Capitol Hill Reminders

• Q1 Ended on November 2, 2007

Capitol Hill Highlights

Literacy Initiative

The Capitol Hill campus has an ongoing commitment to promote literacy skills. We’re attacking the problem from multiple angles, highlighted below.

PEBC Training and Labs

Public Education and Business Coalition is a Denver, Colorado based organization that supports our literacy program. For three days every month PEBC works on campus with our literacy coaches. The goal is to create a team of skilled literacy coaches to further train additional teachers in teaching literacy until almost the entire faculty are trained literacy teachers.

In those three days PEBC holds labs, coaches and consults individually with team members, and observes classes and offers feedback.

Literary Coaches:

• Mary Finn (History)
• Jennifer Kirmes (Science)
• Bay Woods (History)
• Jill Clark (History)
• Jody Peltason (English)
• Malu Jimenez (ESL)
• Liz McOuat (Science)
• Leah Barron (History)

3 other teachers being coached:

• Ivy Farguhenson (History)
• Danielle Garrahan (Public Policy/Health)
• Sarah Fine (English)

Benchmark Days and Read – Write

One day every month students are dismissed at 1:20pm in order for teachers to collaborate with each other over student work to determine best teaching practices at Chávez. The teachers meet in two distinct groups. One session is by Grade Levels and the other session is by Departments.

In the second half of the year the student work the teachers have met over has been work generated through the literacy program and the Literary Coaches new Read-Write Program.

Literacy Monday

Chávez teachers dedicate Monday classroom instruction to literacy and comprehension instruction. Courses, from Physical Science to World History, explicitly teach students to monitor their own thinking, reading, writing, problem solving, questioning, and discussing of how to make meaning of language. In order for Chávez to educate proficient readers and to pass Adequate Yearly Progress basic literacy requirements as measured by standardized tests, teachers will lead students to improve literacy.

The central sources of literacy strategies come from Chris Tovani’s text I Read It, But I Don’t Get It (Comprehension Strategies for Adolescent Readers) and the literacy instruction led by Chávez literacy coaches and PEBC workshops during faculty meetings.

Every Monday, teachers will use a text or an excerpt from a text to focus class reading and comprehension. The text(s) may and should support the content and standards of a given discipline’s curriculum so it will simultaneously drive core curriculum and literacy.

Each class should include individual student reading & writing and include collective conversations that report and measure reading processes and strategies.

Some of those strategies include…

• “The Teacher as Model”
• “Student Voices Matter”
• “Reading as Driving”
• Strategies to Fix Up Confusion
• “Reading as Inquiry”
• “Show What We Know”

The advantages to literacy Mondays include:

• Teachers have a specific time each week to dedicate to direct literacy instruction. This may not currently be occurring in every class because of the pressures of content instruction and because teachers may feel awkward teaching literacy if they are not English teachers.
• Students will experience a school-wide effort to improve their literacy skills. They will begin to view literacy skill development more holistically because they will see the importance (linked to grades and class time) in each course.
• As the DC-CRA test approaches, students and teachers will be accustomed to spending class time on the topic. It will not feel extra. Students and teachers will experience less panic and frenzy when they have already dedicated so much time to the project. Like a good sports team, the practice will build confidence, skill, and ability.
• The 50 min. class period is an ideal length of time for direct literacy instruction and practice. Many teachers have commented that it is difficult to accomplish most content specific work in this short amount of time regularly.
• Students will hear the same vocabulary when it comes to talking about and understanding reading. It will be a true reading across content areas. This reinforcement and repetition may be helpful.
• Teachers who are looking for a tangible way to address reading issues in their classroom will be given the “permission” to halt traditional instruction for this purpose.
• We will be able to put into direct practice the reading that that the staff has discussed and completed.

Reading-Writing Workshop Class

Every freshman who enters our school takes two English classes. One class is a traditional English I class. In addition, the student is required to take a second English class entitled Reading/Writing Workshop.

The Reading/Writing Workshop course offers students a chance to improve reading and writing skills in a workshop atmosphere. Classroom instruction will use daily writing activities to introduce the techniques and strategies needed to write effective English prose. Students will be assessed on their progress as a reader and writer through their daily and weekly reading and writing activities. Revision and polishing of written work is a major focus of the class.

