Curriculum Committee 2-14-22

001monday february 14th 2022 um i would you have a roll call first you are dan harrigan here tony parragini here when he rises for the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with literacy and justice for all okay um i'm going to ask if we have any public comment we have no public okay um next on the agenda is review of the minutes of january uh um i'm going to open for motion for approval of the minute um do we have any discussion look good um okay so the motion is let's uh approval of the minutes of january 10 22 all in favor new business we are we've been discussing uh how to go about reviewing

002and requesting reconsiderations of library classroom resources so tonight i'm going to turn marley solano to just kind of um go through what cade that connecticut association awards as education has recommended or offered the sample policies so we did reach out to a lot of their materials around selecting instructional materials which we already have policy that is truly in line with that the niche piece that we were looking for was how does someone go about requesting a reconsideration of a particular material and while we have that in practice currently we don't have it formally in policy and so what he said were some things for us to take a look at and i shared with you here what the berlin board of education has which is a request for reconsideration of instructional materials and it gives

003a little procedure so ideally i think what we would like to see is that if there's a book that's in question that the parent would talk to the teacher about it um and that looks differently at different levels sometimes it's the teacher sometimes you see the department chair sometimes it's the principles but this is basically saying that if they don't feel satisfied with the outcome of that discussion with the teacher that they can submit a request to the assistant superintendent for first limited instruction thereby you will take a deeper look at that so it would require the individual to what i'm referring to is um if you look at this page right here the next two pages indicate recommendations for textbook adoption which works with that one but the request for reconsideration of instructional materials

004for their name their phone number their address the department or school where they want to reevaluate this material so the title the author the editor and then it asks some follow-up questions about the materials he needs to more course what brought this resource to your attention have you read or used the entire work if not what parts did you view what specifically concerns you about the resource they ask for page numbers or click on images or additional pages and then refers them to um resources that they may suggest that give the thing so i think that really gets to understanding what people are concerned about and then that would that would follow to the other page where some districts have come up with sort of a subcommittee that then looked at them so there might

005be a school media advisory committee's reconsideration of instructional material and give that advisory committee some guidelines on what to look at focuses on purpose content checklist recommendations so again this is nothing that we need to make a decision on tonight but it's really something for us to take a look at to review and then come back and we could then stay to get our next meeting yeah we like this and this and we want to forward it over to the policy committee for reconsideration for consideration to reconsider the policy for resistance okay so just to make sure um this if we were to say adopt the first document we looked at um [Music] it is the parent or guardian who submits um does the teacher need to do a follow-up report of any time would

006we require that okay there's that part as part of the conversation that we have you know we can outline what the sort of the chain is to you know have the book looked at right in many cases after talking with the teacher the parent understands the context of human rules etc the students are all often in the rare cases where this happens um students are to be offered another book to read and from my observations and talking with teachers rarely doesn't even get to that point so this offers opportunities for discussion and dialogue but also offers people a way to document their concerns which is also important and this could go as far or as it could be as expensive as an entire textbook i mean i i mean would say you and i know

007we're we're kind of uh moving from the big huge textbooks um i don't know why someone would object but you never know um would we have alternatives to in the eventuality objective okay you know maybe that section okay or maybe not right right i think it happens last year i think we're talking about a very very very very neat case right like i think i don't have not even heard of it happening except the one the one time so i think that this is not a frequent you know occurrence um so i said but in the chances when it does happen i think it's really focused on literature right and that is where the the issues have come up so it just wanted to make sure um we could go to the extreme and so

008these um examples these sample forms are from the berlin public schools they send these people from a variety of schools yeah okay but what is the is this our policy as it stands in that no the policy that we have is old from and it's really not written around instructional material it's written about complaints in general okay so it's not even a starting point just curious they didn't give any indication as to what berlin's experiences um i actually spoke with the issues superintendent there um you know for a colleague who's been a member of and they always started um and then so and um again this would be something that we would uh edit and amend to fit our district um so this is an obvious question would we work in conjunction with policy on

009this or once we make the motion and act upon this to go straight to policy and it's there it could go either either i think i'm sure that your colleagues could appreciate you taking a look at it but they really get down and dirty into the wording and work with an attorney to make sure that our policies are aligned so you wouldn't have to do the whole list on it you could do something as simple as you there are some samples or you can go and go a little deeper and say you like this policy here are some language suggestions okay and i mean it needs to come to the full board for approval right right so if you put them together before it comes down okay um yeah let's maybe consider putting it on

010for march or at least and then um and it doesn't seem to invite um courts to come and sign us for every book okay good wonderful that takes care of i'm free um so we're moving to information like informational items we're going to start with um a review of two new programs in the elementary physical ed we're pretty excited about these kathy sullivan our pe and health department chair is here tonight to share a little bit about the um some of the background in history around both the bicycle safety unit at the elementary school and to tell us a little bit about um a golf unit that people have reached up to her for so wherever you're comfortable kathy i don't know and kevin has your um first t video when you're ready for it

011okay that's at the end so okay so um good evening i'm kathy sullivan i'm the department chair for physical education and health in the district and as marlene said i'm here to talk to you about two new initiatives that we are hoping to institute at the elementary level hopefully the spring maybe in the fall depending on how everything falls in the first one is a bicycle safety program biking and bike safety and previously we did teach bicycling at highland school where we had two physical education teachers joe crutz and andrew steinway that started the program they were responsible for getting all the bikes donated for setting up the curriculum for having everything stored in the trailer and for maintaining and repairing the bikes along with a custodian at the highland that would help out and

012programming for a number of years and was very successful recently joe and the custodian were both transferred up to cheshire high school and that left everything falling on andrew it became very difficult for one person to run the program maintain the bikes try to teach joe and andrew would give up their prep periods to teach and help so there'll be two teachers teaching the classes um and andrew was kind of by himself on it so unfortunately the program kind of fell to the wayside for a little while and in february of 2020 um doug levins and from the cheshire y and jim jenks from cheshire bike and cheshire um bike walk and also one of our town council members came to miley and me and asked about trying to get a bike and bike safety

013program going together at the elementary schools and all the schools and so doug came and talked to all the elementary teachers to make sure that they were on board and over the next two years doug and jim spent a lot of time soliciting our businesses in the area getting donations and they also got a matching grant through outright foundation and with the money that they received they were able to purchase a classroom fleet of bicycles and a trailer to transport them and it's our hope that they will be able to roll up with the trailer to our elementary schools with all the new bikes helmets and all the biking gear and along with certified instructors from the league of american bicyclists and our pe teachers they will instruct our students on bicycling and bicycle safety

014it'll be probably three to four lessons at each of the schools and right now it will be just fourth grade so we can see how it works and how everything will uh work with this with the students who knows how to ride who doesn't we do find there a lot all the way up to the high school that have never ridden a bicycle so um that will be part of it and obviously the bike safety piece as well our teachers are going to be trained on april 21st in the teach the teachers workshop about bike safety and take what it's called safe kids safe biking and once they're trained then we'll have the opportunity to present it to our students so it's kind of an exciting endeavor we've only as i said done it at

