Curriculum

Online High School Diploma Curriculum

Your online high school diploma program consists of 16.5 core credits and you choose 5 elective credits, ranging from academic electives like American literature and algebra to career pathway electives, like pharmacy technician, residential electrician, or vet assistant. The core curriculum is made up of English, math, social studies, science, arts and humanities, and health and physical education classes. Find more information about the high school classes you will take at Penn Foster High School below.

High School Diploma

Diploma 6 months As low as $55/mo

Full Program Overview

1-888-427-6200 (9AM - 9PM EST)

Online High School Diploma Curriculum

16.5 core credits
5 elective credits

Estimated completion time:

Fast track = 6 months
Average time = 15 months

With Penn Foster, you can learn at whatever pace works best for you. Some learners will be more comfortable moving faster, and dedicating more time, and the fast track estimate will apply to them. The average track will apply to most learners who can dedicate a few hours per week to completing their coursework.

Orientation (Select two of the following courses.)

In this course, you’ll explore the amazing potential of your personality. The course begins by defining personality and showing its effects on your life. You’ll learn some famous theories about personality and the possible ways that personality is formed. After taking a personality test, you’ll reflect on your results to understand more about yourself and your traits. Finally, you’ll decide how your personality can help you to build better relationships, excel as a leader, benefit your community, and succeed in your High School program and beyond.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Define personality and its effects on your life
- Explain three theories that contribute to the development of your personality
- Describe your own personality type and individual strengths and preferences
- Examine personality characteristics that can be influential to learning, leadership, and career success
This course offers an overview of important works that increase awareness, understanding, and acceptance of individual and group identities. Students will explore diverse artists and works of visual art that affect our societal and human interactions, such as gender identity, race, socio-economic status, disability, sexual orientation, religion, culture, and national and ethnic origins. Through these different lenses, students will be able to gain a greater understanding of inclusivity by evaluating the experience of these groups as perceived through various art medias.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Explain how visual art is an expression of identity and culture
- Investigate the role of visual art as a means of communicating cultural values
- Analyze the meaning of visual art according to principles of expression and aesthetic qualities
- Evaluate visual art through an aesthetic and cultural lens
This course serves as an overview of physical, emotional, mental, and social health, and how to balance all these areas. The first lesson of your course discusses the differences between health and wellness and the eight dimensions of wellness. You’ll learn about the unique factors that can affect your wellness, such as heredity, environment, and culture. You’ll also learn about how your own decisions can affect your health and start creating a personal wellness plan to access your wellness in multiple areas.

The rest of your course breaks down the discussion about wellness into physical, emotional and mental, and social topics. Some readings and other content in this course will include topics that some students may find offensive or traumatizing, but they’re important topics to discuss and understand for your personal development and wellness. You’ll also be provided with a number of national services and help resources.

In Physical Wellness, you’ll cover topics such as drug and alcohol awareness (including discussion about substance and alcohol abuse) and chronic diseases and illnesses, as well as preventive measures you can take to protect your health. In Emotional and Mental Wellness, you’ll explore the characteristics of good mental health, learn about mental health disorders, and discuss topics surrounding self-harm and suicide. You’ll also discuss activities or solutions to maintain and enhance your mental well-being. In Social Wellness, you’ll gain understanding about safe and healthy relationships with those around you, which starts with having a good relationship with yourself. You’ll review content about different forms of abuse and bullying. This lesson touches on topics of sex and gender as well as gender identity and sexual orientation. You’ll also learn about the importance of adapting to social situations, setting personal boundaries, and how to manage conflict. The last portion of your course will give you an overview of important skills to balance your relationships and responsibilities, like effective time management, organizational skills, and focus techniques.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Explain the concepts of health and wellness, factors that can influence your overall well-being, and strategies to enhance personal wellness
- Identify strategies for improving your physical wellness through nutrition, physical activity, drug and alcohol awareness, chronic disease prevention, and good personal hygiene practices
- Explain characteristics associated with good mental health and strategies for promoting mental well-being
- Summarize strategies for enhancing your social wellness through the development of healthy relationships
Statistics play a key role in sports, including ranking schemes, player assessment, and comparisons. This course is a study of how statistics are utilized in sports and presents exciting investigations for the sports enthusiast. You’ll learn about statistics used in various sports and how they relate to performance.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Identify sports statistics and how they’re used in baseball for team and player performance
- Interpret basketball statistics for team and player performance and for making comparisons and predictions
- Explain how data is used in football for rule changes and evaluating player and team performance and how fans use statistics
- Interpret sports statistics for women’s sports and how data is used to gain equal opportunity

