Students from the Upper School Poetry Club and AP Literature will be meeting with the author Eugina Kim, who wrote The Caligrapher’s Daughter with students from Banneker and Holton Arms at Potter’s House in Adam’s Morgan. The event will be part of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation encourages the art of writing by pairing authors with students.
Juniors Jania Claire, DJ Okuleye and Tate Wright will travel to Rome through the Paideia Institute for language and history study abroad. Last year Isaiah Smith studied in Rome through this scholarship. Students will read selections of Latin texts from the late antique, Patristic, medieval, Renaissance and modern periods. They will experience informal conversational Latin sub arboribus, interactive visits to important historical and literary sites in Rome, lectures in English on different aspects of Latin and its literature, and weekend trips to important sites outside of Rome. Meanwhile, sophomore Kim Motpelier won the essay contest to go to Greece from the Living Greek in Greece Program.
Juniors Dyllan Cole and Chandler Brossard won scholarships to study foreign languages abroad through the National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) Exchange Programs, sponsored by the State Department. The program provides merit-based scholarships for high school students to learn less commonly taught languages during a summer or academic year of immersion. Dyllan will send 6 weeks in Jordan studying Arabic, and Chandler will spend 6 weeks in Chengdu, China, studying Mandarin.
On Friday, the AP Latin class will visit an exhibit on Black Classicists at the Center for Hellenic Studies. The exhibit focuses on the first generation of Black PhDs in Classics. Colleges like Howard University played an important role in offering a range of classes on Classics and Latin and Greek to African American students during the 19th Century. Classicists in the exhibit include Wiley Lane (1852-1885), Helen Maria Chestnut (1880-1969), William Sanders Scarborough (1852-1926), John Wesley Edward Bowen (1855-1933), John Wesley Gilbert (1864-1923), Frazelia Campbell (1849-1930), William Henry Crogman (1841-1931), Reuben Shannon Lovinggood (1864-1916), Edward Wilmot Blyden (1832-1912), Lewis Baxter Moore (1866-1928), Richard Theodore Greener (1844-1922), George Morton Lightfoot (1868-1947), Daniel Barclay Williams (1861-1895), James Monroe Gregory (1849-1915), and William Lewis Bulkley (1867-1933).
Over Spring Break, students in upper school advanced Chinese classes traveled to China with Ms. Stouder, Mr. Kelly, Mr. Liu, and Mr. Hagerty. They visited Beijing, Changsha, and Zhang Jia Jie and spent time meeting students in local schools, hiking, and learning about local family and educational traditions. Students experience local life and see a few major historic sites including Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and tje Great Wall. The world language departments regularly take trips with upper school students during spring break. In previous years, Arabic classes have visited Morocco, French classes have visited Paris, and Latin classes have visited Rome. The chance to learn about a country and culture in person is an exciting experience to immerse themselves in language and view life from the point of view of people far from Washington, D.C.
