LION'S VIEW - November 2008

Dear Members of the North Community:

As the Principal of Middletown High School North I am pleased to report the many positive happenings that have taken place during the month of November 2008.

These past several weeks have provided me with countless opportunities to recognize and applaud our students in academics, arts, athletics and co-curricular activities. Several students were awarded a Board of Education commendation in November for their significant achievements by scoring between 700-800 on the SAT II tests. On November 17^th ten senior students were inducted into the National Honor Society.

The production team, cast and crew of Sweeney Todd were pleased with the audience turnout for the play on November 20, 21 and 22. They broke box office sales this year. The Senior Citizens were also invited to a matinee performance on Friday, November 21^st.

The Symphonic, Jazz and “Fred” Bands and three Choral groups have been practicing weekly in preparation for their annual Holiday Concert that is guaranteed to entertain audiences of all ages. Their performance will take place at 7:00PM in the North Auditorium on December 18^th.

Everyone in the North Community was thrilled when the turf project was completed in time for the North vs. South traditional Homecoming Game on November 27^th. We now have a showcase field of which to be proud! The Booster Club members donated their time and resources to add the finishing touches of flags along the top of the bleachers, banners along Tindall Road, flowers, and balloons, signage and decorations to welcome the visitors to the field. The Student Council helped to plan the Pep Rally on Wednesday, November 26th, and all the Class Councils decorated the hallways, helping to promote school spirit.

On December 3rd all the Fall athletes met with their coaches to celebrate their season with refreshments, certificates, letters and plaques for the Most Valuable Players and the Coaches’ Award Selections. Many teams improved their records, and several players improved their overall performances.

We had many successful fundraising efforts, including pie sales, holiday breads, North apparel tee-shirts, fan towels and shutter shades. The Homecoming Dance was completely sold out, and everyone had an enjoyable time. A special note of appreciation is extended to the Senior Parents’ Council who helped with the decorations, food sales, ticket collection/coat check and security during the dance.

The Dance Team performed their routine for the first time at the Pep Rally and the Homecoming half-time show to a round of applause and cheers. The fans thoroughly enjoyed the choreography. They will perform a recital on December 9^th at 7:00PM in the North Auditorium.

The Social Justice Committee, Future Educators of America, World Language Honor Societies and Future Business Leaders of America are planning on Food, Toy and Clothing Drives to help those less fortunate this holiday season. The entire school is participating in the “Make a Wish Come True” letter writing campaign. For every letter written, Macy’s will donate $1.00 to the charity.

Good luck to all our Winter Teams. Let’s Go Lions!!!!!!

November Accomplishments and Best Practices

As I am dedicated to the theory that students must become good viewers of cinema before they learn anything else, we observe the following routine daily:

Students take out their point sheets and clear their desks of all other distractions—especially purses, which obstruct view and cause “texting temptation.” Selecting student’s names on popsicle sticks to insure an even distribution of questions, I ask the class about ten to twenty short- answer questions about the viewing from the day before. Questions can concern anything from character development, setting, theme, turns of plot, casting, quotations, to genuine trivia. Each answer is worth one point, to be recorded on their point-sheets, to be applied to their grade. If the selected student does not get the correct answer, then the question goes out to the floor. That’s when highly motivated students can really rack up the points. (Highly charged competitions often develop between individual students or groups of students). The same student whose popsicle stick has come up will continue to be asked questions until they get a correct answer and a point, thereby encouraging less-motivated students to also do their best. After getting the correct answer, the student then records the date, movie, answer, and point value on their point sheet. At the end of each Marking Period, the students tally up their points, which will be handed in, in order to determine the student’s grades.

My goal is to have Cinema Studies students practice becoming life-long learners, and when it comes to film, Americans use the movies as a place to meet with their friends, and to create and to practice discussing their opinions among those friends.

At the end of each section of Cinema Studies, each class is surveyed and asked to relate their experiences. Most students find Cinema Studies to be a welcomed yet highly educational break in their day. They greatly increase their levels of “cultural literacy” readily, having experienced a true “felt need.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fine Arts – Business – Music – Technology – Family and Consumer Science—Coordinator, Jim Gibson

The high school students went with the preschoolers to the gym several times so that they could observe large motor skill development. To learn about music, we visited the band and chorus rooms. Two of the high school classes made applesauce with the children. There were also several Thanksgiving projects, including the bulletin board on the ramp in the 1200 wing.

