Course Catalog (In-Progress)

Navira Christian Academy offers a developing academic catalog designed to reflect our Christ-centered, formation-based approach to learning. Courses are organized to support academic excellence, spiritual formation, and global awareness through a biblical worldview.

Not all courses will be offered during the initial launch. This catalog is currently in development and may be refined as the program grows.

Global Studies Foundations at Navira Christian Academy is a vertically aligned humanities pathway designed to develop cultural understanding, critical thinking, and a Christ-centered view of the world. Students progress through age-appropriate experiences that build from exploration to analysis to application. 

Applied Humanities Lab (K-6)

Students engage age-appropriate literature, narratives, and thematic studies that introduce them to human experience, culture, and global awareness. Through storytelling, discussion, creative expression, and guided inquiry, students explore themes such as community, identity, kindness, resilience, stewardship, and justice.

This stage emphasizes curiosity, empathy, communication, and foundational understanding of the world through a Christ-centered lens.

Foundations of the Modern World: History & Geography (Middle School) 

Foundations of the Modern World: History & Geography is a multi-grade humanities course that explores major civilizations, geographic regions, and historical movements that have shaped the modern world. Students study topics including ancient Greece and Rome, the Enlightenment, revolutions in Europe and Latin America, the Industrial Revolution, immigration, and the growth of modern urban society in the United States, while also examining how geography influences human development and culture.

Foundations of Modern America II: Industrial Era to Present (Middle School) 

Foundations of Modern America: Contemporary United States explores the transformation of the United States from the late 19th century to the present day. Students study industrialization, immigration, the Progressive Era, world wars, the Great Depression, the Civil Rights Movement, the Cold War, and developments in modern American political, cultural, and global life. Emphasis is placed on understanding how historical events shape systems, identities, and civic structures over time. 

World Civilizations (High School) 

Students explore the development of world history from ancient civilizations to the modern era, including Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Using a Christ-centered worldview, students examine how belief systems, cultural development, political structures, and philosophical ideas shape societies over time.

Through historical narratives, primary ideas, and worldview analysis, students develop a deep understanding of human civilization, including major empires, revolutions, wars, and cultural movements that have shaped the modern world.

Core Texts:

World History — James Stobaugh (Master Books Curriculum) 

Indigenous, Latin, & Pacific Studies (High School) 

Students examine the histories, cultures, and lived experiences of Indigenous peoples of North America, Latin American societies, and Pacific Island nations through a narrative-driven study of history, literature, and primary source accounts. This course centers migration, colonization, identity, resistance, and cultural memory, helping students understand how historical forces continue to shape present-day communities.

Students analyze how Indigenous and diasporic voices preserve history, resist erasure, and communicate lived experience across generations. Students also engage documentary-based inquiry and guided analysis of cultural narratives such as Harvest of Empire, using them to connect literary representation with historical and political realities. Emphasis is placed on developing cultural literacy, empathy, and critical interpretation through a Christ-centered worldview that affirms human dignity and truth.

Core texts:

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People — Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz; adapted by Debbie Reese and Jean Mendoza

A Man Called Horse: John Horse and the Black Seminole Underground Railroad — Glennette Tilley Turner

Black Elk’s Vision: A Lakota Story — S. D. Nelson 

6th Grade: Language Arts

Grade 6 Language Arts introduces the theme ofvoices in literature. Students engage with varied study of literature and informational texts that span contemporary fiction, memoir, invention and innovation, classical mythology, and foundational historical narratives. Using a Core Knowledge Language Arts–based sequence, students engage with stories and texts that develop their ability to interpret meaning, recognize patterns across genres, and understand how language reflects culture and human experience.

Throughout the year, students explore a wide range of units including Flying Lessons & Other Stories, Calling All Minds: How to Think and Create Like an Inventor, and 90 Miles to Havana, alongside foundational studies of ancient civilizations through The Iliad, The Odyssey, and The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. Students also examine civic and historical themes through works such as The Heritage of Ancient Greece and Rome, The Blessings of Liberty, and additional curated literary selections.

