Grade 5 Category
Fall SAVY 2016 (Day 4) – From the Page to the Stage: Novel to Script to Production
Oct. 17, 2016—Students, thank you again for an exciting session! I’m rewarded week after week by your creativity, your collaborative spirit, and your evident delight as we discover bit-by-bit the backstory of Tinkerbell, Hook, and the whole of the Peter Pan mythology. This week we (twice) met for the first time the dastardly Black Stache and his amiable lackey, the...
Fall SAVY 2016 (Day 4) – Pathogens and Protectors: The Science of the Immune System
Oct. 17, 2016—This Saturday, we started by sharing analogies of the immune system. I previously gave the example of how the immune system is similar to a castle, with each component represented by a structure or guard of the castle. Students shared incredibly creative analogies, ranging from China to minecraft, that demonstrated understanding of key innate and...
Fall SAVY 2016 (Day 4) – Creative Writing: (Re)Imagining the Monstrous
Oct. 17, 2016—The 4th day of “Creative Writing: (Re)Imagining the Monstrous” was incredibly productive, leading students to a number of exciting conclusions about literary technique and their own writing processes. To review everything we’ve learned so far, each student chose one of the three questions to answer on a notecard: 1) Who do you think is the...
Fall SAVY 2016 (Day 3) – From the Page to the Stage: Novel to Script to Production
Oct. 10, 2016—Thank you for another exciting class as we continued our exploration of all things Starcatcher(s). If our first session represented an emersion in the world of the novel and our second session allowed us to dig into the script, this Saturday we moved towards the kind of work done in the workshops at Williamstown Theatre...
Fall SAVY 2016 (Day 3) – Pathogens and Protectors: The Science of the Immune System
Oct. 10, 2016—This week, we delved into the adaptive immune system – how one’s body can learn to recognize specific pathogens efficiently if encountered again. We also evaluated the apples exposed to lemon mold and found that while the apple with an intact innate immune system (skin) remained healthy, the apples with holes in their skin rotted,...
Fall SAVY 2016 (Day 3) – Creative Writing: (Re)Imagining the Monstrous
Oct. 10, 2016—In our third class of SAVY, we began to combine poetry and prose techniques in our short stories. First, students each wrote down one thing they learned in our last two classes and we reviewed their comments together, having a short conversation about the complex elements of story arcs, the uses of syntax and diction,...
Fall SAVY 2016 (Day 2) – From the Page to the Stage: Novel to Script to Production
Oct. 3, 2016—Coming soon!
Fall SAVY 2016 (Day 2) – Pathogens and Protectors: The Science of the Immune System
Oct. 3, 2016—This Saturday, we learned more about pathogens, specifically viruses, bacteria, fungi, and protozoa. We learned about their characteristics as well as how they are often transmitted, and some of the strategies we use to prevent their transmission (eg. water purification, cooking meat). We were able to analyze the effect of mouthwash on bacterial growth as...
Fall SAVY 2016 (Day 2) – Creative Writing: (Re)Imagining the Monstrous
Oct. 3, 2016—We had an exceptionally insightful and fast-paced second day of SAVY, in which we more closely examined revision, narration styles, imagery, and drafting processes for short stories! After students reintroduced themselves, we had a fruitful review of concepts from our last course (tone, characterization, third-person narration, omniscient narration, protagonist, antagonist, and epic poetry). Students reviewed...
Fall SAVY 2016 (Day 1) – From the Page to the Stage: Novel to Script to Production
Sep. 26, 2016—Thank you for an exciting first day of “From the Page to the Stage: Novels, Scripts, and Production.” Our class simply flew by, and I found myself wishing that — like Peter — I could somehow put time on hold. We covered so much during our time together: We had a lively symposium-style discussion about...