New Library and Librarian – Tom Fenske

In December of 2005, Tom Fenske was appointed the librarian the Capitol Hill campus with the charge to build a print collection that would support the literacy initiative being undertaken by the school. When Mr. Fenske started, the existing collection consisted of about twenty-five books from a previous library and a huge pile of new, unsorted book-of-the-month-club books.

Since then, Mr. Fenske has hunted and gathered books and other materials including newspapers, magazines and maps. More than one thousand hand picked books have been added to the collection to support the academic program and the reading initiatives such as the silent sustained reading. In addition, the popular book club books have been evaluated and organized for the student’s reading pleasure. For many students, these popular books and magazines serve as the bait to lure them to the small, but user-friendly library.

Specifically, seventy-five percent of the books on the extensive reading list submitted by Ms. Finn (History Department Chair) for the 9th grade reading library are now available as well as additional material, which in effect doubles the original list. And for the history AP students, a first-rate collection of serious scholarly work is in place.

Similar support is available for the silent sustained reading in the English classes. Books from lists submitted by Ms. Fine and Ms. Peltason are being added to a superb collection of novels, short stories, poems and essays. At present, approximately, two hundred books have been taken from the library for use in these classes.

Also available every week for history, science, English and other departments are the Sunday New York Times and Washington Post’s book reviews, magazines, and opinion sections as well as the weekly New York Times Science Section.

Magazines cover current events, politics, business and finance, science, nature, health and nutrition, religion, and popular culture.

The library has also given $200 to the Don Quiote Biblioteca to purchase works in Spain dedicated to Spanish language, literature, and culture. Our excellent collection of cook books has also helped numerous students taking French come up with a recipe they are making for their class.

The most important way that the library serves the school’s reading initiative is personal service. The librarian is available everyday and for two hours after school to help meet the needs of students and faculty.

Silent Sustained Reading

History Department

Each of the classes in the History Dept. dedicates at least 30 min to SSR reading time each week. The common elements to our SSR program are that there is student choice in the reading and that students read continuously for 30 min stretches.

The materials that we use include:

• UpFront Magazine
• New York Times
• US News and World Report

Students in World History, Politics, and Foundations use these magazines to select an article relevant to the subject matter. Students respond in writing to the article that they have selected, usually using a template created for this purpose (created internally by the History Dept. members).

The Foundations courses (9th grade) use a library of texts purchased for the course. These texts are mostly historical fiction, non-fiction, and biography. They range in reading level and content (mostly focused on US History). Students in Foundations select a text to read during SSR time and report on these texts in their quarter portfolios.

In AP American History students select texts from a series of provided for each unit. They select a text based on interest within the unit topic. These texts become the basis for the document based question exams at the end of each unit. Students must become “experts” on the text selected during SSR time.

English Department

Each of the classes in the English department dedicates at least 30 min to SSR reading time each week. The bulk of this SSR time is devoted to student reading of texts assigned for class. For example, in a recent English 1 class, students were given 20 minutes of sustained time to read an example response essay to Jean Toomer’s Cane. As part of a recent literacy Monday “Read:Write” activity in AP English, students were given 40-minutes of class to begin reading the book Beloved by Tony Morrison. While this type of SSR is not traditional choice-based reading, it supports literacy by guaranteeing students a chance to read in a safe, quiet environment: an environment some students self-identify as not having outside of school. When coupled with immediate discussion or written response during a 75-minute blocked class, this SSR can also effectively provide immediate feedback to what students have read, helping them see purpose and relevance to their reading.

Additionally, English II and III feature extensive independent reading projects, for which traditional choice-based sustained silent reading is a major weekly component of class. For independent reading, teachers coach students to choose books of appropriate reading- and interest-level. Students read and report on their reading through dialog journals and cumulative reports. Students read silently for as much as 80 minutes per week during independent reading projects. This current Independent Reading program, pioneered by department members Jody Peltason and Sarah Fine, is a pilot for use department-wide in 2006 – 2007.

