May 14th, 2009
Spring is in the air! Which means it’s time to talk about… summer reading.
Not the departmental reading assignments, which we will share in the next few weeks, but the community reading. This year’s shared reading list is done, and it’s fantastic! The picks—carefully chosen by faculty members—range from a brand new collection of stories and art celebrating all things geek to a riveting account of the Ossian Sweet murder trial in 1925. We’ve got literary fiction, fantasy, memoir, essays, science, classics and cult classics, and more. As in years past, all we ask is that your child read at least one book, and next September we’ll gather in Book Circles to discuss our choices.
The big change is in how we will present the choices. There is, as always, an annotated list of the books available for reference, but that’s just for backup. Next Tuesday’s assembly is devoted to presenting the list. Faculty will take the stage and share the books they have recommended and the reasons for choosing that title. It could be the assembly of the year: at least one faculty member claims he’ll be presenting his book using shadow puppets and another promises an interpretive dance! Even if those grandiose promises are just so much bluster, the presentations should really help each student pick his or her perfect title.
To make book selection even easier, the Spring Book Fair, scheduled for Thursday May 21 at 6th Ave, will have a satellite station at Charlton with a selection of the recommended books as well as other titles selected with our high school students’ tastes in mind. The Book Fair table will be open during both lunches and at the end of the day; the full Book Fair, in the auditorium at 6th Ave., will be open until 6 pm. (Those wishing to fill out a credit pre-authorization may do so by clicking here .) No amount of description or presentation can compare to handling the actual book: please encourage your students to take some time to do just that.
Finally, I’d like to share with you a new summer experience. We’re calling it Summer Living, and you can read all about it here. It’s true experiential learning, and we think it will be seriously fun as well as immensely rewarding.
Enjoy!
Karyn Silverman
HS Librarian
Electives
- Rising 11th and 12th graders will be making their English and History Elective choices next week. Attached below is the list course offerings for each trimester, and the English-History pairings. Please look them over as a family and help your children make choices for English and History that excites their interest and will be best for them. Next week students will sign up in advisory. They will be getting a blank form or they can bring in a form already filled out.
Click below for the sign-up sheet, please note there is a sample sign up sheet attached. Students are welcome to speak to Micah if they have questions.
2009-10 Elective sign-up sheet
- Science Electives for 11th and 12th Graders. Click below for the sign up sheet
Special Announcements
- High School 10th Grader named Playwriting Finalist!
For a dramatic writing project in Meghan’s 9th and 10th Drama classes, students were required to write a ten-minute play that they had to complete in five weeks and submit online to a new playwriting contest for teens put together by Elton John and Billy Eliot the Musical in conjunction with Fidelity Investments. All of the plays were quite remarkable, but special congratulations go to 10th Grader, Ayana Workman, who has been named a finalist in the Fidelity FutureStage Playwriting Contest! Ayana’s play entitled “Lucy” was selected as one of the top five plays from 500 submissions from high school students from NY and NJ. Ayana will be honored at the Gala Finale on June 15th at the Imperial Theatre on Broadway.
- Our Video Justice Film Festival was a success!! We raised over $1500 for a variety of great charities!! Special thanks to our panel of Jurors: Andrew Fried, Serina Mayer, Christin Meador, Barry Pousman, Crissy Spivey, and Jeffrey Flug
Congratulations to the winners:
First Prize – “From Our Point of View, Joining Hands to Save our Community” The Awesome Girls, New Orleans Video Voices
Second Prize – “Sticks and Stones” Ali Salas and Marcel Salas from Packer Collegiate
Third Prize – Static Nation” Samuel Bondy, Mirlene Fevrier, William Johnson, Makara Levin, Celina Ramos, Yeuri Santos, Anthony Stukes, DCTV
Special thanks to our student and faculty committee members: The Community Service Roundtable, The Human Rights Club, Human Rights History Course, 11th grade Media Arts Course, Ana De La Cruz, Kary Caiza, Jane Kovich, Ayana Workman, Jake Goodman, Jimmy Rogers, Kayla Green, Gabe Cook, Zoe Snow, Nate Lewit, Daniel Montoya, Woobens Celony, Nazir Khan, Danny Sarmiento, Jordan Seagal, Devon Brown, Cameron Diggs
Gracen Cloud, Ashley Wilens, Rachard Kemp, Lidor Foguel, Tom Murphy, Vinay Chowdhry, Nick Sullivan, Micah Dov Gottlieb and many more!
- None of this would have been possible without the help, support, and encouragement of Ariadne Meyers and “My Purpose Party”. A film of the planning, organizing, and event will be screened here at EI, and at other schools around the country to inspire students to do projects like this.
Please see the evenings program- attached below – for info on the evening
Upcoming Events
- The Literary Magazine Coffee House is this Saturday May 15th 7PM in the PAC at 40 Charlton Street. With readings from IE our Literary Magazine, and great musical performances!
- Field day is Friday May 22nd -click below for a letter about Field Day!
- Please visit the calendar page at LREI.org