015highland so it's nice of the other schools to be able to get involved um and to have the extra instructors when we get that much easier for us and we don't have to maintain those flights which is probably one of the hardest pieces so that's our first the second initiative is called the first t school program and it started in 2004 and i actually was introduced to it then at a state conference for physical education but it was prohibitive the cost of running it and applying was very expensive and every elementary school had had their own equipment and be part of the membership so we just didn't go for it this fall susan wage maker who's a business teacher at cheshire high school approached me again about first tee she's a big supporter of it

016and said she would advocate for us and that she did she spoke to the people at first tee and got approval for us to share the equipment across our elementary schools which made the cost a lot more manageable um at the same time we um susan along with myself wrote up a proposal to the cheshire education foundation and i think we're close to hopefully getting something there so that would give us the opportunity to start the program and we would share the equipment between all all of the schools so what exactly is the first tee it's a program that introduces golf to elementary school-aged children the curriculum is set up so that it is geared towards the elementary child it's based on the national standards for physical education and it also encompasses um information on

017character traits so along with teaching about golf and about the knowledge and skills involved it also talks about being courteous it talks about good sportsmanship it talks about fair play and empathy for others so it institutes a lot of different things into the instruction as well as part of the tea program we'll get the curriculum we'll get equipment that's geared for the elementary student and we will also have everyone in district physical education will be trained in their program both as a um in person as well as a virtual training that they'll go so i do have the promotional video it's actually pretty quick it's i've got some good information it actually shows you what the equipment and everything looks like so i think it was probably easier to show you that than to keep

018on talking within the walls of gymnasiums and on school fields across the country students are learning the game of golf one with the first t nine core values and nine healthy habits and best of all they love [Music] the gym their it lit up and they just couldn't wait to get their hands on me i like golf because like it's really fun probably getting it farther than my friends it's a fun and active family sport i see myself getting better and better each time [Music] the kids are enjoying it because we've never done anything like this so for most of them it's their first exposure to the game of golf [Music] the first t national school program provides everything schools need including curriculum training for elementary school physical educators and equipment to easily deliver the

019program in a variety of school settings having the ability to practice golf indoors is terrific we're able to do it year-round no matter what the weather conditions are anyone can be creative this program can work inside outside i even had half the space we still could make this program work the national school program also promotes a healthy active lifestyle through the nine healthy habits which focused on physical emotional and social aspects of wellness and were developed in partnership with hall of fame member annika sorenstam's foundation those of us who play the game know that there is this intrinsic relationship between the challenges of the game and life itself in the process of teaching young people about a fun activity that requires hard work dedication some skill you were teaching them that the attributes that make

020them a better golfer are the same attributes that are used to make a good soldier a good doctor a good teacher a good parent a good citizen a good person the national school program has really allowed the first team to have a broader and deeper impact on our society we're having influence throughout the entire elementary school because they're moving our character education platform beyond pe into the entire school the first he introduces children to really what can be a lifelong really fun exciting game and it does it in a very motivating way but the real benefit the real payoff is the way in which the program delivers and teaches a series of core values over time we've seen that have an impact on our campuses literally by reducing disciplinary incidents because those learned core values

021transferred from the pe class to all of the other classes in the campus they transferred to the cafeteria it transferred campus wide and it very literally for many children transformed lives it's about discipline it's about leadership it's about courage it's about strength and along with this program all of that comes into play the teachers so what are you doing down here in the gym because i'm noticing a difference i'm not having to stay on them about their behavior they're more on task they want to get their work done and i want to know what it is you're doing and what you're teaching that's making a change in their behavior they're long lasting effects it's not just for the 30 minutes that they're in the class nor for that one day or for one week it's

022a lifelong experience that they have an independent third party case study reported positive experiences and improved socializational skills for students and that teachers used the core values in lessons beyond golf and find great value in the program once the student's interest is piqued the golf community can expect schools in their area to encourage students to pursue the game at golf activities supported by the pga tour and its tournaments local junior golf programs or chapters of the first team the key is to get them excited about the sport and then try and develop transitions so they can come back to our chapters green grass locations and or other junior golf programs within their communities it's all about that positive engagement when you think about it that's what life is all about we have 26 elementary campuses

023and they serve thirteen thousand children every one of those thirteen thousand children now are being exposed to and are receiving the first e program and i tell you really unequivocally it has made a significant difference in the climate of our elementary campuses because children's behaviors have changed and teachers confidence in delivering the program and their motivation because of the differences they see and what it is done for children really allows me to believe strongly that every single one of our 13 000 elementary children are being touched in a very positive way and their schooling is being changed for the better [Music] some of our students have participated in the first tee through summer camps or junior golf and things like that and probably the most notable is jacob ecky who was a class of 2014

024cheshire high school grad i was part of the first team when he was younger and he was lucky enough to be one of about 75 students in the country i think only two from connecticut to be chosen to participate in the first key golf tournament at pebble beach in california and his partner was a senior pga tour um pro so kind of a neat thing that can come out of this and we're looking forward to instituting it and you never know maybe we'll get off the program so thank you for listening please any questions i'll do my best to answer um what what grades would be involved in this it's it's k26 so the entire elementary school and the equipment is geared so that we can do all of that and the curriculum is written

025that way just do it well so that's going to be part of the figure out because that's the elementary teachers are like okay when do i get the equipment and what if someone else wants it and so this year and next fall will be kind of a pilot for it and if it's great and we need more equipment then we will start writing grants to get most of the elementary schools each have it so we'll probably do the same thing like we're doing with the bicycle they're going in the fourth grade for biking so maybe we'll go with kindergarten in first grade initially and then work our way so that people will get it um but yes what their thought was is they would keep it at their school for like three weeks of lessons

026and then it would go to another for three weeks and if we have time then we'll circle back it is indoors and outdoors which is kind of nice so it doesn't always say at first we thought oh my gosh it's gonna be may june and sometimes october we can't do it in the other but it's nice that it can be indoor activity so sometimes that indoor time would be gets very long come march so it might be nice to have it as a change at this time too thank you so you you hit you've got the funding for grants do this yeah everything's been granted yes okay yep for the first tee as well as for the bicycle and then um and just how this equipment has to take a beating doesn't it i mean

027well that's what we're concerned but um it is very uh solid equipment so they do tell us it lasts i don't know what the warranty on replacement and everything else is so that's all gonna be part of it we're hoping that it it does last and they do replays and things go i do know uh we do a golf program at the high school and a lot of the things are warranted so we can just get it replaced all the time so i'm hoping because it is a high price that it does because they just replace for us yeah the ball is really but it's more than well closed yeah and then um so um so if you're doing rotations um you will you'll be able to mix it up so that it's you know

028like highland doesn't get all indoors and yes oh believe me they'll make sure they'll make sure they get that outside time too so we'll work it out and they'll have a schedule going and we do have a couple of thoughts on talking to some of the golf courses in the area if it does work out to see if they'll help us out with money to buy a second set so then it's only shared between two schools which i think will probably be a much better deal but we want to get started so this is our way to get started i don't know if they want me teaching them but we'll see i do know one of our elementary teachers prior to coming to um cheshire taught at another school and used it and said it

