Technology and Culture

Course Length: one calendar year (January – December 2026):
one 1-hour class session per week, totaling 40 1-hour sessions

Book List:
(spring 2026) Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
(spring 2026) Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology by Neil Postman
(summer 2026) The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr
(fall 2026) Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age by Sherry Turkle
(fall 2026) Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport

Eligibility:

• public or private-school students enrolled in 9th-12th grade as of January 1, 2026 (regardless of age), with past or concurrent enrollment in persuasive writing

• home-school students with a minimum age of 15 as of January 1, 2026 (regardless of grade level), with past or concurrent enrollment in persuasive writing

  (For information about writing prerequisites, contact christine@paisano-tutoring.com)

Course Requirements:

Students are required to read the five books on the book list and complete two opinion essays on each of the five books. Students will select essay topics from a provided list of topics for each book and are required to construct their essays in the format presented in this course.

• During the spring of 2026, the essays will be required to follow the format of a simple 5-paragraph persuasive essay with three proofs, each proof having three sub-proofs, but no refutation required (as modeled in Circe Institute’s Lost Tools of Writing, Level 1, essay model #4). Students will be taught the essay model in class and will be given a template of the essay model to follow.

• Though classes will continue through the summer, students will be allowed to miss sessions as needed to accommodate various summer travel plans, etc. By summer, students will be familiar with the five-paragraph essay and will be able to complete their reading and essay assignments remotely, if needed.

• During the summer months, students will be taught how to incorporate a refutation into their persuasive essay (as modeled in Circe Institute’s Lost Tools of Writing, Level 1, essay model #6).

• Beginning in August 2026, the essays for this course will be required to contain a refutation, bringing the essay length to eight paragraphs each (as modeled in Circe Institute’s Lost Tools of Writing, Level 1, essay model #6).

• The final presentation of each essay that will be submitted for a grade must be neatly and legibly handwritten in black ink, and all mistakes must be removed with white-out. Specific essay presentation parameters will be delivered to the students in print form at the beginning of the course and posted online for the parents.

Question: Can a student join the class starting in the summer or in the fall? Answer: No. There is a progression in the content of the books and in the expectations of the essay form, and students must begin the course from the beginning. The latest permitted start date is Sunday, February 1, 2026. This course will be offered annually, so if a student misses the start date, they may take the course the following year. Students who are interested in the course and miss the start date are welcome and encouraged to take Circe Institute’s Lost Tools of Writing, Level 1 through Paisano Tutoring in the fall of 2026 as preparation for the Technology and Culture course in January.

Course Price:

$900 for the year, due in 4 installments:

$300 due on or before January 25, 2026
$200 due on or before April 25, 2026
$200 due on or before July 25, 2026
$200 due on or before October 25, 2026

The books are provided with the cost of the course.

Paisano Tutoring is an accredited direct-pay vendor through the Arizona Department of Education ESA program, and all Paisano Tutoring courses are eligible to be covered by state funding through the student’s ESA Class Wallet account. For more information, visit: paisano-tutoring.com/pay-with-esa

Assessment & Student Portals:

All Paisano Tutoring students have an online password-protected student portal that enables parents to track their child’s progress and grades, as well as see actual PDFs of their child’s work. For this course, the student portal will include comments for the parents about a child’s behavior and participation in class, as well as PDFs of the child’s essays, with written comments regarding the instructor’s assessment of the essay and suggestions for improvements if applicable.

Dress Code:

The purpose of this dress code is to help the students gain greater awareness of social modesty as well as appropriate dress in professional environments. All students are expected to follow the St.Anthony’s Monastery Visitors Dress Code, with the exception that ladies need not wear head-coverings. Students should come to class well-dressed and not in work clothes or sports attire. Ladies should wear skirts (at least mid-calf length), a slip, and a long-sleeved, loose-fitting blouse or dress shirt that covers the chest and shoulders. Gentlemen should wear slacks, a belt, and a long-sleeve collared shirt. Everyone should wear socks. Everyone should have their hair tied up, out of their face, and off their shoulders. No shirts with graphics, logos, or writing. No hoodies. No jeans. No athletic shoes, sandals, or Crocs. No torn or dirty clothes. For those concerned about the discomfort of a conservative dress code during the heat of summer months, please know that Paisano Tutoring keeps the class meeting room temperature at 73 degrees during warm months.

About the Instructor:

Christine Hall is the director of Paisano Tutoring, has spent over thirty years working in Orthodox education, and is an accredited vendor through the Arizona Department of Education ESA program. Christine has worked as a teacher in two Orthodox private schools, spent a quarter of a century homeschooling her seven children from kindergarten through high school, and for the past four years has been teaching local Orthodox children full-time at Pasano Tutoring. Christine is also the founding director of Saint Kosmas Orthodox Education Association, and through this organization, she has hosted six national Orthodox education conferences in California and Arizona. Christine has always been passionate about raising awareness regarding the impact of technology on our lives, and she dedicated one of the Saint Kosmas Conferences entirely to the topic of Technology and Orthodoxy. She looks forward to this course as an opportunity to help local Orthodox high schoolers think more deeply about the impacts of technology.

Instructor Contact Information:

email: christine@paisano-tutoring.com