Comprehensive Poetry Analysis Video Recordings
By Erin O’Keefe, Caroline Sullivan, and Carmen Tosi, IV Form
Comprehensive Poetry Analysis Video Recordings
Instructor’s Note from Ms. Kelly: After choosing a poem from a list, students were tasked with planning and recording a comprehensive reading, analysis, and annotation as a cumulative poetry task. The analysis had to include some key elements of the poem as well as a selection of more advanced poetic terms and devices for discussion. Students planned and practiced their analysis before filming and uploading their final videos.
Erin O’Keefe’s Analysis Video
Caroline Sullivan’s Analysis Video
Extending Community During Social Distancing: Remote Experiential Learning in Spanish
By Mr. Charlie Sellers, Spanish Faculty; Lindsay Davis, V Form; Tate Frederick, V Form; and Sydni Williams, IV Form
Extending Community During Social Distancing: Remote Experiential Learning in Spanish
Spanish is not for the classroom, and it is my hope that, after this year, all of my students will feel empowered to use their Spanish beyond St. Mark’s.
– Mr. Charlie Sellers
During the final three weeks of Remote Learning, Spanish 4 students worked on a multi-step project called Estrechando Lazos/Making Connections. I asked students to pick a topic that in some way related to one of the units that we studied during remote learning: COVID-19 in the Spanish-Speaking World; Immigration: Assimilation and Alienation; and The Food Supply: the Migrant Farmworker in the United States. Students were asked to research the topic and find two to three relevant sources. Then, they tried to make contact with at least one person who is knowledgeable in the topic area. Students composed emails in Spanish to set up interviews using Zoom.
Experiential Learning is a large part of what we do at St. Mark’s, and what I have learned from participating in experiential programs at our school influenced how I set up the project. I relied substantially on what I learned from last year’s Fifth Form Lion Term Leaders, Colleen Worrell and Kim Berndt: Design Thinking; making contacts outside of the school; giving students choice in choosing topics; guiding them along the way; and helping them present their most salient takeaways in a final demonstration of learning. In the final week of school, students presented a culminating project of their choice that showed what they had learned. The students’ work exceeded my expectations.
The projects were diverse and relevant to the students’ interests. Fifth Former Sydney Williams interviewed both a family friend who is an immigration attorney and WBUR immigration reporter Shannon Dooling about the Dreamers and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. For her final product, she created a collage about the Dreamers and DACA. She wrote facts that she had learned from her interviews and research in images that she cut out of monarch butterflies and two stop signs. A symbol of the Dreamers, monarch butterflies pass freely over the US/Mexico border. She also included a dream catcher behind an image of the Statue of Liberty, and she superimposed these images on top of a background of the Dream Act.
Antimatter as Energy: Physics and Energy Conversion
By Andria Bao, III Form
Antimatter as Energy: Physics and Energy Conversion
Assignment note from Mr. Bauer: Students were tasked with creating a presentation on one technology either currently used or currently being researched to convert energy. All of the ways we make electricity for use in homes and buildings use some source for that energy, such as oil, coal, sunlight, uranium, or water. Additionally, there are other technologies that count as “Energy Transformation” such as internal combustion engines in cars and planes, or the electric and hybrid engines of newer vehicles like the Tesla or Prius. Students could even focus on smaller types of energy conversion, for example, the use of LEDs in place of old-fashioned light bulbs or wireless charging stations for their phones. What is important is that the technology needs involve the conversion of energy from one form to another for practical use.
Growing Pains: Coming of Age in The Catcher in the Rye
By Amanda Wang, IV Form
Growing Pains: Coming of Age in The Catcher in the Rye
Growth is a beautiful pain. In American classic, The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger vividly depicts a teenage protagonist who is overwhelmed by the rapid changes around him and his impending adulthood. Holden lives in a metropolis but does not belong to it. All he wants is to “catch [children] if they start to go over the cliff [of sophistication]” (Salinger 191). But in reality, he is the child who runs astray. When he is on the verge of falling, Mr. Antolini lends him a helping hand and provides him a satisfactory answer to his dilemma. At last, Holden accepts his philosophy and procures a new understanding of his situation, surroundings, and society.