Students are encouraged to make extensive use of the newly expanded school library, as well as individual classroom libraries assembled from long-term loans from the school library, DC public libraries, and individual teacher purchases.

Chávez Student Book Awards

What we needed

A buzz about reading in the school. A way to put the “Tovani Text” to work.

What we did

• A teacher picks a student to present a book award named for that student (example: The Raphael Rodriguez Book Award). The student is selected based on how their reading has made an impact on the school. Maybe a student who have come to love reading, maybe a student who shared a book with a class, a student who struggled with a text and grew to love it.
• Ask the awarding student to think about his most important book (this grew from the Tovani text). The student tells the teacher his most important book and (so long as the teacher thinks the books is appropriate content) writes 1-2 paragraphs about this book.
• The student is asked to think about whom in the school should be awarded the book prize. The student is also asked to think broadly. Who would benefit from reading the book? Who has struck you or inspired you as a reader? Maybe a student who rarely is recognized for academics or maybe one who often is. The student is asked to think beyond their circle of friends if possible. The awarding student is asked to “surprise” the school community.
• The student selects a winner and writes 1 paragraph about why this person was selected.
• The recommended book is bought as the book prize and a certificate of award is made with the “Raphael Rodrigez” Book Prize listed on it as well as the recommended text and author.
• The teacher who recommended the student writes a brief talk about why that student was chosen.
• The awarding student reads about his most important book and about the impending winner of the Book Prize.
• The book and award are handed to the student, a photograph is taken.
• Photos of the awarding and awarded students are placed on the webpage of the school.
• Last year we fundraised money so that we could give away a collection of the awarded books. We raised $1500 for this and distributed the books throughout the school.

Learn more about the book awards, including a list of past winners, on the Book Awards page.

Pen/Faulkner Program Reading Series

This series is integral to the school’s literacy initiative. Each year the seniors host three to five authors of national renown. Pen/Faulkner generously provides the students with free books which they read and discuss prior to the author’s visit. Students are responsible for hosting the visits, and are expected to prepare a serious of compelling questions related to the writing life and the novel or short story collection. Students are also expected to complete a critical essay on the book assigned and write a formal thank you letter to each author who visits Chávez. This program is essential to a student’s sense of ownership; the authors’ visits lend weight to their experience of the text and gives them a more concrete understanding of the process of writing. Pen/Faulkner recently celebrated Chávez as one of the highlights of the Writers in Schools program. Such visits not only raise the profile of our school community but also allow students important access to the author behind the work.

• Column McCann: September 2004
• Richard Bausch: November 2004
• Don Lee: December 2004
• Maud Casey: February 2005
• Robert Bausch: April 2005
• Rick Moody: September 2005
• Richard Ford: March 2006
• Maud Casey: April 2006

College Book Awards

To promote literacy and college preparation, colleges and/or universities send alumni to campus to award a Chávez student a book in the institution’s name. A collection of faculty members form a committee to honor a student in a particular grade level who has distinguished herself as an academic leader and who possesses the potential to attend a rigorous college. Frequently, sophomores and juniors receive the college book awards so they gain consciousness of schools and/or geographic regions they might not have known about without the book award recognition. Ideally, the student winners consider applying to attend the college in the books name.

Last year, liberal arts college Williams College (MA) honored Junior Jacqueline Canales and liberal arts college Smith College (MA) honored Senior Reina Arevalo. In years past, universities including Harvard University have also given book awards to Chávez students. The award ceremonies occur during Chávez all-school assemblies so the entire student body sees the power of a great book (ranging from classic novels to dictionaries) as a symbol of continuing education. Chávez hopes these honors will not only empower individual students, but also groups of student witnesses when they gain awareness of Chávez’s goal to prepare high school students for college.

Don Quiote Café Y Biblioteca

Hosted by Sr. Ben-Kotel (Advanced Spanish Literature) and Dr Bay Woods (History teacher) the performance series features live readings and performances in English and Spanish by teachers and students at Chávez in Room 102 every Thursday.

Numerous students have performed original works at the café, many of which they wrote specifically for performance in this safe and friendly environment. Students in the audience both show support for, and are inspired by, the work of other students and of faculty members.