029was fabulous yeah i loved the program he loved the curriculum he was a big proponent to convincing us that it was definitely a positive so i think it should work out well i was looking forward to trying it thank you thanks thank you very much thank you so much welcome to two really great programs and it's nice to see the connection between the yeah yeah it is foundation thanks so much um okay next item is the high school courses for career yeah so um last week i guess you know you and i talked a little bit and then mary and i talked at that last board meeting there were a lot of questions around sort of this idea of past days and we wanted to make sure that we were sharing information that we share

030with all of our parents around the sort of um the houses that we have the exposure that we have at uh as well start with the younger grades but tonight we're going to hear about catholic starting god and exposure that starts at dad through the unified arts department and then the team here is here to talk about um those questions representatives of courses so mary i'm going to show you so the department of chairs who are here are going to talk about the way students can connect courses to career but also the way students can be exposed to careers and also learns and skills that are associated with cooler so you're going to hear from sean mcqueen that our career technical education department um leslie cameron the chair of our business department and michelle batusi

031the chair of our school counseling department and they'll take you through really first the ways in which students explore so through an ambiance then the courses that they can take and then how do we kind of pull it all together how we help them see the connections between particular courses in the direction that those courses can take a student uh and they begin to think about what they might want to major in college and what they ultimately might want to be able to do uh when they once they leave our wall our four walls but also their next post-secondary experience so um i know that we have a document i think we're going to start with the questions for the the middle school portion and then we'll head into the high school perfect thank you

032hi everybody i'm kristen castellano um i am the division leader for the unified arts department at dodd and i want to talk to you today about some early opportunities that we offer at dodd for careers career exploration um the first one i want to talk to you about is multimedia and we have multimedia opportunities in grades seven and eight and through our multimedia classes students are learning how to communicate in a message effectively and that's through using audio and visual um editing software um as you can see in these pictures there's just some downloads of pictures of kids using that actual software to edit and to insert transitions and to create these products that are both visual and audio and they put these together to form these products that are really quite amazing um so

033they learn effective use of voice they learn how to conduct interviews they upload and download content that's both audio and video they record and they edit and they produce those products and one of the things that we're most excited about at dog is one of the extensions that's offered there and one of the extensions is uh the spartans live morning broadcast so one of the best parts about morning zad is that spartans live broadcast because kids really produce it they create it they're the on-air talent and my two colleagues matt fanetta and john cusary work really hard to expose the kids to all of the aspects of that process and they deliver the news in the morning um as many as many times during the week as they can and they're involved at every level

034from on-air talent to behind-the-scenes work so it's a really cool part of our morning at god and kids get the opportunity to be part of that and to see if that's something that they're really interested in um i'm gonna share with you uh there are quite a few outcomes here um that are created in multimedia from digital storybooks which last year they uh they got an award from cape for the digital one of the digital storybooks that the kids created to podcast interviews to how-to videos so i'm just going to show you just the example of the how-to video here um and i think that you can see that the kids use all of this technology to get certain transitions inside of music [Music] had to do a lot to design that and to think

035about ahead of time to plan and to think about the transitions and the editing and what music was going to be so a lot of choices and a lot of exposure to many different aspects of editing and creating those products sorry that one gets a little hairy trying to yeah right um next is engineering and production and in engineering and production students are really given a lot of opportunity to learn about the design process and it's both through computer aided design and then more through more traditional methods so if you look at the picture on the left the students used a 3d printer that they programmed they designed and then they created this output using this cad program this computer-aided design program to create these 3d printed objects which is really a sight to say

036when it happens um and then the more traditional manufacturing types of building methods are illustrated in these wooden puzzles that they create those are just two examples and some more examples from engineering and production they design digitally paper airplanes and to see how far they can fly and they also create these wooden towers with hand tools that will be tested for strength so it's using a lot of physical properties but using those hands-on tools in the industrial and technology lab another really cool thing we have at dodd is robotics and in in grade 8 kids are exposed to robotics um and they are in charge of designing programming planning building and then testing these robots from beginning to end so if you want to take a look at this video it's a really cool demonstration

037of what they do [Music] fictitious mission to shut down a nuclear reactor before it blew up the world so they have these um these missions that they set these robotic those robots too you also have digital design and digital design is a um a class where kids are exposed to all kinds of um photo photography and photo altering retouching making artwork photos so they're exposed to all of the elements of the design process to create these original products um and they use products like adobe photoshop and pixel re to learn the features of each program so that's a really nice exposure to that world of photography and to the new technology that surrounds that that type of career and lastly we have consumer economics and consumer economics involves a whole lot of different um pieces

038and parts but the most i think one of the standouts is the entrepreneurship program and the program is one where kids build a portfolio of a business that they create from the ground up so they decide where the location is going to be just they decide what the product's going to be they decide the hiring process the profit margins they create this portfolio online on an online platform and then they put that portfolio into into a fictitious type of use and the culmination of this is that they invite someone from the community a local entrepreneur to visit class and to talk to kids about the process of becoming an entrepreneur and what that business is like and the cool thing about this and this was a virtual visit that the kids really handled the inviting

039the booking of the person coming in and then handled all the thank you the business thank you um notes that went out to the entrepreneur who visited so there are lots of different pathways to explore a lot of different types of careers and a lot of different types of thank you and i'll try to answer any questions if you have any are these so these are in in school time are they so they're scheduled um during of students day so every student has time in their schedule in addition to their academic courses they also have ua unified arts almost like elective classes so they're allowed to choose which ones they're most interested in and typically by the time they leave done they had a tasting of all of these in one shape in one way

040or another so all these different courses are the electives but there's the block called unified artists yes and um is there so they're very much digitally oriented is there um the english measures coming up um i guess if you you know in the traditional courses you're going to be exploring magazine design or um i i think they will survive newspaper design uh you know just a physical physical product do you do that or is that part of it or is it is it intentionally focused so on the digital there are opportunities for kids to explore things like that in after-school clubs like we have our newspaper and we have things that are um the the yearbook and things like that that they participate in but these are the ones that are offered right now i

041think you're returning to faith and maybe when they're working with primary source documents and social studies where they're going to bring in newspaper articles or things for english language arts or in those other happy more academic minded courses well i was actually thinking of um magazine production newspaper production and they they you know maybe i am just such a dinosaur that they won't be around anymore but at the same time you know these there's a digital component but you produce the hard product um and i that's and so that's it that's it does but it's also a participant for sure and then um do you see adding to the electives other courses that other skills that you want to incorporate into these courses yeah i'm sure you've got it as a pretty broad menu there

042but yeah um is it have you gotten requests for other other skills you know um i would say dad offers more in the area of unified arts than any other middle school that i have seen especially when you have looked at others schools that their offerings are you have your traditional you know art music fair chorus very few offers of breath and depth of what is offered at that okay thank you thank you [Music] so it actually is a perfect segue in with the question of just um you know being asked and what can be offered the high school to expand on what that is so um i think in 2018 i put together a document more so out of my own curiosity just to like very quickly bird walk i come from a family

