English 9A: This spring, ninth graders are practicing close reading through their study of Romeo and Juliet. Students memorize and perform ten to fourteen lines from either one of Shakespeare’s sonnets or from one of the famous monologues within the play. In one class, students from the Stanford Shakespeare Company did a mini-workshop that included performing a short scene and giving students feedback on the monologues they were memorizing. Students’ final common assessment will be writing a passage analysis.

English

English 10A Students are reading George Orwell’s 1984 with a focus on the novel’s modern relevance. Classes are discussing the cultural impact of the novel, and current events that mirror some of the novel’s themes and messages. These supplemental texts examine contemporary topics, from the role of the NSA to the implications of the Amazon Echo. Students will access existing knowledge to critically examine the parallels between Orwell’s vision and our modern society. Other sophomore students are busy using their critical reading and close-textual analysis skills to make real-world connections between contemporary race issues and To Kill a Mockingbird, which will culminate in an “Becoming an Upstander” project after spring break.

Social Justice Pathway: The second semester group of Cohort #3 attended Camp Unity and is wrapping up their interdisciplinary study of South Africa while reading Cry the Beloved Country. Cohort #2’s juniors are putting the final touches on 2017’s Social Justice Symposium (scheduled for the end of March--please consider bringing your students!) and preparing for a multiple-day field-trip up to San Francisco featuring a camp out in the Presidio. The pathway’s seniors are hard at work on the project-phase of their Capstones and immersed in the community working to ameliorate various social justice issues from the achievement gap in PAUSD to inequities in health-care access. Cohort #1 will visit companies at the end of March that are working to achieve gender parity as a field-study for the students’ Sociology class and The Handmaid’s Tale unit.