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Unveiling the Mysteries Behind the AON Curriculum: 

From Originations to Easter Eggs 

 

By Emma Sun '25 

 

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People are often surprised to learn that there is an entire team of AON curriculum designers who carefully design the curriculum AON students are subjected to every day. So what goes on behind the scenes in developing the AON curriculum? Why do we read the books we read and complete the projects we complete? To learn the answers to these questions, I interviewed two long-term curriculum designers, Ms. Satterfield, a STEAM Curriculum Designer, and Ms. Rosenberg, a World Curriculum Designer. 

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Origins of Great Works Framework

 

Great Works is a curriculum like we’ve never seen before at any other school. When creating Great Works, Ms. Rosenberg shared that they knew they needed an extraordinary curriculum that had never existed before. They wanted it to be “a great experience for students because, as you know, sometimes school isn't a great experience. But they also wanted it to be rigorous, so that it would still demand work from you and a lot of thinking to help you grow as a student and a thinker. They drew inspiration from curricular designs that they appreciated, which included the long-standing tradition of Great Books programs based on discussions and readings of great literature. But the AON curriculum team took the Great Books program to the next level by making it work in an online environment, be interdisciplinary, and be project based. 

 

Creating a new unit begins with selecting the content and deciding which books can help infuse that content. Ms. Satterfield shares how they realized that they needed more content about World War I and more chemistry content in the Heroism curriculum, which is how the unit titled A War to End All Wars came to life. When selecting books, they think about which ones can have some inherent connection while still letting students be the ones to make connections for themselves. As Ms. Satterfield explains, “You get goosebumps just thinking about how that can happen every year even with a book that you've read four times because it's new to the students. And I think that it’s exciting for teachers who already know content to receive that kind of new insight from students.” In addition, Ms. Satterfield mentioned how they’re always “looking for more diverse authors, open to suggestions from faculty or students. For example, Dr. Hollenbeck recommended a book that's going into 12th grade next year. She loved it so much. She made the case, and I agreed it would be a great fit. So we we’re working it in. We're always open to that kind of suggestion. It's much more fun to teach a book that you're passionate about, or for students to read a book that they love.”

 

Zooming out of the intricacies of the Great Works curriculum are the broader year-long themes, all of which were selected at the beginning of AON. Ms. Rosenberg describes two reasons for having year-long themes. First, it is easier to absorb information that is categorized and organized. Because students are constantly linking a text or a project back to a year-long theme, the experience of reading the texts and doing the projects becomes more interesting. By constantly making these connections, you move throughout your entire high school experience with a richer and more nuanced understanding of the world. Second, “The idea was what large conceptual themes in the world would help students develop a framework for thinking through the kinds of content that they should learn in high school. The themes you’ve been studying from Recognition up to Ideology and Change seemed to be major life themes that would allow for the exploration of important texts, important context, and big ideas for solving global-scale problems.” Ms. Satterfield emphasized the way in which the curriculum was developed to align with the developmental stages of students: “In 6th grade, you're starting to recognize more things around you. In 7th and 8th grade, it is that feeling of alienation, which every adolescent goes through. In 11th and 12th grade, the emphasis is on the idea that students are going to graduate as people who will be change-makers.”  This description of the curriculum development process should give you some idea about how much purpose and care go into developing the AON curriculum. 

 

 

The Curriculum Designers' Top Hits 

 

As AON students, we either have our favorite units or each new unit becomes our favorite unit; however, everyone wants to know what the curriculum designers’ favorite units are. Ms. Satterfield shared, “I actually anticipated this question, but I still don't know what my answer is. But I think I have an idea: I love ‘Time After Time’ in Change. The Order of Time is the STEAM book, and The Fire Next Time is the World book. I like this unit because it is a little more existential, and we're getting out a lot of different ideas in the unit that are interesting. At those higher grade levels, you can be a little more out there and less focused. It's just the kind of stuff that I find interesting as a writer. So it's one of my favorite units.” Ms. Rosenberg says, “It’s hard to pick one favorite, so I have more than one. But one of my favorites is the unit in Ideology titled To Be or Not to Be, which brings together Hamlet and the Periodic Table. I love both of those texts for one thing, and I think somehow the projects that we were able to come up with for that unit speak well to each other. They play well off each other, And I think there are a lot of opportunities for students to make connections in that unit.”

 

 

Iterative Process: Great Works Is Always Great Working

 

Speaking of change, the curriculum is always changing. I asked the curriculum designers what the iterative process looks like for Great Works. Ms. Rosenberg and Ms. Satterfield explained that the iterative process is very fluid and that decisions about changing the curriculum come out of their conversations and from feedback. “If a teacher reports that a project is not working well, the curriculum team will tackle the problems and decide how to improve the project.” Ms. Rosenberg and Ms. Satterfield shared that one of their primary goals is to make every project exciting. Change occurs when they dislike a specific text, do not like the project, or want to write a better project for the unit. 

 

Pacing 

    

Another staple of Great Works is its one-week-per-project pacing. Ms. Rosenberg explained that, because the curriculum is project-based, there is a lot of material to cover, and sometimes they wish they could fit more in than they actually can; however, putting some fences around a project allows it to be completed in the time available for doing so. Ms. Satterfield describes each week as a learning sprint. “We know the pacing of Great Works is grueling, and it was designed to be that way. But we want to make sure that it's not impossible to complete. We need to find balance in the rigor.” The AON curriculum team is considering some additional two-week-long projects, so stay tuned!

 

 

Easter Eggs

 

Concluding this conversation with Ms. Satterfield and Ms. Rosenberg, we talked about arguably the most important question about curriculum design: Do they ever include puns or allusions in project and unit titles? Ms. Satterfield and Ms. Rosenberg welcomed this question because it made them realize that their efforts at titling projects and units after songs had been noticed! One of their all-time favorites is the Ideology project title “Come Together” after the Beatles song.  

 

After my conversation with Ms. Satterfield and Ms. Rosenberg, I couldn’t help but feel even more grateful and in awe of the effort and detail they put into every project, every unit, and even into the selection of year-long themes. From the careful pairing of books to the year-long themes' meanings to the song title Easter Eggs, the Great Works curriculum is special in numerous ways. Thank you, AON curriculum team!