043of five siblings none of us are alike we all had very different paths but we were very close in age so um i got to kind of see in action how all of us still became very successful adults even though me and my sister and one of my brothers were very academic oriented and the other two were much more hands-on um and i always felt very bad for my brothers who were much more hands-on because people didn't seem to understand like how they would learn and how to direct them because i went to a high school very similar to a cheshire high school so the course's career document went through kind of those guiding things that we looked at the career pathways the 16 career clusters are in here um very teeny tiny font but

044um did this in preparation for course elections so that hopefully students would open their program of studies um take a look at it see all the different courses that we offer and get some ideas about how that could align to the career they might want to pursue in the future and hopefully even like trying different things so they can maybe read some things out in different career areas so it's a live document where if you click on the links it'll take you to each section so you go down to it gives a very quick blurb it's actually the career cluster language that's out of naviance so naviance is the tool that we are using um district wide to do career exploration it also helps us in the college application process with sending documents but we

045have targeted different career assessments um at every grade it really starts at eight is when you dive into it um that look at different ways to look at careers you might be interested in so looking at personality assessment multiple intelligences um skills and interests all different ways so that we can give lots of different ways to look at career and then link that to the courses that we have at chs um so we'll blur what the cluster is sample jobs for each cluster and then if we go to any one of the subject areas and you can click on one of those links so then it spotlights a few career courses at cheshire high school that are very geared towards that cluster lists um electives in all the other areas um that would also align

046with that cluster and there's obviously repeat that one class isn't just going to show up in one cluster it probably shows up in several and then also linking it to clubs and activities that align um so then again you can get that hands-on social interaction with it as well um so it's updated it's a live document can be updated as we add courses to our program and then i do try to switch out the spotlight courses to be some of our newer courses so that that's getting a little bit more of a highlight i think it's really useful uh the thing that i don't know if i found the key to yet is really getting it out to parents and students to make sure that i send it out six million times but i don't

047know how many of them are actually diving in and looking at it but i think once someone does they actually do see the value in it and hopefully it's guiding them in their first election so it was sent out again to parents grades 9 10 and 11 in students this morning this course election started today any questions about that document or the naughty answers business i drew that in there really comprehensive michelle thank you like i said it's a personal goal to have kids thinking in a different way of how they're approaching taking classes in cheshire so i hope it helps somebody else i don't want to see the interconnectedness among our courses so um so how many students do you have currently taking your that family example i send it out to all of

048them so um i mean they do reference it i feel like parents reference it a little bit more especially in the last few years um i did a course selection presentation for parents a few weeks ago and highlighted this as well um and then really trying to move into getting more exposure to people real time in careers so we did not have our traditional career fair this year um but finding other ways to expose students and parents to jobs that are out there so sean and i partnered with the connecticut center for advanced technology to do a panel on stem careers i would love to see us be able to do that for more careers as well i actually got feedback from parents about what ideas like they would like to see fashion and industry

049came up so i think some of the those holes that we may not have towards working could also be an opportunity to bring in people from industry to talk about those things and links all of the courses available at cheshire high school for organizing them according to the kinds of careers you might be interested in so you know that oh this kind of course could lead me to to understand more what the skills and um knowledges are for each of these different course areas so that it just organizes what we offer in a slightly different way and also shows the clubs so if you think you might want to become an architect here are the courses that will help you to learn about that field and then hear a class that could help you to

050explore it a little more deeply but it says that all students must register for a minimum of 6.5 credits yes i send this out with course elections so that first week is just the sheet about four to collection the rest of it they address about eight credits every year but they haven't that's not i thought it was six point five credits in this in one program no no no no so it goes on our website from the main headset or on the general website michelle uses this as a tool when she speaks to parents and talks about course selection she recently sent it out to all the parents for um and so it's been pushed are definitely much more manageable but they have about 200 kids on their caseload 200 kids running up to ask

051these questions this is something that they could hopefully preview before they come in to have that conversation so that they can guide it a little bit more instead of the counselor guiding that conversation we are seeing that with kids especially with the new graduation requirements they're much more reflective about meeting the different buckets that they have to meet and how they can achieve that um so the conversations we've been having with students the last couple weeks and then when this registration started today have actually been very like rich in that respect but it's been talking more about what they want to do rather than what do i need to take i mean we're trying to do that at the college level right and the students just want to tell me these questions they're being encouraged

052to think about what they want to do and not about you know you have to check out fights yeah but within those boxes there is a variety of choices um have the purpose of the capstone is what i mean it is i'm gonna bring this around you're talking about you don't i should think if i were a freshman going to school knowing i had to do a capstone project i would be petrified and i'm just wondering you know could this be a tool for the kids and are you using it as a tool to get the kids thinking in freshman year that you know to look through here see because it doesn't have to necessarily reflect you know the various all of the disciplines incorporated into one project so that could certainly give them ideas

053of how they're going to get into diving into that work a little more deeply well and as a parent you know i would be panicked as well and you talk about you know introducing to this to the parents and getting them interested and getting them into this i don't know i just think we'd be um you can kind of put the fear of god in them but also say hey look this could be your solution and i know i don't know if i'm kind of missing something here or if that's another way just to to know that you're done because this is an amazing piece of work once you pull together here and um the parents should be looking at this this is kind of electrical i would love to believe that they are um

054and then you know another big thing is is setting up internships and everything is as you go along can you i know i know other people in the room incorporate those in here because i know they're fluid they they is with everything that you guys are doing there come over [Music] um so just everything that you're starting and what they're doing up in school counseling um the mastery-based performance assessment these are all pieces that are coming together and are part of the business department too and in cte so what we're doing is we have the internship program that's one way for students to showcase um something a career that they're interested in or not to showcase but to learn about a career that they're interested in get out there try it out ask questions um

055help help people out and that could cover them or you know that could be their mastery-based performance assessment they could take their learning i was talking with a student the other day and he just wasn't sure what to do and he would he was you know worried but he takes a lot of business classes it's really it's really wonderful so i said well what are you thinking about what do you do well i have a car but i i'd like to i'm working on it so tell me more about this said well i'm painting it's an old car i'm painting it and i'm re helping out revamping redesign redoing the engine whatever whatever sean help me here whatever he is doing he's putting new parts in the car to improve the engine and that's your

056mastery-based performance assessment you're and he's that hands-on kid i was so excited for him and he was so excited that he you know we just needed a little a little bit you know somebody to help walk in through so there's that's one component of what we're doing to bring students together um with skills and knowledge and and advancing from you know dodd to the high school to college or vocational school and then to a career other things that were involved we have other courses we have a cadet teaching course at the high school that kids can explore those opportunities we have a career development class did you speak a little bit more about the cadet teaching oh of course i love this class so any student that has an interest in education this is a

