This week's blog entry is a copy of the speech given at the Upper School Honor Roll Assembly, "Honor and the Human Condition."

http://bit.ly/drpPlf

At student request, MOCA's first meeting was given over to three agenda items. Student Council representatives for spring term were elected, along with MOCA leaders for the next two weeks. During the remainder of the meeting time, students met in their fund-raising groups to continue their work.

MOCA will have a number of additional projects during the course of the spring, one of the most important and enjoyable being planning Founders' Day from start to finish. Founders' Day, originally proposed by the 10 founding students of the middle school, is a day off from classes for fun and bonding. In past years, typical activities have included a special breakfast, movies, tie-dying, barbeque, and outdoor games. This year, it will be held on Tuesday, May 4.

The health class is looking forward to the spring trimester! Along with forming new groups for presentations, we will be discussing such topics as old beliefs/new perspectives, our use (or misuse) of our time, and using "wise freedom." We will also revisit the contracts that the students created and signed before break, checking in to see how successful they were at keeping to them.

As April is National Poetry Month, the first unit of the spring term is a poetry unit. Students are reading poetry every day, presenting on poetry vocabulary, and of course writing poetry. Students will self-publish books of their poetry. They will also participate in the annual "Online Poetry Slam" in which they will share their poetry with students from other schools, and read and comment on other students' poetry. We will share the URL for this project when it is assigned to us. The unit will conclude with a poetry reading on Family Weekend.

Theatre 7 is a studio course which introduces students to the basic concepts of theatre through discussion, improvisation, theatre games, journal-keeping, and the collective creation of an original production which is performed for an audience of parents, peers and teachers at the end of term. Students train body and voice and finally they create a “physical score” for their production. They make aesthetic decisions about scenic space, costumes and lights, based on what they want to express in their play.

Last trimester the students worked in three writing teams and developed original scripts which each deal with problem-solving. This trimester, the three teams will put finishing touches on the scripts, create the scenarios, and prepare each one-act play for performance. Each student will keep a journal of her creative journey as we proceed. They are already improvising scenes, paying attention to strengthening plot and character development, and working with acting exercises in warm-ups.

This Theatre 7 class is full of vibrant, creative energy. At the start of the trimester, each student wrote an introductory monologue about herself and presented it to the rest of the class. They are tremendously supportive of one another, each contributing her unique, strong voice to these collaborations. And we are also having a great deal of fun in the process!

The School maintains an online calendar of events for use by parents, students, and other members of our community. You may access this calendar at

http://www.sbschool.org/home/calendar.asp

You may also access a copy of the academic calendar through the parent portal, signing in at:

http://www.sbschool.org/home/content.asp?section=parents

If you ever have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us. Thank you!