This course emphasizes the development of thoughtful readers who can engage deeply with narrative, argument, and informational texts while tracing ideas across time periods, cultures, and literary traditions. Students are invited into conversations about identity, innovation, leadership, conflict, and human motivation as they build a broad literary and cultural foundation.

8th Grade: Language Arts

Grade 8 Language Arts introduces the theme of voices of power and change. Students develop literacy skills through a study of texts that explore identity, justice, voice, and societal transformation. Using a Core Knowledge Language Arts–based sequence, students refine their ability to interpret complex texts, evaluate authorial purpose, and synthesize ideas across genres and time periods.

Throughout the year, students engage with works such as Us, in Progress, Frankenstein, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, The Genius of the Harlem Renaissance, Volume 2, A More Perfect Union: Voices for Civil Rights in America, The Squatter and the Don, The Importance of Being Earnest, and Realms of Gold, Volume 3. These texts invite students to examine themes of power, inequality, reform, identity, and human dignity across literary, historical, and cultural contexts.

10th Grade: Comparative Literature: Modern Classics & Contemporary Diverse Voices

Students explore competing visions of justice, belonging, identity, community, and the American Dream through classic and contemporary literature representing diverse voices and experiences. By reading novels, poetry, short stories, memoir, and narrative verse from diverse historical and cultural perspectives, students learn to analyze how authors across generations respond to similar human questions and social realities.

Through literary analysis, discussion, writing, and creative expression, students develop critical reading and communication skills while exploring how stories shape individual identity, cultural understanding, and moral imagination. Students engage multiple literary forms and perspectives, culminating in comparative projects, analytical writing, and original creative works that demonstrate both literary understanding and personal voice. 

Core Texts: 

• To Kill a Mockingbird

• All American Boys

• Of Mice and Men

• Brown Girl Dreaming (selected poems)

• Us, in Progress: Short Stories About Young Latinos

• The Stars Beneath Our Feet

• The House on Mango Street

• The Poet X

Senior English (12th Grade): Contemporary Global Issues, Bureaucracy & Human Rights 

Senior English: Global Voices, Bureaucracy & Human Rights serves as the capstone literary experience for graduating seniors, meticulously preparing them for university-level textual analysis and academic research. Utilizing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as an analytical lens, this course investigates the intersections of institutional power, systemic trauma, and individual resilience across global literature.

Students will conduct a high-level critique of how global citizens navigate crisis, resist tyranny, and engineer solutions to systemic structural failures. Featuring advanced memoirs, novels in vignettes, historical biographies, and legal documents, this course pushes seniors to evaluate how authors manipulate form, rhetoric, and structure to critique bureaucratic, environmental, criminal, and political institutions.

Required Course Texts

The following core texts are required for all students enrolled in this course. 

• Leap into Darkness: Seven Years on the Run in Wartime Europe
  Authors: Leo Bretholz & Michael Olesker
  Focus: Trimester 1 (Historical Bureaucracy, Systemic Discrimination, and Holocaust Refugee Survival)

• The Light in Hidden Places
  Author: Sharon Cameron
  Focus: Trimester 1 (Holocaust Psychological Burden of the Upstander and Narrative Suspense)

• I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban (Standard/Adult Edition)
  Author: Malala Yousafzai
  Focus: Trimester 2 (Ideological Warfare, Rhetorical Strategy, and Gender-Based Educational Barriers)

• Sold
  Author: Patricia McCormick
  Focus: Trimester 2 (Modern Human Trafficking and Cross-Border Exploitation)

• The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope (Standard/Adult Edition)
  Authors: William Kamkwamba & Bryan Mealer
  Focus: Trimester 3 (Ecological Fragility, Community Advocacy, and the Rhetoric of Innovation)