057wonderful opportunity for them it's a semester course we are it's open for 11th graders and 12th graders and they are going to work in an elementary school classroom before they get to an elementary school classroom they're going to learn a little bit about the common core of teaching they're going to learn about special education they're going to learn how to plan a lesson right from soup to nuts and then they're going to teach that lesson to their class so we can kind of learn you know what worked what didn't work and then they're bringing that to their elementary school classroom and they're going to teach that lesson with that class so really hands-on um while they're while they're um experiencing that opportunity so and i always say to kids and this goes for any career

058effort or any opportunity that they had to get outside and explore different careers you know if you love what you just experienced i'm so happy for you you know that's something that you can pursue but if it wasn't what you thought it was going to be that gives you the opportunity to just rethink things look at the um the program that michelle you know that the school counseling department put together and see what else might fit into you know the direction that you want to edit so um and then i i love when juniors take the teaching class because then they could take the um there's a yukon course human growth that developed development child development and there's a high school level courses and um right what's that it's in the educational training so they

059can they can further explore take courses that will help lead them to the next step uh and then they could also take maybe it's a psychology class so there's so many different um so many different you know directions that they can go in after they after they have had such an experience like that i think i met i might have mentioned some other opportunities the job shadow opportunity uh but before coven we also had great opportunities for our accounting classes they would go to different accounting conferences they need professionals or we have guest speakers come in so they're learning a little bit more you know if that career is you know the direction that they want to head in and i will share with you also we have three clubs in the business department we

060have the deca club we have fbla which is future business leaders of america and we have a mock trial mock trial club they are all highly highly attended each club well the mock trial club is right in the middle of their statewide competition where they compete against other high schools and again pre-covered they would get together they'd practice you know the trial situation uh here they tried to do it virtually but they're they're still going they're still moving on towards with that they work with a lawyer um every week that they meet either virtually or in person when they can um to see you know to get advice from from him uh and then and i mentioned the other oh the other two clubs fbla and deca they're there's a fall leadership conference they're learning

061leadership skills they're running meetings they're planning to have guest speakers come they're doing community service and that's all part of the club and then there is a statewide for each of those two clubs competition i right now i think they're both virtual but they really you can compete in any category you could do impromptu speaking you could create a business plan you could there's an accounting competition a marketing competition there's an interviewing competition so lots of different options and opportunities for our students to explore many many different directions to take and to make those connections with the mastery based performance assessment there's lots of opportunities for our students to to extend their learning in many ways [Music] any questions for me and you know if you do happen you're just spending a year but i

062i just want to say this is an amazing job um and so comprehensive and i i would think that this would be something that parents would like to have a look at when they're not that parents kind of advise their teenagers on their courses today because they don't listen to you um but it gives even parents an idea of of how course work fits into and and the overlap of courses to uh various career bubbles so this is great i mean all the way down to the clubs and activities then so if a club or activity is a interest to a student then you can make the backward connection you can go back and say well it sounds like you're talking about you know one day going into education or going into [Music] mean and

063i wonder what is the best way for parents to read this do we bind it instead of home like like we do with the uh program of studies we're sending it out electronically and we don't know if people are using it but everyone's looking at this saying holy moly and this thing's been printed for four years now so this isn't just like something that's brand new and i think it's it's i think the toughest part is people reference it a freshman in high school how do you tailor your high school course selections based upon the career that you're going to go into at fourth now at 14 years old you have to make that decision you don't have to make that decision but if you knew you would want to become an architect holy moly

064it's mapped out for you almost like the college program of studies is right so everything from your science classes your math classes your electives they're all mapped out for you to tailor your education to what you want to do as a career so i think the larger conversation over this whole thing is how do we make how do we have these students understand where the careers are in our area what they want to do we've mapped out how to get there academically or even to have the conversations with them about you know they're talking about what they what their interests are they like to study and or what activities they like to do and say oh it sounds like you're talking about public administration well what the heck is public school which i believe is

065one of the tools it sure is sure and i also forgot to mention to virtual job shadow which i know lovely department is using a lot as well in the career development course gives nice like short snippets for that visual kid who wants to kind of see it in action but can't get on an actual job shadow that um they can view those snippets as well which is nice it is across all of the clusters extremely that you probably know better than i do at this point that you guys need to get your classes um and we can tailor it with our curriculum too so we can actually fit in with it um like you can develop your own lessons which is nice for the teachers um so i'll just just kind of highlight some

066of the work we've done recently um the partnership in nonstop valley community college and it started with our digital media foundations course which honestly starts at our middle school program so works through our middle school and by the time you're a junior and senior in high school you can take a three credit college class in partnership with multiple valley it's called digital media foundations it's a full year course covers everything from capturing audio capturing images and video editing through all different types of projects for all these things so it's great in line with two different courses that they offer at nbcc um and as we've heard me speak before our manufacturing pathway that we're working incredibly hard on right now so pathways need to be paved right they don't just show up from start to

067end so we are now about two-thirds way through paving this this pathway some of the help that i will need are some relationships and better relationships with manufacturers in town and local areas to to to then funnel them through our internship program to then have our kids work in the industry without their senior year in high school so right now we're finishing our first cohort our first pack of students in the first year doing it we have a full boat of 16 kids in the program not everyone's moving on as i mentioned the last time i spoke to us because some are seniors and they're going to be graduating but they get to take those credits that they earn this year and bring them either to finish that program at nbcc or to take those

068credits into a into a four-year college and possibly into a stem career pathway or something like that so next year i'm very excited because we get to actually start running all of our machines next year this year it's all simulation measurements mathematics 2d and 3d modeling reading blueprints so our students earning five credits this year and six credits next year um we also have relationships with uconn right so our consumer science program we have mentioned before but our early childhood education program and not just the ecu from their early childhood and we have our child development classes and our human growth classes and we're starting that new program with the health and education urban communities it's a one credit college course one semester class i see chs next year so if you are interested in

069becoming a teacher not only you can take classes in a family consumer science department you can move those over to our cadet teaching class and you can get a pretty good experience of what this looks like in the real world because that that one credit class i just mentioned is also requiring us 12 hours of field work working with youth populations in urban communities so we have tons of hands-on real world experiences outside of our classrooms and that's just that's just the ends of our pathways we have so many other we have you know 10 classes for freshmen i almost got 30 classes at the high school for you to take everything from architecture and construction pathways information technology and our web and digital media production pathway we have a cluster of our stem classes

070we have that manufacturing production pathway um there's less magnesium over here and then they don't necessarily have to have one of those no so the best way i've always described how students can become full in our department we are probably one of the best tapas restaurants in town okay and at the top is restaurant you can also get the plateaus at the end right so you can get very full on ordering a bunch of different things you think you might like right or you can say i like this flavor profile and i want to stick with this flavor profile that's in our hospitality and tourism pathway as well [Laughter] i didn't think you can see that dr gad and her team just had an incredibly comprehensive array of courses that gives it so many options

071and that through the school counseling department they're sort of the people who are helping kids make quality connections and i can't say this the internship program is only going to explode over the next two years and i'm i'm not trying to have a you know a technology or stem-minded internship program a funnel funnel at all through this thing that's already already paid and already already established so these these kind of programs like that have been developed into high is why kids are coming to kind of university and taking three questions they're graduating undergrad and for years because they've already got so much basis behind them when they get there so i can tell you of my seniors that are in that manufacturing pathway right now half of them are going into four-year colleges to study