Teachers have shared their own writings and music as well as sharing quality works from other authors and musicians

In addition to providing a venue for student and faculty performances, the café has been a significant force in raising funds for the student trip to Spain.

Literacy Nights

A series of cultural evenings are offered each year. Families, students, faculty and friends are invited to the school to share a buffet style meal and enjoy and support reading, writing and recitation in variety of programs.

Local 709: Evening of Performance and Art
October 18, 2005

The first evening of performance and art is an introduction to many members of the staff who perform for parents students and friends. This is to stimulate interest in reading and writing co-curricular activities including The Vine Literary Journal and the Spoken Word club. It is a fundraiser for co-curricular activities.

The Unsung Heroes Banquet
February 28, 2006

Students invited their unsung hero and other family members to an evening banquet celebrating their unsung hero. Most of the unsung heroes were family members. Displayed around the banquet hall were pictures of each student’s unsung hero accompanied by an essay by the student that explained why this person was chosen. Students and their unsung heroes were served dinner by the faculty and staff.

Selected students shared their essays before the gathering. One student showed a documentary video on their hero, his grandmother.

Art Exhibit Opening
March 9, 2006

Art students held a reception in the Art Studio/Gallery on the third floor featuring the Mid-Year Exhibit. This special event celebrated the art work that has been created in Ms Sonkin’s and Mr. Osuchukwu’s Art classes. Food, music and poetry readings were provided by students. Students in English class recited poetry they composed that was inspired by portrait work created by art students in a collaboration between the English and Art classes.

The Black Experience Celebration
March 23, 2006

This was a special event celebrating the black experience in our country. Leading up to the evening there was a long film festival of movies concerning African-American history, struggles and triumphs, as well as movies produced by African-Americans.

The evening was a sit down catered buffet dinner and a series of events and performances. The evening activities included an exhibit of student collage art pieces portraying many black heroes. Students were in traditional African dress and explained the occasion each traditional dress might be used for. Dinner tables competed with each other in the black history game, three seniors introduced their Public Policy Thesis topics and explained the topics impact on the African American community.

We were entertained by hearing excerpts from the winners of the essay contest: Jonessa Higgins, Eric Vance and Andrea Williams. Students Letia Childs, Mariah Hubbard, Alexis Valentine, Damien White and Anthony Anderson each read a selected poem of famous African-American poets and then read their original poems in response to the poems.

The evening ended with the Hunger Strike Band performing “Buffalo Soldiiers” by Bob Marley.

Local 709: Evening of Performance and Art
April 26, 2006

The second evening is a set of readings and performances by students who have been engaged in our co-curricular activities. The evening fundraises for our co-curricular activities and showcases many of our students and their work in those co-curricular activities.

• The Vine Literary Journal and The Spoken Word Club
• The Dance Club
• Choral Group
• The Hunger Strike – Jazz and Rock Band
• Natural Impressions – Hip Hop Band
• Visual Art

The evening consists of a catered buffet dinner and an evening of student performances.

Senior Thesis Presentations and Senior Dinner
May 17, 2006 and May 18, 2006

Senior thesis presentations are scheduled for May 17 and 18, and are the culmination of the year-long senior thesis class, which involves researching and writing a 15-20 page policy paper. The final requirement of this course is that every student publicly present their research and recommendations before a panel of policy experts from the Washington, D.C. policy community. All Chávez students and families, especially the families of seniors, are invited to the presentations.

Once these presentations are complete on May 18, the school hosts a senior dinner on campus for seniors and their families. This is an event where seniors and their families are invited to enjoy dinner with faculty and friends, with special support from eleventh grade volunteers who help organize the event. Dinner with family and friends on the auspicious evening when all graduating seniors will have completed their thesis projects and presentations is another opportunity for Chávez to invite parents to share in their children’s successes, and to be a part of the Chávez community.

The Vine Club, The Vine Literary Journal
and Vine Literary Awards.

