Programming Spotlight: Knitting It Together!

On Monday, February 11th, School Outreach Librarian Leigh Hurwitz brought a little bit of the Brooklyn Public Library to Passages Academy's Belmont site through a knitting program for our placement girls groups.  Leigh described all that BPL has to offer including programs for teens.   They distributed needles and yarn for the girls to keep and instructed them in the craft of knitting.

Said one student participant (T., age 17) who had just received a new library card from Leigh: “I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t go to the library before on the outside.  But now I’m gonna go to keep myself from getting in trouble. Honestly, I like to read.”

Thank you to Leigh and BPL for initiating the program, and to LIT for the funding to ensure all participants left with knitting needles and yarn!--Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Programming Spotlight: Passages' BIG (little) READ 2019

Today is our Big (little) Read!  We're all devouring the webcomic She Dared to be Herself: Shirley Chisholm's Legacy by Whit Taylor and Shannon Wright published by The Nib.  Won't you join us?

Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Programming Spotlight: Patricia McCormick Returns to Belmont in the Dead of Winter

Since the start of the new year colleagues Mr. Villaronga and Ms. Nadel have been teaching Cut by Patricia McCormick to two groups of ELA students. On January 17th and January 30th students in those classes were graced with a chance to meet the author herself!  Rounding out the instructional efforts were myself, Mr. Morgan, Social Worker and Transition Specialist, and Ms. Bernard, Reading Specialist.  Mr. Morgan helped students prepare for the potentially challenging subject matter with a mini-lesson on triggers and coping, and a discussion of self-harm.  

Students were moved by the author's candid replies to the questions they had prepared and are writing thank you notes we will send out this weekend.  All participating students left the program with a short stack of McCormick's most popular titles which the author autographed to each young person. We are so grateful to the author for sharing so much of her genuine warmth and piles of cozy reading during these freezing weeks.  Special thanks to Literacy for Incarcerated Teens for the funding to host the event and provide the volumes.--Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Programming Preparations Underway

Today we are excited to get students ready for our Big (little) Read which will take place on Monday, February 4th.  Teachers at all of Passages' sites are preparing students by introducing vocabulary words through the ever-popular word search activity.  We've prepared three levels of word searches at increasing levels of difficulty, and Ms. Latham has created a nifty anticipation guide to gauge students' perceptions and inspire deeper explorations in discussion.--The Shirley Chisholm Mini-Interdisciplinary Co-planning Team