072engineering and half of them into the other half half of them are already signed up for apprenticeships in the trade and the other ones are going to one of our two-year community technical values so they're they're all they're all jumping out of this with something valuable for credits skills knowledge yeah i think we've asked this in the past are you seeing um especially at the freshman level more interest in this are you seeing expansion in i would say today is the beginning like metric of that we started course launching today so i we don't know um the actual numbers really until the end of this week of who is who's interested in this this program this pathway um it's you know i at the curriculum night i did have a lot of interest in it

073and it wasn't the only thing i was selling we had our full menu out that night but it was one of those ones that you know if i i ask people you know what on this table interests you the most right when people see certain tools and things outside of talking about this is this is what this is and this is how you can learn these over the next three to four years of high school but we don't i don't know that data yet faith and i would love to share that once once we know because i'm super excited about it too and you know i'm selfishly wanting it to be huge but also realistically understand that probably only run so many sections of it with what we have for space and funds and equipment

074and all that stuff so and also what do we have for current offerings that would we would we lean down with in order to make this something that's more and you need to share with the other clients yes absolutely and we're and it's not and here here's my whole thing right i get really motivated on trying to improve one thing and if i focus on like six things they're not going to get done right so if you just get this one thing and i'm home we're two-thirds way through this pathway once this once this is done we're moving on we're doing we're doing the next one so you know we have we have five-year plans of either either a culinary track a different stem track right so there's there's other things that are out there

075it's really getting the back end of the community colleges to recognize what we're doing and then say okay we're your partners now in this pathway and then we can reformulate it backwards down that's how this whole thing is and please do you ever want to come in and see what we're doing have my email right give my cell phone number come in please it's something come talk to our students and see what they're actually doing day in day out standing here even just with you i'm not even showing pictures but come it's it's smell what we're doing here what we're doing seriously smell from the wood shop all the way to their culinary dog okay absolutely once we have them we will share them good and trend if you build it they will come in

076is that where you're going well i mean um but anyway um no i mean i would love to um okay i know um thanks you guys this was great i appreciate it you know you're all set you've got everything covered in yeah well done um all right item c what are students reading that's the level yes so this is the culmination of our three-part series meeting at the elementary level the middle school level and tonight we have department chair ian wilderman here with amy feliciano to talk about what are students reading at the high school level and what skills are they learning all right well thank you for having us um all right movement on the department chair of the high school um and i think kevin you have control of the all right um

077which is probably good because i love explaining the why behind things and my students will tell you that a lot of times they'll ask you know why are we doing something and five minutes later they regret asking that question so hopefully if i go into the y kevin so we thought we'd start or just sort of our overall ideas that kind of drives a lot of these these things that we do in some of the decision making so our our overall philosophy and approach to developing readers right our visions to develop its lifelong readers who have the skills to understand and appreciate our array of literature and non-fiction texts that we're not just hoping that they're successful uh with any unit within the year but also preparing them for for the future as well and

078that being a piece of wanting to develop effective communicators where the skills both comprehend the ideas of others through reading and listening and express their own ideas through writing and speaking which really hits all of the skills we're teaching right kind of decoding of reading and listening the encoding of writing and speaking because whether someone you know reads their favorite thing whether their english is a favorite class whether they're going to go on to to major in english they're all going to do something in their lives and in their careers where they need to be an effective communicator so that's really the goal for that uh in terms of what are they reading and how are they related um there's whole class texts uh canonical texts and uh to sort of build off of the

079shawn's uh food analogy maybe not quite as you know fancy as the toughest but uh the whole class texts are really sort of the the main course um the focus of the of the units of the course and then supplemented by independent reading and nonfiction which are sort of the side dishes that that complement that that main course to make a full meal and with all of those right we're focused on those those skills of both building the chs performance standards but also our specific common core state standards all right so for the different types of those different types of the pyramids in terms of those whole class canonical texts um our purposes with those are really to you know to get to the roots of of literature literary themes of character development conflict uh

080developing their core reading skills and helping them learn to express ideas on what they've read through writing and speaking so while the focus is reading obviously all of our skills are interconnected and the idea that we want them to learn how to have discussions about what they've read and how to express their ideas and our whole class text is kind of a new idea for them when they get to us from the middle school and i think we find that they when they come to us they they do they are readers they love reading um and now we're introducing some other texts to them that will help structure and scaffold so that we can bring them to a different kind of instruction oh uh in terms of so with this we thought we you know

081we looked at and uh kristen shanley obviously gave a lot of the expert research on why reading independent reading other types of reading are so effective and important for um for student development so we thought we would provide another expert for you instead of those kind of typical experts we went to the students to see some of what they're getting out of these these various types of readings and we even tried to shorten them a little bit they said such great things yeah we really wanted you to see that we didn't write that right we wanted to pair it down and see what they're what they're actually that they are achieving the purposes we hope they are with with each text and you can see with that first one the person says you know as

082a thinker therefore this novel helped me great it geared him out of focus when reading in the past i would resort to speed reading um skipping over important important stylistic and more complex elements of the book so the idea that reading that whole class novel help the students see more in a book that they might read on their own more beyond the plot more beyond the characters to see some of those more nuanced skills within the second one discussing the novel with the class of different personalities that's offered new and unique perspectives on the book i wouldn't have thought of myself uh capture the right my peers pointing out different aspects such as lack of self-confidence and hypocrisy which allowed me to understand the purpose more so again those ideas that since they're reading the

083whole book together hearing other ideas ideas from their classmates they're able to pick up and appreciate things that they might not have if they were reading it on their own um the second last one if i was reading my independent book i would solely read for the understanding in entertainment whereas the whole class novel forces me to read for complex and deeper meaning looking for foreshadowing literary devices and overall themes and again this isn't like you know things we told them to say they're they're noticing that they're developing those those literary skills recognizing foreshadowing recognizing literary devices and themes through those whole class activities um and the last one nope sorry i've been trying to make the pause that that last last line we pulled out especially the best way to learn to write is

084to read good writing and that really is a strong focus that we have especially junior year in that you know the two go in hand at hand actively reading and learning how to read carefully and becoming a good reader really does result in being that and the fact that they recognize that reading gatsby we we're really excited because some you know we want them to love literature but also appreciate it and that's why we introduce them to some of these texts that they might never have read all right that was worth that was worst thing okay that was our favorite show this one for the non-fiction texts the purpose is to investigate the relationship between fiction and non-fiction between the author's world and the world the author creates that the idea that we're able to

085see a little bit into the author's purpose the author's background some things that are shaping the fiction that we're reading so oftentimes these the non-fiction texts will be directly related to the fiction that they're reading so the skills are going to be the same um but those are obviously just in terms of the comic corgo it's reading informational text as opposed to reading the letter all right so what the students say about reading non-fiction um the first one right i think getting some background information on the author of the book is written helps understand why they made some of the choices they did and again the fact that these students are thinking not just about what's happening in the story but thinking about the author's choices and what shapes the office choices is really a

