• A letter from the Director

As directed by the sign at the classroom door, I waited for the maitre d’hotel to seat me. (In the spirit of honesty, I must disclose that the maitre d’ was my first grade son, Harry.) A few moments later I was on my way to a choice seat in the hottest eatery in town, Dottie’s Polka Dot Bakery. Dottie’s was the central project of the social studies curriculum, and the culmination of months of work, by the fifteen students in Jamie and Bonnie’s First Grade. Early on in the project, the children’s tours of the neighborhood services led to the decision to create their own bakery. This prompted a long list of questions and negotiations—How do you begin to turn the classroom into a bakery? What features do all bakeries have in common? What jobs are there in a bakery? What would the first graders’ bakery sell? What would the bakery be called? Who would perform which job? Who would do the baking? What would they bake? Whose design would be used for the logo? The students began to investigate through visits to a number of bakeries and consultations with a long list of professionals—bakers, restauranteurs, marketing experts, etc. Finally, there was baking to do and placemats, plates, T-shirts and aprons, among other items, to create. Cookbooks were produced, treats baked and advertisements created. Signs went up all over the building inviting parents and schoolmates to the grand opening. And then the big day arrived. A steady stream of visitors put the children’s planning to the test. For the three days the bakery was open, all worked like a well-oiled machine.

Back to my visit. I ordered a cupcake and a cup of Bunny’s Special Drink. My waiter handed my order to the counterperson who began preparing my snack. While we were waiting the maitre d’ offered an entertainment book—a collection of student created connect-the-dot puzzles and coloring pages. Soon after the clean-up person poured my drink my cupcake arrived. Delicious, moist and delicate. As soon as I was done I was handed a bill and was directed to the cashiers. My total was tallied and I paid in dimes (the only denomination accepted.) On my way out the door, the customer service person asked me to rate my experience. I gave high marks all around, as did all other visitors I spoke with. Truth be told, I spent a lot of time in the bakery over the next few days, bringing with me as many guests as I could, as a snack at Dottie’s was an experience not to be missed.

The first graders completed their three days as bakery workers with a deep sense of satisfaction for a job well done. They had set an ambitious goal for themselves and had surpassed it. Prompted by their teachers they had investigated the “real world.” They learned through the experience of visiting bakeries and had created their own bakery to narrow the divide between learning and life. At the end of this experience these learners have a deeper understanding of what it takes to participate in a community and how to be of service to it, of the ways in which people work best together to realize a goal. They have written, drawn, added, graphed, multiplied, charted, negotiated, measured, discussed, explained, timed and cooperated. This type of social studies project is central to the experience in our lower school classrooms. Teachers create opportunities for students to experience the world and to apply the skills they have acquired. They go out into the City to observe, investigate, interview and learn. Upon returning to the classroom students can continue their learning with a deeper understanding from having visited authentic working models.

A week later visitors to the High School encountered signs advertising G.W.O.T. Day. What does G.W.O.T stand for? Why, Global War on Terror, of course. An outgrowth of a junior/senior elective on American foreign policy since September 11th, 2001, G.W.O.T. Day is a series of student conceived, organized and taught seminars focusing on American foreign policy and the history of the current conflict in Iraq and other parts of the world. Students participated in a series of student taught seminars including Middle East Geopolitics, The Bush Revolution, Islam and Terrorism, Human Rights, The Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and Human Rights. In addition, all students watched an advance copy of Operation Homecoming, a film focusing on the lives of soldiers in Iraq. The day ended with a presentation by, and discussion with, Martin Smith, a high school dad and documentarian, who spoke of his experiences in Iraq. An engaging and provocative day for the high school students and one that provided an experience not unlike Dottie’s Bakery did for the First Graders. While the High School students’ “neighborhood” was thousands of miles from Charlton Street, the goal—learning about and through the experience of others, planning, researching, implementing, teaching—was much the same. In the same way as our youngest students, the Fours, spend the year learning about themselves, their families and the classroom, our High School students use their skills and abilities to make sense of the world around them. As wonderful as it was to sit in the bakery, order a treat, enjoy it, and report on the student created experience it was just as moving to walk around through the High School on that day and hear students leaving classrooms continuing discussions and debates about the state of the world. Again, a student generated experience. Students challenging and helping their peers to better understand the world.

