for God's glory and who desires to make a difference for Christ.
IInterpersonal Communications
Teacher: Gretchen Wahlstedt
Class Fee:
This class will be an introduction to interpersonal communications using an approach that focuses on fostering connection. This class is for those who have an interest in learning how to communicate with the people in their lives more effectively, and to better understand themselves.
Photography for Benginners
Teacher: Lori Moore
Class Fee: $10
Photography for beginners—learn camera settings, exposure, composition, and light basics.
Owning a camera is not a requirement to take the class. You can learn the basics, and even apply them to taking better smartphone photos, but having access to a film or digital camera with a manual setting option will get you the most out of this class!
BUPAC
Teacher: BUPAC Staff
Class Fee: $50/$30 Crew Only
BUPAC will be performing a full length play TBD. Casting is by audition only, and the production will include a limited crew selected through an application process. Auditions will be in late May or early June and will be announced in the BU News.
Second Hour (2-2:55 PM)
Creative Thinking
Teacher: Tiffany King
Class Fee: $10
Exploring creative thinking through art and writing, using drawing, collage, zines, comics and more. We'll also look at where to find inspiration and what to do with it once we've got it.
History of Comics
Teacher: Jamie Groover
Class Fee: None
Comics are everywhere these days thanks to apps like Webtoon and the popularity of Japanese manga. In this class, we’ll look at how the medium of comics began and developed, from newspaper strips, to disposable kids’ entertainment, to collector’s items, to the inspiration for billion-dollar movies. From Peanuts to Spider-Man to Uncle Scrooge to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to My Hero Academia, if it’s an important comic — book or strip — we’ll talk about it.
Conversational Spanish
Teacher: Tiffany Parsons
Class Fee: $5
This class will be perfect for the brand-new language learner as well as the student who might know very little Spanish and need practice. We’ll focus on acquiring the language through as much immersion as we can during class. We’ll play games and group activities to pack in as much vocabulary as we can while incorporating some Hispanic culture and geography.
BUPAC
Teacher: BUPAC Staff
Class Fee: Included with first hour
BUPAC will be performing a full length play TBD. Casting is by audition only, and the production will include a limited crew selected through an application process. Auditions will be in late May or early June and will be announced in the BU News.
Third Hour (3-3:55 PM)
Introduction to Film
Teacher: Jamie Groover
Class Fee: None
If you’ve ever been interested in movies beyond just the latest thing to hit streaming but didn’t know where to start, this class is for you. We’ll take a look at movies from the earliest days of film and see what kinds of trends developed as movies started to form their own particular storytelling language. Learn to recognize techniques used in movies and how they can be used to communicate ideas and emotions, so you can appreciate a movie beyond how cool its stars are or how realistic its visual effects look. Yes, we will be looking at black and white movies. Maybe even ones without sound.
Critical Thinking
Teacher: Tiffany King
Class Fee: None
We'll look at the steps and process of thinking critically through deep topics. This class will focus on political and cultural issues using the practices of epistemology – the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.
Media Socialization
Teacher: Caroline Zanni
Class Fee: None
An in-depth study of 'Man, Media and Motive: The Power of Social Influence'.
Does our social environment influence the way we think, feel, or behave? Learn to be keenly aware of the subtle (and not-so-subtle) influences bombarding us daily, the hundreds and sometimes thousands of persuasive appeals designed to sell us a belief, a behavior, or a worldview. The average American spends 7 hours a day in front of a screen. These “virtual” influencers can be quite powerful, at the “consumption” rate of 40 hours a week—the equivalent of a full-time job. Even if you unplug the screen, it is difficult to escape mass media influence entirely. After all, companies spend billions of dollars a year trying to influence our behavior.
This course is designed to help you become media literate—to help you understand, interpret, analyze, and respond appropriately to the millions of media messages you are confronted with over the course of the year; to become more than a consumer of culture, but a producer of it. Let's analyze the impact of the social system on the individual, and evaluate mass media's collective spiritual, psychological, and sociological impact on the church, the family, and the culture. Lessons include: "Junkfood Media", "A Brief History of Entertainment Education", "Movie Madness", and "Peer Culture and Conformity".
Into to Watercolor
Teacher: Amanda Welch
Class Fee: $25
We will be working on the basics of watercolor painting. We will go over color theory and basic drawing techniques to start, then introduce watercolor basic techniques and styles. Students should have several finished pieces by the end of the term.
Crochet and Knitting
Teacher: Shannon McElfresh
Class Fee: $10
Bring your own projects and we will knit and crochet together. This class is to help students complete projects and overcome mistakes or hardships in the directions of any current project they are working on. Students will be expected to bring their projects to class each week with all the needed tools and directions. If you are a beginner, the teacher will bring some extra tools to the first couple of classes to help students build their skills before they proceed to a personal project.