086sophisticated level of of thinking enough reading that they're not just coming in to have a discussion about you know just oh what happened to the book what happened why did it happen why did the author have this happen instead of something else so i think bringing in that non-fiction so that they can think more about the author's purpose helps them get to that level of sophistication um the second one in discussing historical background behind the text right sometimes we'll start with some background non-fictional background information first i'm able to better understand the actions that take place in the novel and that they may be the product of social norms that were prevalent during that time but not today that was pretty impressive that they recognized that you know what we read takes place in different

087time periods and that while we may interpret something one way that reading it now certainly the person writing it was thinking about some different social norms in terms of when the book was written and the last one um this is for a dvd there's a documentary where oprah interviews ellie wiesel and they are auschwitz it's pretty powerful um and this person pointed out that they were able to see a little bit of what the author had gone through and as they astutely point out it doesn't recreate the experience but it gives us a sense of what he was feeling and why he's inspired to write the book so again that nonfiction giving them that ability to think about the author's mindset and the author's purpose and how the author's background can shape their there um

088for independent reading um again this really has two purposes independent reading the idea is that they're able to apply those skills that they've learned that that first student talked about those things about recognizing uh foreshadowing literary themes and things like that that they're able to apply those that they've developed as a whole class then to their own independent reading and obviously that's through what they do in the class but the hope is that they're then doing that on their own as they read outside of school as they read over the summer um the second purpose for uh independent reading is to foster interest and passion all right we try to select things that we you know are you know curriculum and canonical texts that kids are going to enjoy but the independent reading gives them

089the choice to really pick a genre they're interested to pick a time period they're interested in because we found and some of the testimonials show that having that that interest having finding that like one independent reading book that can really spark their interest can impact their reading for years going forward um for that first one right this was someone recognizing exactly that first goal right that their independent reading has helped me improve because they're making those in-class discussions in their head and they're analyzing the novel thoroughly and creating a deeper understanding so this is pretty impressive of that student pointing out that they actually are pulling those things from those whole class novels and and applying it to their independent reading of it even if they're just reading it on their own um the next

090one one of the goals certainly in the independent reading is that they're reading something at an appropriate level something that's not too challenging because if they're reading it with a little bit less support they don't want it to be over their head but also not wanting them to choose something that's below their reading level that's not going to challenge them so this was just someone that was obviously very carefully paying attention to his or her reading level when choosing his or her independent reading book the last one hits to that second goal of inspiring students to have that that passion for reading the person said they hated reading never read until they found that that one author who kicked things off if you're a girl who loves love you won't be able to put it

091down [Music] all right for this one i'm looking at kind of how we teach some of these skills and also how we move from some more scaffolded more carefully guided things into more complex tasks so the first example we'll see is within a single text then over the course of the unit and then over the course of the entire year all right so this one's an example of how you can increase that complexity within just a single text and this is within just a single act of macbeth so students would start are reviewing rhetorical devices which are introduced sophomore year reinforced junior year and now this is actually something they're doing senior year so they're building on those skills they've they've learned through throughout their their years at the high school then they're learning something

092new when we look at specifically theatrical devices as they're about to read um shakespeare and then what they do is we pull one line out of act one and students analyze the bower the balance of power between characters in a single line it's a line for macbeth that says screw your courage to the sticking point and will not fail and so students in groups get a sign okay and this this your group the speaker has the power and your group it's the listener who has the power and in your group there's an evil uh equal balance and so they have to try to use those theatrical devices and show they all have the same line but they have to deliver it in a way act in a way that shows who's in control in the

093scene obviously at that point they don't have it intentionally they don't have the context of the play it's really thinking more about those theatrical devices then we read act one starting with the teacher thinking aloud especially with shakespeare and the teacher really just sort of reading as if they were reading on their own and stopping and explaining here's what i'd be thinking about here's what i'd be wondering this seems kind of odd what do you guys think of this um then we'll do that in whole class and then students will finish it individually then we come back to that line and there's an exchange between lady macbeth and macbeth where she uh essentially convinces him to go through the murder of the king that he really doesn't want anything to do with um and what

094a line she uses is from that third piece but what they're doing here is really analyzing how she's able to convince them and so in order to do that they need to call upon the theatrical devices that we learned at the beginning of the unit they need to go back to the rhetorical devices that we focused on from sophomore year and junior year um and really come up with that pretty complex analysis of how was she able to convince him to do this thing that he did not want to do so that's one way we go so that takes about two weeks um but that step that they would done that they would do of looking at how she's able to to really convince him to do that wouldn't be able to take place without

095those little pieces this is senior year macbeth um they start their freshman year with shakespeare as well romeo and juliet or midsummer night's dream and do a lighter version of this but still getting some of the um the terminology and the history of shakespeare um even as freshmen um so an example of how we move from that um more sort of guided scaffolding to more independence and complex path this is within a single unit this is a sophomore year sci-fi fantasy unit so the students start by analyzing sci-fi movie posters they're doing this in groups it's very informal just looking at some posters what do they notice about the posters and how do those posters depict some characteristics of science fiction then they discuss popular science fiction films that are in the posters and start

096to identify those characteristics okay so what makes up sci-fi fantasy genre what do all these movies have in common then moving to some literature the students read short stories again as a class and continue to identify those characteristics now in literature next step students reading a whole class novel to be able to analyze and apply those science fiction characteristics right what's the social commentary being made here on a larger scale uh then and this kind of blends the independent reading students choose the science fiction or fantasy independent reading book and then they're applying those things on their own so they practice in small pieces practice stick just looking at movie posters talking about movies short stories full class novel and now they're doing it on their own and then the last part kind of puts

097it all together they watch the science fiction fantasy film and write an essay that synthesizes the film the whole class novel and their imb with the what they're looking at is kind of what's the commonality in terms of social criticism that's being made through the that's specific to the genre of science fiction and fantasy and then for over the course of a year um just a sort of possible uh four quarter menu that uh could appear right you might starting with the whole class novel uh highly structured all right providing vocab before specific content specific vocab guided reading questions note taking sheets graphic organizers so that students really guiding students for what they want to look for as they read at the beginning of the year next whole class novel also structured but less prescriptive

098um so instead of um page by page note-taking sheets whereas you know what's important in the first half of page three what's the most important sentence here some questions for them to think about for the chapter but they have to have a little more independence on being able to find those things on their own uh quarter three literature circles students reading in groups so the teacher has support in terms of they're all getting the same assignments all right for this section you're looking for metaphors similes for this section you're talking about the author's tone um but the content is going to be different and then the last one students finally having their chance to choose their own book and applying all those skills that they've developed along the way to the independent task certainly rather

099than starting with that independent reading where you're cutting them loose more on their own they get a little less and less structure so that they can do that final final project on their own i think that might be it there's nothing for me so the main uh slaughterhouse five is what they read is the whole class novel um they're independent reading it kind of depends on the students have a whole bunch of choices the teachers who um are teaching it often to go through our librarian and have them put a number of things on their sci-fi series that they need like diversion is still really popular um a lot of them even still go to the hunger games the hunger games still yep so a lot of that so what they'll read the short stories