These are but two examples of our rich social studies/history program. These sorts of experiences happen throughout the school year in all grades. Within a week of the projects described above, the Fifth Grade had created an Egyptian tomb and the Sixth Grade had performed the annual Medieval Pageant. Other Lower School classes were studying the school, New York City—now and in the past, and their personal immigrant pasts. High School classes were investigating world history and the development of the concept of human rights and the history of New York City, all in service to fostering better understanding of the various communities they are a part of today and the skills necessary to be successful members of the communities they will join throughout their lives. There are smaller moments in social studies that are just as meaningful. A group of students in an early childhood classroom discuss a block building, making sure that wheelchairs can fit through the building’s doors. Fourth graders interview a grandparent who is an immigrant learning something, finding their place in history. Seventh graders prepare for a trip to Colonial Williamsburg by preparing questions for the Colonial residents they will meet. Eighth graders trace the origins of the civil rights movement to the days following the Civil War and discuss current events in this same light. High school students debate immigration policy, past, present and proposed.

Social studies will always be at the heart of what we do at LREI as understanding one’s place in the world, one’s relationship to the world and the ways in which one can have an impact on the world are central to leading a purposeful life.

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by Sharon DuPree, Director of Diversity and Community

While students had one last day of winter break, faculty and staff participated in a professional development day on diversity and community. Pat Romney, our keynote speaker for the morning, discussed diversity and community challenges in independent schools nationwide and then presented faculty with scenarios of situations that could happen in their classrooms. Small groups reflected upon these challenges and brainstormed strategies they might use to address issues related to diversity and community that would help us to avoid these difficult circumstances.

Faculty also viewed the first segment of Race: The Power of an Illusion, a film that reveals the origins of race in America dating back in history to our founding fathers, and which scientifically demonstrates the absence of a gene for race. In additional segments, the film also makes it clear that though race is a social construct, or as my students would say, “made up,” the impact of this illusion is devastatingly real. We thought about how, as a community, we can take ownership of our own positions in this social paradigm through reflective and honest discussion. As American citizens we all have to live each day with the knowledge that Asians were not allowed to become citizens of our country until the mid-1940’s, Native Americans/American Indians did not gain the right to vote until the 1950’s and African Americans did not become equal citizens by law until the Civil Rights Movements in the 1960’s. We live with the history of our country every day at LREI as we struggle to understand and support each other regardless of our differences. Though we make mistakes, we continue to try to honor our school’s past contributions of fighting for the equal rights of all. LREI’s underlying philosophy calls for continuous support for those oppressed. Given our school’s history, we realize the importance of steadfast awareness and updated knowledge to inform our social actions.

In addition to viewing the film, faculty were also told that something called “The Human Race Machine,” was coming to LREI, and they were asked to think about ways in which to engage students in dialogues about the origins and the impact of race in American society. On January 8th, the Human Race Machine was placed in the Charlton Street Performing Arts Center. Members from all constituencies were invited to go through the machine and experience the transformation of themselves to individuals of different races. I had the pleasure of having some very inspiring conversations with both middle school faculty and a group of parents who viewed the film and went through the Human Race Machine. It was also a delight to have staff participate in this experience.

By the time Seventh-Twelfth Grade students were invited to use the Human Race Machine they had also viewed a segment of the film Race: The Power of an Illusion, which demonstrated a high school science project that traced the DNA of students from a variety of backgrounds and matched that DNA to other students worldwide. It was surprising but confirming to see that students from the same racial background had as many differences in their DNA as they had with students from different backgrounds. One LREI middle school student was so affected by the film and subsequent class discussions that he wrote an e-mail to a faculty member expressing his confusion and discontent. To him, race was very real. He disagreed with the premise that race is a social construct, but expressed his willingness to keep an open mind to new ways of “seeing.”

Though some were disappointed that the images created by the Human Race Machine were not as dramatically different as they would have liked to have seen, they moved past that stage and began to think very deeply about the impact of race in our society for those that have been oppressed and those that are part of the majority group. Administration, faculty, parents and students came to the understanding that the machine itself was merely an activity that confirmed the information they had viewed in the film, and the personal experiences they live on a daily basis. The real purpose for having the Human Race Machine at our school for a week was to focus us all, if just for a moment in time, on a problem that has undermined our society for centuries, so we can equip ourselves with the in-depth information we need in order to deconstruct more effectively the conceptions made by our forefathers. For one week, in classrooms, in administrative, faculty and parent meetings, we did our best to take ownership of an institution that has had detrimental effects on so many groups of individuals in our country. Yes, we all know scientifically that race is an illusion, but we also all know that the impact of race for many groups of people in America is still very real, and so our work is far from done. We continue the school’s mission better equipped and more determined than ever to continue the fight for equality and social justice for everyone.