Mr. Antolini wakes Holden up from his dream of escaping the city. Mr. Antolini speaks bluntly that Holden is “riding for some kind of a terrible, terrible fall” (Salinger 206). Since Holden wastes all his time deceiving others and himself and trying to delay his inevitable adulthood, Mr. Antolini has to ruthlessly tear off his mask and force him to face reality. Yet he takes an atypical approach to help Holden. While old Spencer reinforces that “life is a game that one plays according to its rules” (Salinger 11), Mr. Antolini advises Holden to know his “true measurement and dress [his] mind accordingly” (Salinger 210). Contrary to other adults in the book, Mr. Antolini sees hope in Holden. His firm belief inspires Holden to become the captain of his life instead of drifting along the mainstream or dropping anchor in place. Holden’s struggles now motivate him to continue his ordinary life instead of alienating him from it. Then Mr. Antolini asks Holden to think twice about attending school, describing education as history and poetry. Holden takes his proposal into consideration because he feels cared for and understood by him. Moreover, Mr. Antolini consoles Holden by stating that he is “not the first person who [is] ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior” (Salinger 208). His words narrow the feeling of disparity between the depressed and lonesome Holden and other youths. Mr. Antolini gives Holden a carrot after the stick, bringing him back to the real world and arousing his passion for life.
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El Cambio Climático no Existe: Poetry as Protest in Advanced Spanish
By Grace Li and Rebecca Wu, V Form
El Cambio Climático no Existe: Poetry as Protest in Advanced Spanish
Assignment Note: In Advanced Spanish Language and Culture, students learned about using art and music as a form of protest. As an assignment, they were tasked with creating a piece of art that reflected their thoughts about an issue in society. The poem is about the importance of speaking out for climate change. It describes what is going on right now and what students could be doing to use their voices to make a positive impact in the world.
El Cambio Climático no Existe
“El cambio climático no existe”
Una afirmación de Trump que es muy triste
El gobierno no ha hecho nada
Por lo tanto la gente está enojada
La falta de progreso
Crea mucho descontento
Y hay muchas protestas
porque no hay otros planetas
Which Woman is the Wicked Witch? Atwood’s Feminist Revision of Witch Hangings
By Catie Summers, V Form
Which Woman is the Wicked Witch? Atwood’s Feminist Revision of Witch Hangings
The inspiration for Margaret Atwood’s poem “Half-Hanged Mary” was drawn from Atwood’s ancestor Mary Webster. Yet, Atwood’s eerie portrayal of a seventeenth-century woman’s battle with death, inner demons, and societal norms is written with a punch of feminist revision. Throughout Atwood’s poem, “Half-Hanged Mary,” particularly in the third and fourth stanzas, the foundation of a true, yet uncanny, occurrence is laced with a feminist revision of the history in question: that of witch-hunting in the seventeenth-century America.
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Knock Knock, Is Anyone Even Listening? Says the Feminist
By Allison Bechard, IV Form
Knock Knock, Is Anyone Even Listening? Says the Feminist
Summary:
Sexism, despite constantly being viewed as a thing of the past, remains a predominant issue, especially in the workplace. Undeniable strides towards equality have been taken, yet females are still oppressed, being granted fewer promotions and less money than their male counterparts.
| Key Points: 1. Males and females tend to receive different and unequal treatment when it comes to applying for jobs. Even though women often meet the same criteria as males and have superior test scores, men still get employed over them. 2. Men often receive more money from the moment they start their careers, leaving women to only earn $0.79 for every $1.00 a male makes. 3. Women are judged by different standards due to common misconceptions and stereotypes placed upon them by the dominant group. Women often find themselves without a sponsor to champion their work causing their careers to stall. 4. Men are reluctant to sponsor these females as they are afraid of losing power, despite this superiority being historical. |
Moana: The Movie that Could Have Been
By Lina Zhang, V Form
Moana: The Movie that Could Have Been
As part of Disney’s revival era animations, Moana details the journey of its eponymous heroine to restore peace and prosperity to her island, a community loosely based upon Samoan culture but also drawn from Polynesian culture as a whole. As Moana is one of the first movies to be made about Polynesian cultures, many see it as representation and awareness for the community and dismiss instances of cultural appropriation or misrepresentation in it as mere unintentional accidents. However, it is important to recognize that while the film promotes the positive message of strong femininity in the character of Moana, it also reinforces the limited and stereotypical narrative that Western audiences have of Pacific Islander cultures. From the culturally-insensitive coconut people to Maui’s controversial body, Moana is the movie that could have done better but didn’t, failing its expectations of cultural representation and perpetuating Disney’s trend of cultural appropriation.
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