100of the very like classic you know uh stories in terms of that and then also the the bonus of the slaughterhouse five so they have the classic in terms of that whole class novel um but then a lot of them will choose more contemporary stuff as their independent reading which is actually creates an interesting dynamic when they're looking at the social criticism because they have something older in terms of the whole class novel and their current veronica and then sometimes contemporary and trying to see it's sort of the commonality between that but also the differences based on those different time periods forces them to do some pretty complex things yeah sounds like i was going to ask you about the authors intent because i'm glad you're going into the social commentary which is pretty much

101the driver for so much especially classic science fiction um and what are they reading typically independently you know is with your a lot of still uh jody the colt is still really popular um john green is probably still the most i would say fault in our stars everybody still loves which i'm glad good one um but some new ones nicola you well i guess everything everything is not that new anymore but that's another really popular one um i think um it also depends on a lot of them will pull from those kind of more contemporary young adult authors um because especially for that idea of fostering that interest in reading there's all kinds of studies show that kids are most interested in reading when they're young and all the way up through high school uh

102when there's protagonists who are just older than them and so a lot of times those young adult authors they know what they're doing when they cast their characters um but different students we have a lesson to pull from bestseller lists um uh i had one teacher i was talking today and she has a whole bunch of students reading with just uh broadheads thing that's uh recent and uh geared towards adults some students even all ask us you know if they're really engaged and like the classics some students will go to our book rooms and pull because they know you know there's no way in a year in the four years that they can read everything that's in our book rooms and so they'll go and see oh i didn't get a chance to read this

103software i didn't get a chance to read this in american lit and so some of them actually choose to actually fill in their independent reading with some of those other classical texts and then how about the non-fiction is it mostly biography or is that uh you mentioned um i guess um oh the great gatsby yeah so like what was the supporting non-fiction material so for that a lot of times we'll um look at some sort of essays by uh fitzgerald essays by some of his contemporaries by hemingway um just to kind of compare their to do two things to compare their non-fiction writing with their fiction writing but also to see how their non-fiction writing can like reveal things about the choices they make in their fiction writing like when we read uh huxfin we'll

104read some of his um short stories some of his little articles to see not just how he has this like different approach but how different his writing is in some of those compared to where he's creating this this fictional world and help them and then they'll bring in sometimes if there's um even modern day current event articles that connect the themes that are in the books people will bring that in as well to bring in that um so while some of it is memoirs biographies longer works a lot of the non-fiction a shorter step that's connected to the picture oh um especially shakespeare we'll show a couple minutes available and there's different build versions of films like great gatsby and like that like being able to see a couple different versions and then the students

105have to analyze okay how are these different versions what choices are these you know to talk about the codes that the authors are making now what choices do these directors make for different purposes why is this version different than versions so those film versions really offer a whole number another level of analysis um the bbc version of hamlet and then i don't know the later bbc version okay and patrick stewart played claudius in both of them so one in 1980 and one in 2014 or so and he played totally different and he was violent each one he's just such an amazing actor anything he's either acting or talking about acting shakespeare's yeah we were even talking about the choice of um the the actors as uh frank smith and washington as being older in these

106roles versus the you know the wonder that it's all like young youthful musical stars yeah and that that makes a difference especially when we talk about him not having offspring right and probably past the time right they will have options yeah there's a lot yeah anyways no i was just i mean there are a couple of things that um so and i love the that that student picked out um the ability of fitzgerald to create the perfect sentence there's something in there's one in tenderness tenders and he captures the entire essence of world war one in one sentence like they you know they never got anyone and they just killed each other over 18 inches but um i don't um i just that's this is cool i i wish i could win but you know

107i just oh i do do you ever take a book and just even especially a classic and ask the kids why it's a classic absolutely they can see the difference between we do that what makes a classic and what makes just pop fiction they do we we sometimes ask them to argue why it's in the curriculum and so and by the time we're done we're hoping they understand that and and they do they just uh at first you know they're a little bit slow to get into it and then once they really see just so many avenues to look at a book and just so many different things to look at they really start to appreciate them we have them in ap junior year sometimes what we do is a culminating project is they have

108to actually sort of make a picture of a recommendation for a book to be added to our curriculum to our canon and so part of what they have to do is you know to pick a book that they like but then they have to establish does this fit the criteria of being a classic which means first they have to define what it means to be a classic and so they'll look over books they've read and see these commonalities um so that's probably the best step of it is them coming up with their definition of what is a classic and then okay would this book possibly be able to be a classic and a lot of them it's actually pretty impressive because you would think are they going to argue that yes this good book could

109be added so many of them will say we love this book but it actually falls a little short of the definition that we established for the classic so it's pretty pretty yeah um you didn't i just i i hope jeff was just watching because i think [Music] took us a few months but then it covered and that gave us time okay oh that's sorry my turn yes last item and i think we've all read about these um changes to the 2024 yes if you want to take a look at the last page in your packet just you know making sure everyone's familiar with the fact that the college board announced a new format for the sat that will be implemented in 2024 they're reducing the hours of testing time down to two hours and the

110reason for that is that they have condensed the reading passages so there will be shorter reading passages with only one question tied to each rather than longer reading passages with multiple questions another change is that calculators will be allowed in the entire math session students who've explored that they're telling us within days instead of weeks days and um the major things um as you know the sap is going to be digital business this will be the first time so we've been working closely with technology and high school to make sure that all of our districts issue devices are up and ready to go for that administration which is not until march 23rd our format has been in place for a few years now we have the math department administer the sat they act as the

111proctors so it's at the high school the math section of the high school is on the second floor so we can isolate the students up there and the rest of the students in school can have a normal school day so the 11th graders are all upstairs taking a test in a room with no more than 20 students each with their own proctor who's a math teacher and then grades 9 10 and 12 go through their regular school day and you know and it doesn't doesn't interfere with the teaching and learning that's going on here so you're not doing that saturday morning well there are saturday morning tests all the time and cheshire does post them yes but this is for the sat school yeah 15 minutes currently and these changes that that marlene has are

112implemented a couple of years from now so probably not next year yeah yeah i swear this was the testing equivalent of walking to school to miles up illinois they've changed it a lot yes five to 10 years do you think you're making changes due to the fact that colleges aren't requiring it yeah sure that that is why so they're starting trying to stay relevant okay yeah i don't know to think about a condensed test i don't think any of us do until we actually see it but i think the good things that they've done over the last few years are really transformed the test into a skills-based assessment rather than just rope memorization and things that like the analogies that you probably all remember when we were in school those are gone you know so

113it's all it's all reading in context and analyzing and just real world skills and connected directly to what they're learning in the classrooms that we just heard from i'll tell you those analogies stimulate that creative thinking skill what connector they want wow thank you and so they're going to change the psat too as well eventually yeah eventually all of the tests are going to be electronic and in the same format as the s18 okay great well um i don't think okay um well thank you everyone thank you