Global Careers Through Language

Global Careers Through Language

Last Friday a number of juniors and seniors studying Chinese participated in the Confucius Institute U.S. Center’s 2018 China Career Day. They joined students from other high schools who study Mandarin to learn about how people use their language skills for various jobs. They were joined by guest speakers and mentors from private-sector, multilateral, educational and non-profit organizations. Speakers included Tonija Navas, Director, Ralph Bunche International Affairs Center at Howard University, Danqing Zhu, World Bank Group, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Practice, Mycal Ford, Sayari Analytics, Threat Finance Analyst, and Christopher Degnan, US State Department Public Diplomacy Desk Officer, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs. In breakout sessions, student shad the chance to learn about international careers, study abroad, and living in China.  Students also received feedback in presenting their personal global education story in their college, scholarship and job applications.

 

The Written Word

The Written Word

As several classes have started taking the PARCC exams in English and math this week, I have been reflecting on an area of our program that many of our students find most challenging – writing. At a school where words and ideas matter, our curriculum emphasizes writing. We want students to see how all disciplines value writing and to help them to develop proficiency in writing for different purposes, in different genres, and for different audiences.

As early as fifth grade, students are pressed to use clear and specific language, craft increasingly complex sentences and begin to use textual evidence and quotes to support their ideas. Learning basic rules of grammar and practicing sentence diagramming enables them to “establish a baseline in the fundamentals.” The opportunities to write are varied, from essays based on close reading of primary source documents, to letters to politicians about policies that they would like to see change, to letters to writers asking them questions about their work to research papers.  Essays grow increasingly complex as students get older, with the expectation that they will deepen their analysis and include more types of evidence, textual detail, and library research.

We also value narrative writing, encouraging students to write myths, personal narratives, poetry, and scripts. In theater class, students create original scenes, and students in English class often adapt scenes from books or plays or write new endings which they may act out in class. Poetry is an area of writing that students study and work on in several grades, and many students contribute their work to the school literary magazine, Open Mic. Some of our students are featured in My Voice Matters: Telling Our Stories and Making a Difference. This is an anthology of student writing published by the Washington D.C. chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. In several different grades students also write memoirs about their experiences as children and young adults, noting how vivid language and detailed setting can help make a story from their youth come alive.

At Washington Latin we value writing as a means of communication and self-expression. And we have seen our students respond favorably to the instruction they have received. One of our tenth graders won an essay contest that will enable her to spend almost three weeks in Greece this summer. I look forward to reading more great writing in the months and years ahead.

Follow me on twitter @WashLatinHOS. Beginning this week, I have started to tweet personal connections to the topics about which I write in the weekly Legenda letters. Tell me what you think!

Valete!

Peter

Head of School
Into the Wild (And Cold!)

Into the Wild (And Cold!)

Upper school history teacher Mr. Bhuva is one of 40 teachers across the US and Canada who was accepted into the National Geographic Fellowship Collaboration this year. He will be exploring parts of the Arctic Sea ice, recording polar bears and wildlife, and assessing the damage from plastic that has washed ashore in Svalbard. He will also learn about the cultural heritage of Norway. His expedition with naturalists  and National Geographic photographers will be recording history and science.

Xstreme XSTEM

Xstreme XSTEM

Sixth graders attended a XSTEM conference to learn more about science, technology, engineering and math. They collected scientist trading cards, learned about bouncing lasers, listened to engineers who worked on the Kepler mission, sent Morse code messages through fiber optic cables, built sumo robots, programmed drones, and used microscope.

Rethinking Lincoln

Rethinking Lincoln

Students in Mr. McGrath’s D.C. History class visited Ford’s Theatre on Tuesday. Students will learn about Lincoln’s assassination through the play, One Destiny. The play revisits the events of April 14, 1865 and reconstructs the sequence of events that lead up to Lincoln’s death and its aftermath. The play also grapples with the question about how could John Wilkes Booth have been stopped. Students will visit the Aftermath Exhibits at the museum across the street to get a better understanding about the plot to kill the president and how it affected the country.