Week in Review: Poetry Edition

This week we had a little bit of rain, a little bit of sunshine, and lots of fun stuff going on in the library!

Throughout the week we had the 7th Grade History classes working on their China/Japan culture documentaries. And we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to snap a photo of one of the 7th Graders, Olivia, checking out our copy of Olivia: 

The Sophomore Project Presentation Battles happened Monday and Tuesday, where Sophomores enlightened us with their chosen topics. We had quite the variety this year—from dog breeds, to sports psychology, to dreams, to Mount Everest!

Thursday we celebrated Poem in Your Pocket Day, where we gave out candy to anyone with a poem in their pocket. Some of our High Schoolers visited the Lower School library to work with Kindergarteners on some interactive activities. Some of the poems involved acting like a tree (Ben was a very convincing tree!), drawing bugs, and pretending to be corn (shout out to Christian for making a map of where corn grows in the U.S.!). Ms. Melinson snapped a bunch of photos of our kids in action:

We were honored to have the Matthews family stop by for a visit on Thursday. It was kind of like getting visited by royalty. If the name sounds familiar…

Friday we had a Leadership Lunch, where members of the Latinx Student Union talked about their recent trip to the Latinx Youth Summit in San Francisco, where they attended workshops, heard some powerful keynote speakers, and were able to bring back some great ideas to promote diversity on campus. Plus, they got to dance on stage. We’re a bit jealous.

And one last shout out goes to Tim M., for winning the 7th Grade March Madness competition with his book Son of a Gun by Anne De Graaf, which is a book about child soldiers in Liberia. Every day the 7th Graders checked the “progress” of their book reviews on the bracket, and if they stayed on it they were rewarded…with candy! Tim’s review wow’d the judges and he received the ultimate prize: more candy!

April Book Club

 

Last week we had our last High School Book Club for the Class of 2016 (where did the year go!?). Ms. Melinson traditionally reads a poem for the Seniors, the lovely “Summer Day” by Mary Oliver. In the spirit of National Poetry Month, Anny read a couple of poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, and Dr. Bell read “My Father is a Simple Man,” by Luis Omar Salinas.

Ms. Melinson asked the Seniors to share any reading advice they might have for the younger book club attendees. Amelia said she highly recommended reading short stories, because it’s a great way to get an idea of a writer’s style before reading their larger bodies of work. Vanessa and Jake agreed, adding that it’s also a good way to “find your genre” and discover new ones that you might not otherwise try.

Everyone agreed that it’s always a a great idea to venture outside of your favorite literary genres. Dr. Bell said that he enjoyed reading a book by Dean Koontz that he picked up randomly in a coffee shop one day—someone had left it with a note saying “Read and leave for someone else to enjoy.” Ms. Nellis said that when she was traveling in Europe as a student, her peers would often trade books with each other, and this is how she ended up reading Jaws. Fels said that she found herself reading “big books” like Dune when she was spending time in Mexico.

Saachi offered some very insightful advice, which was to “read poems for inspiration” before a writing assignment or a test. Zoe D. said she loves reading books with illustrations and art, such as The Phantom Tollbooth, which she plans to take with her to college. Everyone shared the sentiment and agreed that it’s fun to go back to our “comfort books” every now and then.

For a complete list of books recommended during this book club and previous book clubs, check out our Goodreads list here!

Week in Review: Prom and Reptile Edition

This week in the library we had a couple of surprises. As the High Schoolers prepared for the prom on Saturday (on a train!), we got to see some very entertaining promposals—like Manson’s proposal to Saachi—complete with coffee puns and surprise lattes.

And we were really impressed by MJ’s promposal to Gracie, one of our biggest Harry Potter fans:

While we can definitely get on board with chocolate frogs, we can’t really say the same for the other surprise guest we had in the library: a local campus lizard. This little guy decided he needed to check out some library books. He was kindly scooped up by Mr. Stainbrook and returned to nature, since we have a strict no-reptile policy in the library.