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by Harriet Lieber, Lower School Learning Specialist & Lower School Newsletter Correspondent

Anyone who takes a walk down the second floor hallway of the Lower School building will pass many recent examples of our Fourth Graders’ writing. From the daily periods devoted to Writer’s Workshop, to the integration of writing in social studies projects, writing is an essential component of the Fourth Grade curriculum and the fourteen-year program at LREI.

Currently, visitors to our second floor can read examples of our students’ writing through an ongoing social studies assignment. The children, who are studying immigration, were asked to assume the personalities of different immigrants on their way to America and then to write letters to loved ones in their home countries. These letters reflect both the deep knowledge that the students have acquired on the subject of immigration, and their passion for what they are learning. Some children became so involved in their fictional personas that they went beyond the assignment to write biographical backgrounds for their immigrant personas.

This winter, each student will also complete a related, long-term, writing project in which s/he will interview relatives and friends about their childhoods. In some cases, the interviewees are immigrants, in others they are older relatives or friends who have grown up during different periods of our recent history. According to Fourth Grade teacher Suzanne Cohen, this project helps the children “understand history through personal perspectives, using primary sources.”

Emphasis for the interview project is placed on choosing and expanding upon a theme. Each child is encouraged to find an element of the interview that is particularly interesting, to develop it and then to weave it into a final paper. Fourth Grade teacher Gwen Morrison asks her class, “How do you get information from people, and how do you synthesize the information that you get?” Both Fourth Grade classes emphasize the application of writing skills they have developed with their students during Writer’s Workshop, an interdisciplinary approach to the teaching of writing developed by renowned educators Donald H. Graves and Lucy Caulkins.

Our Fourth Grade teachers believe strongly in the importance of not just producing good assignments, but of becoming good writers; of learning skills that can be applied by students to whatever writing challenges they are given. Assignments such as these are important to the curriculum, and are vehicles for learning and applying the skill in a thoughtful manner. The expectation is that our students will not just learn interesting information about their interview subject, but will learn interviewing skills, will understand how to form information into interesting and accurate pieces of writing, will use vocabulary to strengthen their stories, and will structure well formed sentences that connect and flow.

Long after this project is over, the students will continue to develop these skills. Later this year, they will work on personal narratives and begin research related to their study of the Rain Forest. These skills will be honed throughout the Fourth Grade and will lay a solid foundation for their work as they move into Middle School.

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by Jennifer Hubert Swan, Middle School and Coordinating Librarian & Middle School Newsletter Correspondent and Mark Silberberg, Middle School Principal

Understanding how to write well is essential to both academic and personal success, and LREI Middle School core teachers are adept at providing students with challenging and creative opportunities to hone their burgeoning skills at this critically important craft. Because ore classes are a combination of both English and social studies, teachers have ample opportunities to integrate writing tasks across these disciplines. So while students explore writing in a variety of genres, they are also able to engage in authentic writing tasks that further explore and extend what they are learning in their social studies curriculum.

Examples of integrated writing abound throughout the Middle School program. In Fifth Grade, through a simulation based on the book Guns, Germs and Steel, students construct a society that illustrates how geography impacted the beginnings of civilization. Their learning from this experience is reflected in a task that asks them to create a survival guide for nomadic hunters and gatherers in 8,000 BCE. In these guides, students give advice to new “settlers” about common problems they encountered in the creation of their own civilizations. In Sixth Grade, students study the Middle Ages across several cultures and continents. They read the European legend of Beowulf, and practice their fiction writing skills by reinterpreting the story from the monster Grendel’s point of view, the results of which are often inventive and humorous. Later in the year, after studying the political system of feudalism and the devastating effects of the Black Plague, students begin keeping a Plague Journal.”Written from the perspective of either a peasant, priest, nobleperson or knight living during the time of the Plague, students craft entries that capture the important aspects of their character’s experience. In addition to discussing the effects of the Plague on their character’s life, students include historical details, such as the kinds of food their character might have eaten, what their clothing looked like, and who their neighbors were, in order to give their readers as complete a picture of their character as possible.

