實中園地第七卷第二期

Bilingual Department Humanities Week Presentation

◎Ｍs.Sarah Meek

During the week of April 1 through 5, the music room in the Bilingual Department held a captive and captivated audience as each of the elementary grades performed for the other classes for Humanities Week. The event gave students a chance to practice their public speaking skills in front of a large audience, while the rest of the school caught a glimpse of what was going on in each level of Humanities. Some of the programs included presentation of plays, shadow puppet shows, reading stories they had written, explaining the process of a recently completed project, or play reading.

The first grader students' contribution to Humanities week

Ms. Kathleen Sloan

Several of the first grade students preformed a play, based on a story in their literature textbook.
The students who volunteered happened to be a cross section of the reading ability groups within my class. They worked on pronunciation, intonation, and deliverance. They did a wonderful job; they even included facial and body language to enhance the atmosphere.

The Second Grade Shadow Puppet Plays

Mr. Michael Henry

For Humanities week, the 2nd grade created Shadow Puppet Plays. Groups of students wrote their own scripts, created their puppet characters, and decided upon their motions. They worked hard to make their plays exciting to watch, and practiced often. They were very proud of their accomplishment, and appreciated the audience's respectful silence during their plays-however, they absolutely loved the applause!

Fifth Grade Humanities Week Presentation

Mr. Thomas Lin

For Humanities Week, our two fifth grade classes joined forces in performing their very own play-adaptation of Elizabeth George Speare's The Witch of Blackbird Pond. A couple of weeks beforehand, students had spent a week combining their knowledge of the story, which they had just finished reading, with what they had learned about Puritans in Western Social Studies. Students worked together in groups of four to create props, write the script, and rehearse their parts for the play. When Humanities Week finally arrived, the fifth graders mustered their courage, called on their dramatic skills, and brought The Witch of Blackbird Pond to life!

Third Grade Presentation

Mrs. Nicole R. Gresback

During Humantites Week the third grade gave a presentation about two groups of Native Americans that we had been studying in Western Social Studies. Half of the class spoke about the Kwakiutl who were mainly hunters and fishers that lived in long houses on the northwestern shores of the United states.
The second half of the class shared information about the Cheyenne. The third graders explained how the Cheyenne hunted buffalo on the central plains of the United States and lived in tipis.

4th Grade Humanities Week Presentation

Ms. Sarah Meek

The 4th graders presented the play The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to the parents, teachers, and students of the Bilingual Department. To get ready for the big performance, the students read the book by C.S. Lewis, learned how to write scripts, made masks in art class for each of the characters, and practiced a lot. They enjoyed every step of the process and wished that they could perform it again.

The sixth grade's contribution to Humanities' week

Ms. Alison Kay

The sixth grade had been working on developing personal myths within our writing workshop. This assignment was integrated with our western Social Studies unit on the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia; we had shared a variety of myths in class from this era. The students developed their myths from a process called feewritting.
Duing the freewriting process, the students continually write for ten minutes, without stopping. There have been many proven positive results from this process, one of which. is that the students become more comfortable with the process of expressing themselves in writing. Another positive impact, is the students realize what it is that they want to write about; due to the nature of freewriting, this is not only topic generation, but it is also like journaling, or even therapeutic writing, something very much needed by our evolving adolescents. Once the students realized what was truly on their minds, they were then asked to take this "gem" of a personal truth, and turn it into a lesson that they could share with others. The genre used to communicate these lessons was termed their "personal myths." The intention of reading some of them during Humanities week, was the hope that some of the oldest members of the elementary school would be able to shed some light on this confusing process of growing up for some of their younger schoolmates.