The purpose of the Vine literary club is to introduce students to the art of compiling, editing and publishing a literary journal. Students are responsible for a variety of duties including soliciting work for the magazine, holding quarterly poetry/fiction contests and hosting school-wide readings. Students are divided into poetry and fiction editors and spend time each week looking over and choosing work they feel is strong and suitable for the journal. They are the ones that shape the voice of the greater Chávez community. Students are also expected to fill the rolls of Managing editor, responsible for the overall running of the journal, and business manager, responsible for the financial concerns of the journal. Through this activity, students experience the process of producing and distributing an arts journal.

Twice a year The Vine offers a literary contest opened to all students, 1st, 2nd , 3rd prize and honorable mention are awarded in fiction and poetry. Winners read their works in an assembly or during Local 709.

Students’ creative writings from the Vine and elsewhere have been involved in the following contests:

• The Larry Neal Awards (sponsored by the DC Commission of the Arts)
• The Poet Laureate High School Awards
• The Parkmont Poetry Festival
• The Pen/Faulkner Students Essay Writing Contest
• The Youkin-River Prizes for Young Writers at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale
• The Vine Literary Club Awards

Spoken Word Club

The Spoken Word club at Chávez offers additional outlets for creative writing and performance, advancing the overarching literacy efforts of the institution, while providing an extra-curricular outlet for students with serious interests in writing. Poetry, lyricism, and hip hop are popular mediums in DC’s youth culture that provide viable and exciting opportunities to encourage literacy where traditional academic settings may fall short. A genre that combines strategies for using poetic devices such as metaphor, alliteration, symbolism, meter and rhyme (among others) with theatrical and rhythmic expression, Spoken Word provides a crucial outlet for literacy development. The process of expressing words, ideas, images, and feelings, and moving through a multi-layered editing process, encourages students to be deliberate and precise about their expression. Since the work and is often rooted in personal experience, writing, sharing, and reading are seldom viewed as “work”.

The Spoken Word club accomplishes excitement about literacy in weekly workshops where students are exposed to various canonical poets, alongside creating original works. When possible, students perform their work during school performances or beyond the school. Often students are encouraged to publish their work in school publications are contests, where Chávez students have been deemed exceptional and successful at the art of expression.

AP English Literature and Composition

Select Chávez Seniors nominated by their Junior Year English teachers have the opportunity to take a college level class in order to read and write about especially rich literature and to potentially place into upper level college courses (& bypass introductory college English classes, such as Freshman Composition). Students must read a novel in the summer before their senior year from the AP list of works and write a five paragraph essay on the novel. Last summer, students read from the pool of Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Chopin’s The Awakening, Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and Ellison’s Invisible Man. Presumably, the AP students stand as some of the most ambitious readers at Chávez, so the small class size enables them to not only learn from the course texts but also from each other in seminar style discussions of the works. During the 2005-2006 school year, the AP English students read The Bible’s JOB, Shakespeare’s King Lear, Melville’s Moby-Dick, Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, and Morrison’s Beloved. Additionally, students read select short stories and poems from authors such as Flannery O’Connor and Emily Dickinson. In May, AP students take the College Board’s National AP Test; if they score a high enough score on the test, they earn college credits for the course. Chávez offers AP English to recognize that accelerated readers need and deserve special literary attention, just as students reading below grade level need extra literacy instructional support.

Monthly School Meetings – “Affirmations”

Each Monday the school community meets. One Monday a month the full school meets for Public Policy Monday where issues and policies are discussed. At this time students can ask questions of the administrations or present proposals. Two Mondays a month are devoted to Grade Level Meetings and Advisory Meetings. In Grade Level Meetings students and faculty discuss issues particular to each grade level. They also recognize students for academic success. The Advisory Meetings is a time when advisors meet with their 8-10 advisees on academic issues. At this time Silent Sustained Reading can occur as a teacher may meet one on one with selected students. Once a month the entire school meets in an Affirmation Monday to celebrate special achievements of our students both for in school accomplishments and other events. We celebrate students who have served the community, participated in a special event or have won some type of award or received recognition. Many of these affirmations have supported our literacy initiative such as: The Book Awards, Pen/Faulkner writing award, bills written for the American University Youth and Government Legislative Weekend The Black Experience Celebration essay contest winners, and readings by members of the Literary Vine and Spoken Word contest