In Grade 6, students engaged in Math fieldwork. Students did a mosaic walk in Tompkins Square and viewed an Underground Art documentary to gather inspiration to influence their own mosaic design, as part of their decimals, fractions and percents case study. First, students traveled through the East Village tracing the steps of the Mosaic Man’s (Jim Power) mosaic art on buildings and lamp posts along St. Mark’s Place (http://mosaicmannyc.com/). Students then met the artist Jim Power, captured images of the mosaic art they saw, read historical commentaries on the mosaics, recorded student perspectives on the art, and considered the historical importance of public art. Each student had a team role for the walk (2 navigators, 2 journalists, 2 historians, 2 photographers, and 2-3 safety officers) per team. Then students watched a PBS documentary titled Treasures of New York: Art Underground that explores the last 25 years of MTA Arts for Transit program. The film highlights some of the most eye catching mosaics underground, the artists who created them, and the process of making their way from concepts to installations. Finally, students worked on their own mosaic planning sheets. They each designed a 100 unit grid mosaic square using 4 – 6 different color sticker ‘tiles’ and identified how many tiles they will use for each color. They then completed a conversion sheet showing the fraction, percentage and decimal for each color in relation to the entire mosaic square (comparing the portion to the whole). Finished mosaics will be used to beautify the school. Jim Power even gave the students a mosaic piece to take back to Brooklyn Collaborative to hang in our school – what an honor to have met this amazing historical figure and artist and to carry a piece of his beautiful art back home to Brooklyn with us!
In Grade 7, students engaged in ELA fieldwork. The purpose of the fieldwork connected with the dystopian literature case study, focusing on two learning targets: 1) I can use characteristics of a real world setting to develop an original Dystopian or Fantasy story line, and 2) I can use descriptive details to move a story forward and engage my reader. First, students prepared for the “Ceremony of Feelings” whose purpose was to simulate the “Ceremony of 12” in The Giver novel. In The Giver by Lois Lowry, Jonas is starting to experience “feelings” in the memories during his training. Because of this, he is gaining important wisdom that will teach him how to help his community in the future. Since there are so many things that Jonas needs to know, students held a “CEREMONY OF FEELINGS” ritual to transmit eight basic human emotions to Jonas. Thanks to Restorative Practices Coordinator Taron for being the judge at the ceremony… and the winner was Team White with SADNESS!
Special Shout Out to All the Teams:
The Red: Anger
The Blacks: Joy
The Whites: Sadness
The Oranges: Compassion
The Greens: Fear
The Blues: Jealousy
The Browns: Pride
The Greys: Shame
Students then traveled to various engaging locations throughout Manhattan (Roosevelt Island, High Line, Washington Square Park, Union Square Park, WTC Path “Oculus”, Fulton Street Subway Station/ South Street Seaport) in order to use real-life settings as a backdrop for original fiction writing as part of our Dystopian Genre Study. This rivaled “the River to ELSEWHERE” in the novel. Students embodied a perspective that the Elders have just given them the task of collecting observation data on the location and people inhabiting this new and unusual space. Like Jonas, students pretended to spy and collect data about Elsewhere to help the Committee but students then secretly wrote a letter to warn Jonas about where to hide and who he can–and cannot–trust. Then, in the role of “Rebel Spy” students had to use their imaginations to create a world BEYOND ELSEWHERE…a world that they created that follows their 8 Rules. No more Sameness or Chief Elders in THIS world! A packed day to spark student imagination and creative writing!
In Grade 8, students engaged in ELA fieldwork. Students have been studying the elements of horror fiction in the latest case study, connected to how killers are depicted in literature and pop-culture. Today, students applied these elements to a group assignment- a theatrical adaptation of “The Tell Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe, and an individual assignment – drafting their own scary stories. Groups created, performed, and recorded a creative piece based on “The Tell Tale Heart” and applied the elements of horror fiction, props, accents and other touches of life in their re-tellings. Groups traveled to Prospect Park and Greenwood Cemetery to heighten the creepy settings for their Tell Tale Heart adaptations! Here’s a sneak peak of one group’s final adaptation (group members: Luna, Emmett, Rocky, Charlie, and Johnny). Please check back tomorrow at www.bcsela.com for more student work! Students will apply their learning from this case study to the next case study and literary analysis PBAT on Native Son by Richard Wright, about the circumstances that influence a killer.
