Programming Spotlight: Author & Activist Jamal Joseph

Dr. Joseph reads to students at Belmont from his memoir

Humanitarian, activist, veteran Black Panther, professor, director, playwright, filmmaker, author, poet,  screenwriter Jamal Joseph visited with students at Belmont yesterday.  It was impossible not to feel moved by his brilliant storytelling, hard-won insight, and deep compassion.  Two groups of placement students who have been studying the Black Panther Party for the last six weeks with their Social Studies, ELA, Art teachers and reading specialist, speech language pathologist and school librarian as part of an interdisciplinary collaborative unit participated in the program. 

 

We are extremely grateful to Dr. Joseph for making the time to visit and to Dietrice Bolden for all of her assistance, and to Robert Galinsky for connecting us and Literacy for Incarcerated Teens for generously supporting the visit.--Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Interdisciplinary Collaboration Kickoff: The Black Panther Party

In spite of attendance challenges, some of us educators at Passages Academy’s Belmont site are kicking off a co-planned interdisciplinary collaborative unit on the Black Panther Party this week.  Social Studies, ELA, Art, and Special Education teachers are collaborating with the Reading Specialist, Speech Language Pathologist, and Librarian to lead students through an exploration of David F. Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson’s graphic novel, above.   Student engagement is high.  You can read (and watch and listen to!) NYPL's Amber Certain review of the graphic novel here, along with her excellent recommendations for related texts. (Thank you, Hermithe Bernard, for sharing it!)  More soon. --Jessica Fenster-Sparber

New Release: Everything I Been Through

Out today:  Everything I Been Through.  An anthology published by 826NYC with crucial funding  provided by Literacy for Incarcerated Teens.  This publication of student writing marks the culmination of the Born A Crime interdisciplinary unit students engaged in this fall.  A publishing party organized by our incredible Social Studies teacher, Celestine Thomas, here at Belmont brought the authors and artists together to celebrate yesterday.  Belmont's amazing Art teacher, Ms. Bespalova, displayed students' African masks along the bookcase tops.  --Jessica Fenster-Sparber

Interdisciplinary Collaborations-- Hidden Figures

Interdisciplinary Hidden Figures Unit Leadership Team meets at the start of 2018 to co-plan at the Intrepid.

Ms. Chau supervises an NSD student bottle rocket launch after teaching students how to create their own rockets in February.

The books are ready to be distributed to every student at Belmont.

Ms. Ikawa leads "I Have, Who Has... in Ms. Ernyey's Advisory

At the Intrepid, students are challenged to complete simple tasks with gloves on to simulate the challenges faced by astronauts in outer space.

At MoMath in March!

Interdisciplinary Collaborations-- Hidden Figures

At the end of January we kicked off an interdisciplinary collaborative literacy initiative in advisory classes with two language learning activities to prepare students to engage with Hidden FiguresYounger Readers’ Edition.  Our school’s principal purchased a copy of this new paperback for each and every student and we had the fun job of partnering with advisors to distribute these gifts.  Students expressed satisfaction that they would be able to keep the books and were generally eager to begin reading them.

Ms. Ikawa, Speech-Language Pathologist, led students through a round of “I Have… Who Has” first, and then I introduced the terms associated with front matter and back matter.  We walked through the back matter together and concluded with a small competition to see who could utilize the index most efficiently.  Students did not want to stop looking things up at the end of the period.

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Approximately one month later, the unit concluded with hands on learning experiences at the IntrepidMuseum (for placement students) and the National Museum of Mathematics (for detention students.)  We were so consumed with the work at hand--science, literacy, social studies were all involved-- we had little time left over to post, but here are a few photos of the highlights. --Jessica Fenster-Sparber, School Librarian, Belmont

Programming Spotlight: American Museum of Natural History

Students exploring dinosaurs at the American Museum of Natural History yesterday.  Photo: Jessica Fenster-Sparber

How did the universe come into being and how has it changed over the last 13 billion years?  What is dark energy and how do we know it exists?  How are species endemic to Cuba affected by what we do here in the United States?  How much krill can a blue whale consume in one day?

Students residing in Lutheran and St. Johns houses were invited to wonder about these questions and more in conjunction with a field trip yesterday to NYC's most popular field trip destination, the American Museum of Natural History.  Four of us teachers at Belmont crafted a mini-interdisciplinary unit for the end of the instructional school year melding science, information literacy, advisory, and special education to scaffold a positive learning experience and provide access to the museum for detained youth.  We thank Literacy for Incarcerated Teens for funding the gift of the visit to our students.--Elaine Latham, Shelley Leibusor, Milena Mihalache, and Jessica Fenster-Sparber