Students in Ms. Vega’s photography classes built and “field tested” pinhole camera obscuras. These pinhole cameras were made out of shoeboxes and, although they were designed for viewing only, they actually could have been used to take photos if we still had a “wet” darkroom for developing sheets of photo paper.

Students in Ms. Vega’s Fine Arts I class are working on a ceramics unit. They have completed their slab-building projects and are beginning a new unit on coil-building by creating gargoyles. Students have also been introduced to the potter’s wheel and will have the opportunity to try wheel thrown projects.

Also, photographer Pete Milnes is scheduled to provide a lecture about his work after school on Thursday December 11th. All are invited to attend.

I promoted the three Technology programs to include Tech Drawing, Print Design and Photography at the Incoming Freshman Parent Orientation Night on November 18, 2008. I conducted five tours with 18 – 22 parents in each group. The evening was well-attended, and the parents had the opportunity to visit classrooms, meet with staff and enjoy video clips of their students’ previous visit to North on October 30^th. There were refreshments and a co-curricular exhibit to conclude the evening in the Cafeteria.

I promoted the art program at the Incoming Freshman Parent Orientation on November 18th

I spoke with artist Mil Korbinski about organizing a guest ceramics artist demonstration and coordinating a fundraising event. Students could sell soup & ceramic bowels, with the proceeds donated to the Monmouth County Food Bank http://www.milwexler.com/homepage.html

For my continuing Professional Development, I attend a ceramics class on Monday evenings and meet with my painting group on Tuesday nights at Thompson Park.

Clothing Construction & Fashion classes visited the Newark Museum where they studied the African Arts exhibits with a docent and participated in an Adinkra symbol stamping workshop.

The Social Justice Committee, with the help of fashion students, conducted a Native American Beading workshop for interested students after school.

Students helped repair the North Cheerleaders’ “break-away” in time for our Homecoming Game.

The students were busy baking and selling a variety of holiday breads: zucchini, banana, pumpkin and apple cinnamon. They served the delicious breads to the Senior Citizens who attended a performance of the fall Play, Sweeney Todd.

On November 24th a presentation was given to my Functional Design students about careers in the art field by a guest speaker from Full Sail University.

I am planning a second guest speaker on December 15th from Moore College of Art and Design to discuss portfolio requirements for future students.

Both Art teachers are finalizing the plans for the upcoming field trip to Saint Patrick’s Cathedral and Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum.

We began a new “Jazz Combo” with five students from Band and Choir. The group will be performing at several gigs throughout the holiday season.

I have begun my second year as President of All Shore Chorus, and we had five students accepted to the ensemble.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mr. Piro and Mr. Decker used two TI Website activities in Pre-Calculus…. Discriminating Against the Zero, which explored the importance of the discriminate and Inverses of Functions that detailed the skills needed to determine an inverse function.

In Comprehensive Geometry Honors, Mr.Piro and his classes explored line symmetry, point symmetry and rotational symmetry by using the College Board Spring Board Geometry activity Tracking the Migration.

In Algebra 1 with Mrs. Ruda, the class is working on a culminating activity for chapters 1,2,3 called Running Your own Business. Also in Mrs. Ruda’s Algebra 1 class, the students used their kinesthetic intelligence by creating a “coordinate plane” dance involving the axes, the quadrants and slopes.

Mr. Kerrigan’s Algebra 1 classes used the skills of interpolation and extrapolation in a class activity called The Burger Problem. Students constructed a scatter plot of saturated fat vs. total fat taken from the nutritional information of eight popular hamburgers. Students found the line of best fit, wrote the equation for the line and used the equation to make predictions.

Our traveling math team participated in the Shore Math League contest held at CBA on November 17.

Dr. Giordano’s Calculus classes have started work on a research-based assignment concerning US energy independence and the use of ethanol as an alternative to gasoline. This activity was adapted from the Moody’s Mega Math Challenge that some of Dr. Giordano’s students participated in last year. She is hoping that this activity will inspire a group of Calculus students to form a team for this year’s contest.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The second marking period began with the 9^th Graders working diligently with fitness and weight lifting activities, as well as learning the finer points of basketball.

The 10^th Graders are in Driver’s Theory for the second quarter, where they eventually will take the State Test and hopefully qualify to get their driver’s permit.

On the 11^th Grade level the students are participating in a Team Handball Tournament, while the Seniors are engaged in a Volleyball Tournament. The upperclassmen also spend one day a week working in the weight room and another day in fitness activities.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fundamental of Science classes have experienced latitude and longitude first hand. The teachers posted latitude and longitude numbers around the room, and students were then asked to determine their location with those numbers.