In the Seventh Grade, students learn the form and structure of the research paper for their Colonial Museum Project. In these papers, each student researches and writes about a specific colonial trade. They then demonstrate their understanding of the material by creating an interactive exhibit for the day-long Colonial Museum, which is attended by their classmates and the greater LREI community. They curate this exhibit by drawing on their fellow-students’ research papers. Seventh Graders further develop their research and writing skills when they delve into the McCarthy hearings, and compare and contrast what they learn about the Red Scare to the Salem witch trials and their reading of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. In Eighth Grade, students learn more about the Civil War era by choosing and reading a historical fiction novel set during that time period. Each student is assigned a partner, and the pairs write letters back and forth to each other that are informed by their reading. In their letters, they not only examine historical details, but they also explore literary conventions like characterization, narrative style, and voice. They also learn how to structure a literary essay by analyzing To Be a Slave by Julius Lester, and writing a response about slave resistance that is supported by examples from the text.

There is no doubt that the writing projects students engage in from year to year are challenging and thought provoking. This is a reflection of the team approach that the core teachers take in their work and their commitment to on-going professional development. Last year, the core teachers reviewed the writing program to make sure that they were creating a holistic writing program that maximized learning opportunities for students within and across the four-year Middle School experience. During the spring of 2006, the middle school core teachers worked with Columbia writing professor Nicole Wallack to ensure that the writing skills taught in each grade built on the skills mastered the year before. According to English Department Chair Sarah Barlow, the objective of these professional meetings was for teachers to share what genres of writing were being taught in each grade, and to look for any “holes,” while asking the question, ‘What kinds of writing experiences should drive the Middle School program?” To accomplish these goals, teachers engaged in a variety of shared writing exercises that modeled practices that they wanted to implement with their students and they refined the four-year arcs for each of the writing strands of the curriculum (e.g., essay writing, memoir writing, research writing, etc.).

The writing curriculum in the Middle School continues to be a work in progress as core teachers reflect on current practices with their collective eye focused on innovation. Guiding them in this work is their focus on using history and social studies as a medium through which Middle School students develop the writing skills that allow them to express themselves strongly, clearly and eloquently.

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by Karyn Silverman, High School Librarian & High School Newsletter Correspondent

While writing is, of course, a skill utilized in every class and every department, the bulk of formal skill building in the high school curriculum happens through the carefully organized efforts of the English Department. It is then reinforced and expanded upon in other departments, especially history. Because English and history are structured as two year-long courses for the Ninth and Tenth Grades, followed by two years of a fully elective program, the goal is to deliver all the basics by the end of Tenth Grade. The Eleventh and Twelfth Grades allow students to refine those skills while exploring additional forms of writing. The Honors Projects and the culminating Senior Project allow additional avenues for students to demonstrate writing skills they have learned in other areas of interest. The present writing curriculum is the product of 15 months of dedicated work by the English Department in consultation with Nicole Wallack, Associate Director of Undergraduate Writing at Columbia University and a member of the faculty of the Bard Writing and Thinking Institute.

The writing that students do at the high school is an integral part of the full LREI English curriculum. The very first writing assignment completed by incoming Ninth Grade students focuses on the summer reading, and consists of a book review. This correlation of literature to writing provides the backbone of the departmental model; even in the writing electives, reading plays a large role. The Ninth Grade curriculum continues by teaching the concepts of constructing an argument and supporting the ideas with textual evidence; this is paralleled by the history assignments, which focus on synthesizing information from provided resources both primary and secondary. Writing is kept short at this point, and focuses on structure: thesis, sustained arguments, incorporation of evidence, transitions and conclusion. Moving forward, students conduct “free writes,” valuable for initial articulation of ideas, as well as many close readings of their texts, both in-class and as homework assignments. Close reading (a term students will hear throughout their time in the high school) asks students to unravel a specific passage or even just a few lines of text. They look at language, imagery, word choice, and are asked to connect the short passage to the text as a whole. This helps students to develop analytical reading skills and to write with depth. Finally, the end of the Ninth Grade curriculum culminates in creative writing.