Humanities

In this course, you’ll learn how to become a strong digital citizen. You’ll learn to use technology to find information in ways that are ethical and effective. You’ll be able to describe why it’s important for everyone to have access to technology. By the end of this course, you’ll recognize how to protect your digital privacy during online activities.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Recognize how to use digital technology ethically and effectively to obtain information
- Describe the importance of access to digital technology to communicate and perform tasks
- Describe how to protect digital data and how to safely use digital technology for commerce

English

In this course, you'll study techniques applicable to any type of reading, including reviewing, predicting, scanning, finding the main idea, and drawing conclusions. You'll discuss how to determine word meanings by examining context clues, and differentiating fact from opinion to identify bias. This course also covers poetry and fiction.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Interpret a text by previewing and scanning
- Create effective writing
- Interpret works of fiction and poetry
This course will help you improve your English skills so you can effectively communicate in your personal life, in the remainder of your studies, and in your career.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Describe the four steps in the writing process
- Define, describe, and provide examples of the different parts of speech
- Identify the principal parts of verbs and verb tenses for both regular and irregular verbs
- Discuss the difference between an adjective and an adverb
- Identify prepositional phrases and the objects of prepositions
- Explain the difference between coordinating, correlative, and subordinating conjunctions
- Explain the main components of complete sentences
- Identify and correct sentence fragments and run-on sentences
- Provide agreement between subjects and verbs
- Explain the proper use of the different parts of speech
This course will enhance your language skills by expanding your vocabulary, mastering word usage, and strengthening your writing.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Explain why language is important and describe how communication skills can affect your life
- Explain how the eight parts of speech are organized to communicate meaning in phrases, clauses, and sentences
- Apply your language skills in conversation, vocabulary, word choice, spelling, pronunciation, and writing
- Use modifiers, prepositional phrases, and conjunctions correctly
- Correctly use apostrophes, hyphens, and periods
- Recognize and use the various elements of sentence structure
- Correct common writing mistakes
- Write sentences that have effective beginnings, concise wording, parallel structure, and active voice
- Create a unified, coherent composition with an introduction, body, and conclusion
- Write effective, appropriate, business letters, friendly letters, courtesy letters, formal invitations, a letter of application for a job, and a resume with a cover letter
This course will refresh your understanding of the basic parts of speech and will focus on the importance of organizing your time effectively to create a document from the first draft stage to the final draft stage.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Recognize and use both formal and informal English for letter writing
- Begin to write an essay
- Organize your writing time effectively
- Plan a writing project from beginning to end
- Locate books using the card catalog and on-line catalog at the library
- Use your own experience, that of others, and library research to provide material for writing projects
- Organize your ideas effectively in an outline
- Write your ideas in detail, following a logical order and sticking to your subject
- Express your thoughts and feelings more easily, more accurately
This course will allow you to experience literature actively and become involved both intellectually and emotionally.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Read more effectively—for both knowledge and enjoyment
- Use new vocabulary to discuss, write about, and understand literature
- Explain the characteristics of the different genres, including the short story, novel, poetry, drama, nonfiction, and essay
- Discuss works by writers such as Shakespeare, Fitzgerald, London, Twain, and Thoreau
- Analyze novels, short stories, poems, dramas, and other types of writing
- Understand and explain the objectives and accomplishments of the various writers
- Seek, find, and enjoy many additional examples of fine writing
- Identify various literary figures
Textbooks:
- Great American Short Stories
- The Call of the Wild
- Great Short Poems
- Songs for the Open Road: Poems of Travel & Adventure
- Civil Disobedience and Other Essays
- Great Speeches by Native Americans
- Narrative of Sojourner Truth
- A Midsummer Night's Dream

Math

This course will provide a solid foundation so you are able to successfully use mathematics in your course, life, and career.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Solve real-world problems involving whole numbers
- Solve real-world problems involving fractions
- Solve real-world problems involving decimals
- Compare the English and metric systems of measurement
- Explain ratios, proportions, and percents
This course will allow you to apply your math knowledge to areas of your everyday life.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Estimate results quickly
- Accurately figure the amount of money involved when discounts are stated in percents
- Make smart consumer decisions
- Calculate yearly interest rates
- Understand the importance of a budget and how to prepare one
- List the factors to consider before buying a new or used car
- Discuss the options available regarding your personal insurance
- Determine when you’ve saved enough money to start investing
- Explain the difference between common stock and preferred stock
- Explain why it’s important for you to plan for your retirement
This course will review the four mathematical operations so you are able to use them at an advanced level.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Use the rules of the order of operations to solve multistep problems
- Solve word problems using equations
- Use the four basic operations with positive and negative numbers
- Give examples of monomials and polynomials
- Simplify polynomials by combining like monomials
- Simplify and solve one-step and multistep equations
- Identify and name various components of geometry
- Identify different types of quadrilaterals and triangles
- Calculate the area of squares, rectangles, triangles, and circles using appropriate formulas
- Apply the Pythagorean theorem to find the length of a missing side in a right triangle
- Compute the volume of cubes, cylinders, and rectangular solids using the correct formulas
- Solve equations using the principles of geometry

