Electives

At GCS, we give a variety of electives for the students to enjoy within the mixture of their academic classes. There are two main categories of our electives: Creative Electives and Scholastic Electives.

Visual Arts, Chorus, Creative Writing, Journalism, Yearbook, and Website Design are our more creative electives. Political Science, Business Law, Personal Finance, Sociology, Bible are our scholastic electives. They are spelled out below:

Visual Arts

There are two High School electives available in the visual arts area. Art Appreciation is for students who have not had an extensive background in the visual arts. It is a foundations class for Studio I which is also available to High School Students. Studio I is a more in-depth class that focuses on drawing skills and composition.

Chorus

The GCS Chorus is a long standing tradition here. Chorus is a class that teaches the students new songs as well as the four part harmony to those songs. The Chorus performs regularly after services at area churches, school functions, civic and service groups. From the chorus comes the solo competition, the trio, and the quartet who compete at the Literary Conference.

Creative Writing

This elective class is a workshop style environment which allows the students to enhance their writing in a constructive atmosphere. The students work in the style of poetry as well as short stories. Broad topics are given for the maximum use of creativity and imagination. Portfolios are required as the means for grading.

Journalism

Journalism is a class that involves news articles that specifically apply to the students. They research articles that focus on issues and news that are relevant to the High School age group. Journalism students also write their own articles in response to this research as well as articles from newsworthy events.

Yearbook

The GCS Pine Embers yearbook is created by this group of students and their instructor. They are trained in the area of graphic design, photo editing and placement, twisting, distorting, inverting, blurring, coloring and blowing up photos for creative yearbook pages.

Website Design

With knowledge of technology so rapidly becoming essential to our students, this Website Design class is a useful step in the door to graphic design, as well as a career in Website Design. We are thrilled to be able to teach such a useful skill to our students. Throughout the class, the students will create three different websites.

Political Science

Business Law

This elective is based around the basics of law. Not only does it deal with law in general, but also how it effects consumers. This direct instruction class deals not only with bookwork but also with class discussions regarding laws that have gray areas. Each week, the students are required to review articles that are based on law to implement higher thinking. The class also helps students understand the life application of law through a mock trial as well as a visit to our local courthouse to witness a trial.

Personal Finance

With knowledge of economics a heavy portion of our livelihood, we try to enrich that area of our student's education. Within the curriculum of this class, the students learn to manage their personal money, including checking accounts and savings accounts. Investing is another area of personal finance which is pertinent to understand. Each year, the class goes through a financial simulation where they are given a hypothetical person's economic situation and must create a budget for them. This class gives students the opportunity to learn a subject that is applicable to their lives now and will be invaluable knowledge in the future.

Sociology

Bible

Our Bible curriculum is designed to cover the entire Bible over a seven year period without repeating itself. A student who enters GCS in the 6th grade will have studied every book in the Bible by the time they graduate from high school. The Bible itself is our primary textbook while a variety of standard Bible dictionaries, encyclopedias, atlases, etc. are used to provide additional helpful information. Students are encouraged to study their Bible lessons with their parents and parents are always encouraged to contact their child’s Bible teacher concerning any questions they may have.