After school on Friday the Glass Knife had another production night. And we gotta say, the book is shaping up to be pretty cool…stay tuned!

Here’s What We’ve Been Reading!

As we enter the final stretch of the school year (hooray!), we’d like to take a moment to share what our faculty and staff read over Spring Break. We hope everyone had a relaxing couple of weeks filled with sunshine, fun, and a good book or two. Participating readers were entered into our Reading Raffle to win fabulous prizes (sound familiar?).

Without further ado, here’s the handy-dandy list of reads! In no particular order:

• Dr. Bell – Master and Margarita/Mikhail Bulgakov
• Ms. Fels – Brooklyn and Nora Webster/Colm Toibin and World Gone By/Denis Lehane
• Mr. Mercado – A Chicano Theology/Andrés Guerrero
• Ms. Covey – Carry On/Rainbow Rowell; Shadowshaper/Daniel Jose Older; and Serafina and the Black Cloak/Robert Beatty
• Ms. Bloedau – At the Edge of the Orchard/Tracy Chevalier
• Dr. Whited – Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)/Mindy Kahling
• Ms. LaComb – The City of Thieves/David Benioff
• Ms. Nellis – The Past/Tessa Hadley
• Ms. Batarseh – David Copperfield/Charles Dickens, and The Wise Man’s Fear/Patrick Rothfuss
• Mr. Day – Un Royaume de Femmes/Anton Tchekhov
• Ms. Myers – I am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban/Malala Yousafzai 
• Mr. Cunningham – White Noise/Don Delillo, and Patience/Dan Clowes
• Ms. Wessels – Double Fudge Brownie Murder/Joanne Fluke
• Ms. Manning – The Thing Around Your Neck/Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Our Endless Numbered Days/Claire Fuller
• Ms. Monahan – Mistress Shakespeare/Karen Harper; The Fourth Bear/Jasper Fforde; Murder Unleashed and A Nose for Justice/Rita Mae Brown; The Shell Collector/Anthony Doerr
• Mr. Billings – The Wisdom of the Myths: How Greek Mythology Can Change Your Life/Luc Ferry; Greek Gods, Human Lives: What We Can Learn from Myths/Mary Lefkowitz; Mr. Bridge/Evan Connell.
• Mr. Neukom – Age of Innocence/Edith Wharton
• Ms. Fackenthall – Beautiful Ruins/Jess Walter
• Ms. Melinson – Brilliant/Roddy Doyle; The Global Achievement Gap/Tony Wagner

Week in Review: Back from Break; Off to L.A. Edition

This was a fairly quiet week in the library, and by quiet we mean the noise was deafening on Monday as students reunited after two weeks away and shared their tales of Spring Break fun, trips, and sleep (of course!)

Ms. Melinson was able to visit the 9th Grade History class to see some of their World Heritage site presentations. It was fun to learn about Persepolis, Timbuktu, the Historical Town of Ouro Preto, and the Colonial City of Santo Domingo and how they came to be on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list.

Ms. Melinson also got to visit the 6th grade to see their Passion Project Pitches. This is the second year the 6th grade is doing Passion Projects based on Google’s 20% Time and Genius Hour, both are explained in this article. Students will spend part of their time this quarter working on projects of their own choosing and then presenting them to the community. Some of the ideas they have so far include:

• learning to do stop motion video
• learning 3-D origami
• making a cooking blog with videos and recipes
• teaching another student basketball and posting lessons to a YouTube channel
• learning business practices from a lemonade stand
• creating comics
• learning palm reading and tarot in order to create a Book of Fates

We can’t wait to help them with their research next week!

While Ms Melinson holds down the fort here in the Matthews Library and gets The Glass Knife staff ready for their first Work Night tonight, Ms. Hawkins is in L.A. with the Medallion and Octagon staffs at their annual conference.

Thank you to Mr. Wroten for the 6th grade photos.