Classes also produced collages from labels that contained metric units of measure. One student even decorated a birdhouse with the labels. Paper crystals were also assembled to better understand the relationship between specific minerals and their crystal formations.

Students in the new Biology curriculum produced posters showcasing the six unifying principles of life. Each student, in groups of 6, was responsible for researching and sharing information on how his/her particular principle was demonstrated in each of the five kingdoms of living things.

The SEARCH club has raised over $2000 for the construction of a school in Senegal, West Africa. With contributions from the nurses at Meridian Hospital and the faculty, we have raised more than half of the $16,000 necessary to build a three-room school.

The club will erect a “mock” school building made out of paper bricks on the wall of the cafeteria. Each five-dollar contribution will be symbolized by one brick. With only one month left in the year, they hope to reach their goal.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Doug Felegy’s Period 1Economics class is currently 5th in the region and 40th in the state stock market game. Over 1,300 teams are participating.

On November 5^th a combined Western Civilization and AP European History class visited the Metropolitan Museum Of Art.

On Nov. 13^th Mrs. Hill’s Western Civilization classes participated in a “loyalty oath” game with the faculty.

Kathy Orsetti’s Behavioral Science Classes interviewed faculty members on the pressures of adulthood.

On November 20th Mrs. D’Alessandro led a group of 16 North and South students to a Model UN Conference at Princeton University. They hope to attend another conference in Boston later in the year. The experience was very valuable for the students as they engaged in debates with representatives from other schools.

Six social studies teachers are attending the New Designs For College Readiness: Secondary School Reform Workshop that will be meeting for ten sessions.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Melissa Lovett and I are working on an electronic document (Word.doc) letter as our unit 3 PBL for our US History I classes. The students are working in groups to write an electronic letter to e-mail to Dr. Cartier either challenging or defending selected school rules according to their rights as American citizens. The letters will include hyperlinks to websites that support the students’ arguments. This project incorporates the use of technology with approaches to research and writing skills. The students enjoy the project because they get to argue school rules and feel that this is a good way to have their voices heard.

Members of the Civic Leadership class designed anti-bullying web pages that have been added to the school web site. (Click here to see those pages.) In addition, my Civic Leadership classes will begin working on their fundraising competition projects next week. They will be broken into groups and will be responsible for planning, organizing, and implementing their own fundraising events in hopes of raising as much money as they can to benefit their cause. Groups will compete against other groups in class, and both classes will compete against each other to see who raises the most money. The money will benefit the students over the third and fourth marking periods towards guest speakers and field trips.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lauren Sokol and I will be doing a CD project with the students this month. They will need to choose songs that they listen to and apply them to each act of Macbeth. The students need to make the actual CD using a case including a cover, back cover, an insert, and a paper CD. They need to explain why they chose those songs to represent each act. For extra credit, they can actually download the music to a CD instead of using the paper CD.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mike Coppola and myself had the students competing in an “Ion Poker Game” last week. We were working with ionic and covalent compounds and to summarize the material, we had the students play a game. Students were split up into three groups and were handed out various cards. Each card had a different ion or subscript number on it. The students had to put cards together in order to make compounds and gain points. We had three original groups, and then we had a final table showdown with the winner of each group. The students were engaged the entire time in the activity, and they loved it!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In World History ICS with Cheryl Laue our PBL was to create a children’s book on one of the following topics- Italian Renaissance, Protestant Reformation or Scientific Revolution. The students worked in groups and created a story in easy to understand language with characters, story plot, pictures, glossary and work cited page. The results were an outstanding collection of stories that each group presented to the class.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In English 11 - American Literature Mrs. Goldfarb's and Dr. Terplevich's ICS classes used a Web Quest to investigate The Roaring 20s, Prohibition, New York City and The American Dream. The classes also worked in groups to plan a 1920s "Speak Easy" with music, entertainment, a guest list, decorations and food for the event.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The various World Language Honor Societies are doing fundraisers to raise money for Senior scholarships and to make charitable contributions to their various organizations.

Both Diane Vieira (French) and Thomas Isherwood (Latin) were present at the NJEA Convention. They attended workshops that dealt with using improvisation, films, art and teaching grammar through storytelling in World Language classrooms. The TPRS and ROPED+ methods were discussed at these sessions.

Several World Language teachers (French, Spanish, Italian and Latin) participated in the Incoming Freshman Parent Orientation Night. These teachers volunteered to talk about their various programs and provided samples of the materials and resources used to develop proficiency in the listening, speaking, reading, writing skills and culture.