Science

The course covers topics in geology, oceanography, meteorology, environmental science, and astronomy.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Explain the basic principles and methods of Earth Science
- Discuss the various surface processes on Earth
- Identify features of Earth's atmosphere and oceans
- Explain the causes of geologic activity
- Describe the impact of human activity on natural resources
- Explain the formation and properties of the solar system and universe
In this course you’ll gain insight into the origin of life, the relationships among all living organisms, and discover how your own body works.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Describe the characteristics, chemistry, and ecology of living things
- Analyze cells and their processes for obtaining energy and reproducing
- Explain how traits are passed on from one generation to the next
- Explain how different species of living things have evolved and are classified
- Identify the characteristics and behavior of plants and animals
- Summarize the anatomy and physiology of the major systems in the human body
This course covers a variety of topics in modern science that affect everyday life, from energy and heat to sound and electricity.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Explain how objects move when forces are applied
- Describe the role of energy transformation in daily life
- Explain how changes in matter can be measured and manipulated
- Analyze waves and radiation
- Apply the principles of chemistry
- Apply the principles of electricity and magnetism in various situations

Social Studies

This course focuses on US history from the earliest human settlers in North America thousands of years ago to the modern-day. You’ll learn the story of the native people who lived in this region long before Europeans came to create colonies. Follow the colonists as they faced the unknown and attempted to make new lives for themselves in North America. Finally, you’ll experience the birth and growth of the United States, a young nation that has managed to pack a wealth of world-changing events into its short history.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Describe settlement of the colonies in America and the events from the American Revolution to the ratification of the United States Constitution
- Explain expansion and industrialization in the United States from 1790 to the 1850s
- Identify the causes and lasting effects of the American Civil War
- Analyze how the events leading up to World War I shaped the United States
- Discuss the effects of the Great Depression and World War II on the United States
- Recognize changes in America from the 1960s through today
This course covers what the basic purposes of government are and how modern governments differ from one another.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Describe the different types of government and give examples of each
- Summarize the process used to ratify the Constitution
- Describe the three main parts of the Constitution and explain what each part includes
- Describe the process for amending the Constitution
- Describe the powers and responsibilities of the three branches of the federal government
- Outline the process by which laws are made
- Summarize some of the landmark cases handled by the Supreme Court
- Briefly describe the ways in which state and local governments operate
- Explain the rights and responsibilities of citizens in a democratic nation
- Summarize the process for electing a president of the United States
This course will provide a broad survey of the history of the world, from the earliest humans who emerged from Africa to the modern peoples and nations that exist today. You’ll study how people adapted to live in different environments, developed tools and technology, created political institutions to govern, and spread ideas as they interacted with one another. By following the stories of different peoples and cultures through time, you’ll observe how key developments and events that took place over thousands of years have shaped the world today.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Recognize features and achievements of ancient civilizations
- Recognize features and achievements of the Byzantine Empire, Middle Ages, and Europe during the Renaissance and Age of Exploration
- Compare society and politics of world regions during the period of 1500-1800
- Explain causes of revolution, impacts of industrialization on society, and factors leading to development of global empires during the period of 1750-1914
- Describe how the Great War, Great Depression, and nationalism affected world regions
- Describe how World War II, the Cold War, and economic globalization affected world regions

Health & Physical Education

In this course you’ll learn the key components of nutrition, cardiorespiratory exercise, safety issues, and stress management techniques.

By the end of this course, you'll be able to:
- Describe techniques for managing stress and developing healthy habits
- Explain healthy nutrition and digestive processes
- Identify the principles of weight management
- Outline a comprehensive cardiorespiratory fitness routine
- Describe the elements and benefits of resistance training
- Develop personal fitness and nutritional goals

Electives: Vocational

Electives: Academic/College Preparation

American Literature is designed to help you navigate the works that helped to shape America, particularly some of history's most notable texts and writing. The speeches, poems, and prose that you'll read in these pages helped to shape not only American writing, but also the way we read and think today. As you read through your assignments, consider how these texts are still having an impact on us, from literature to pop culture.
Note: Reproductions of paintings in the text and online supplements include nudes; these pictures may be offensive to some students. An introduction to various forms of art throughout history, from prehistoric to modern; also discusses elements of design, symbolism, and purposes of art to enable students to evaluate the meaning and quality of individual works. Learn about the most important artists of each era, as well as the cultural influences that shaped their approaches to painting, sculpture, or architecture.

Electives: General