Sophomore Felicity Ryan won the 2018 D.C. Poetry Out Loud citywide competition. Latin’s champion competed against 9 other finalists to take the title, and she will now proceed to the national Poetry Out Loud Finals April 23-25.  Her stunning renditions of “A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky” by Lewis Carroll, “The Children’s Hour” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and “Time does not bring relief; you all have lied” by Edna St. Vincent Millay earned her a first place finish for the city along $500 in poetry books for the school and a $200 cash prize for herself.  We wish her continued success in the finals!

Friday Mr. Hagerty will be taking students to the Aspen Institute on the Cold War. Many of juniors in his American History class.The Aspen Institute gathers diverse, nonpartisan teachers, researchers, artists, and educators to evaluate complex problems in the world today.

Four Washington Latin students were selected to be part of the My Voice Matters anthology of stories written by young people in Washington, D.C. The book is sponsored by the Washington DC Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.  A celebration of the publication took place at Washington Latin Sunday, February 25th and featured a performance by the school’s Jazz Ensemble directed by Ms. VerCammen. All student writers presented part of their stories. Featured writers include fifth grader Clarke Oglesby, eighth grader Micah Gans, ninth grader Christina Spraggins, and eleventh grader Chloe Cattaneo.

Eighth graders took a field trip last week to Lincoln’s Cottage, where they viewed the rooms in which the former president lived and learned about his family’s life at the cottage. Students also visited the Civil War graveyard nearby. Finally, students traveled to Ford’s Theatre, where the president was assassinated and learned about the plot by John Wilkes Booth and several other Confederate loyalists to end Lincoln’s life. Students have recently completed a study of the Civil War in Mr. Anderson and Ms. Coppola-Klein’s class and are starting a study of the Reconstruction period.