Jan 27, 2022
On Tuesday Dr. Anika Prather addressed parents and faculty in to tell them about the new campus namesake, Dr. Anna Julia Cooper! The timing of her talk was fortuitous, as the Public Charter School Board voted the previous day to approve our application for the 711 Edgewood facility named for Dr. Cooper. Cooper was an author, activist, educator, and academic scholar. Born into slavery, Cooper went on to complete a doctorate and write several books including A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South. Her work focused on sexism, racism, class, and labor, engaging in debates through her writing with well known male writers, like W.E.B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglas, and Martin Delaney. She focused on the importance of higher education, an ethos right in line with our new school. Cooper resided in Northwest Washington, D.C. near LeDroit Park. Dr. Prather is a Howard University professor and founder of the Living Water School. She has addressed the faculty previously on her research on literacy and the classical canon.
Jan 27, 2022
In eighth grade English, middle school students are starting a unit on memoir, reading books by Megan Rapinoe, George Takei, Sonia Sotomayor, and Jackie Robinson, and the poetry of Langston Hughes. To start the unit, students did research into the similarities between fictional characters and the authors who created them, researching the lives of the authors they read, including Agatha Christie, Alan Gratz, Arthur Miller, Harper Lee, Nancy Springer, Jason Reynolds, Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, and Caroline B. Cooney. Children considered how the authors integrated aspects of their own stories into fictional characters.
Jan 27, 2022
Students in ninth grade history are hard at work comparing religious philosophies and roots. In Ms. Barroso’s Global History class, students have already studied the Middle Ages in Europe and Japan, and are now embarking on a comparison of Islam, Judaism, Zorastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. The evaluations and close reading of texts allows ninth graders to take a critical and analytical eye to evaluate different cultures, noting similarities and differences in their philosophies.
Jan 27, 2022
Tuesday’s Spelling Bee was an exciting in-person competition in the middle school. The final spellers completed 30 intense rounds of competition to make it to the very end and move on to the cluster bee against other schools nearby in February. First place finisher was eighth grader Reva Kelly, second place was eighth grader Noa Smudde, and seventh grader Imanuel Brandon came in third. Seventh grader Neila Wright was an alternate. All fourteen spellers did an admirable job and showcased impressive spelling prowess.
Jan 21, 2022
The middle schoolers took part in an online grade-level spelling bee this week. The winners will proceed to a school-wide spelling bee next week on Tuesday in the afternoon in the MPR. The fifth grade winners were Peter Clausen, Elena Kwon, and Olivia Darling. The sixth grade winners were Mila Appelbaum, Boaz Movit, and Iris Vergow. The seventh grade winners were Caleb Chaffee, Imanuel Bradon, and Gideon Chaffee. The eighth grade winners were Reva Kelly, Noa Smudde, and Maisie Sommer.