Not surprisingly, Tenth Grade builds upon the close reading skills and basics of essay structure taught in Ninth Grade. Tenth Grade deepens the focus on voice and argument, and seeks to build greater awareness of how and when to incorporate evidence. It is in Tenth Grade that students begin to use references from multiple texts or sources into a single piece of writing. This ranges from comparing two poems to integrating secondary criticism with personal interpretation. The incorporation of outside criticism into their own writing allows students to build upon the multiple text synthesis taught in Ninth Grade history. It also provides additional structure for the research-based writing students will conduct in Tenth Grade history. However, research is not just for history. In English, students also conduct research and write a long paper focused on their research as it pertains to a piece of literature (The Great Gatsby and the 1920’s). In addition to the critical writing, students immerse themselves in a two week personal writing unit using Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself and the work of the Transcendentalists as the launch point.

In the elective program, students are required to take at least one writing workshop course; these were initially termed writing intensive, until it was pointed out that all English classes here are writing intensive! In addition, students continue to write analytical and research-based pieces that range from two to ten pages for history. This year, writing workshop courses include Short Fiction, Memoir, Playwriting, and Journalism. Despite the writing workshop tag, these classes do not forget the literature; pieces in the genre being studied are assigned and discussed, and writing assignments draw on the reading both directly and indirectly. In the literature electives, writing includes reader responses (sometimes using a reader’s journal), close readings, longer analytical writing, which often draws upon literary criticism, and creative pieces, as well as projects that include written work.

What all of this information seeks to convey is the passion and respect with which writing is approached here. Faculty - in English, certainly, but in every other department at LREI - care about what students say and how skillfully they say it. Students grow confident in their voices and learn to love expressing their thoughts. The evidence can be seen in many arenas: Spend five minutes listening to any writing class; or take a look at IE, the student produced literary magazine, which brims with astounding writing from the middle school and high school students; or the student run newspaper, The Charlton Label. Finally, proving that the passion of the students is matched only by their achievements, we have had numerous students submit their work to the Scholastic Writing Awards – and to the delight of faculty and parents, they have won awards in both the memoir and fiction categories!

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by Catherine Friesen, Assistant Director of Summer Programs

Creative writing is one of the core areas of concentration in our summer program for middle school students, the LREI Institute. Over the course of two week workshops in June and July, students age ten to fourteen study the processes of poetry writing, dramatic writing and creative non-fiction with our faculty and outside experts.

Students attending the LREI Institute choose academic, creative and athletic majors and minors. The format is designed to give students the opportunity to focus intensively on a topic, and faculty are able to expand the scope of the classroom through field trips, guests, student-directed projects and the ability to make connections across workshops.

This structure offers unique opportunities for students interested in writing. Last year, Sixth Grade Core teacher Frank Portella took students in his Poetry Writing major to neighborhood places of literary significance to serve as a springboard for the young writers’ imaginations. In the classroom they used a variety of games and activities to explore the possibilities of words. For example, they crafted oral poems with each person contributing a word or phrase. They also turned words on end by disassembling existing poems and re-shaping them into new ones. Towards the end of the session, students in the Moviemaking major, led by High School Media Arts teacher Vinay Chowdhry, collaborated with students in the Poetry Writing class to make a poetry collage of text and imagery.

In Michael Zam’s New York Stories workshop (2005), students drew from their own lives as well as their observations of people and places throughout the city, to write a collection of short stories, essays and poetry descriptive of New York City life. Students described looking out of a window at home, exploring how their families came to live in New York, or a summer afternoon in Prospect Park.

My writing hides in my Chinese Quilt. The smell of it makes me calm.
My writing hides inside my mother’s very old cabinet.
My writing hides inside my family’s smile.
-Taylor

A twig snaps
Causing the birds
To ascend
Into the crisp morning sky.
The sound of blossoms
Drifting
In the nonchalant breeze.
The busy New York streets
Oblivious to the lovely beat
That
Surrounds us all
- Zoe, from New York Beat

At the end of the session, students published the collection as a ‘zine entitled Say Cheese!!!

Creative writing will be offered for three two-week sessions in the LREI Institute this summer at the 40 Charlton Street campus from June 18-July 27. Each session will explore a different topic or writing genre.

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