Ms. Lisa Velick's English II CP classes create art regu-larly to supplement their lit-erature. This semester, stu-dents have been reading Dante's Inferno. This piece of literature can be intimidat-ing to tackle but, through art, students grasped the events of Dante's travels through the underworld. After reading a Canto (section) of the story, students would group up and draw what they read using the author's descriptive de-tails. This helped them sum-marize the events and con-nect with the reading in their own way-- to visualize their own version of the journey.

Ms. Velick states, "Classic lit-erature can be daunting, and students who often look tor-tured while reading spring to life at the opportunity to create afterwards." Another scary piece of lit-erature to take on is Voltaire's Candide. Once students dig through the language, they find the humor and biting satire intended by the author. Since students responded so well to the Dante art assignment, Ms. Velick assigned another artistic project. Students were asked to identify main events of the story and create a children's book. On each page students illustrated a scene from the

story and wrote two sen-tences of summary. The cover included the title, au-thor’s name, and a picture that depicted the theme of the story. This enabled stu-dents to look at the big pic-ture and break Candide's journey into simplified pieces, as well as convey the satirical techniques they learned in their illustrations.

Ms. Velick states, "They had a great time making their books! They were laughing about the illustrations and debating how to portray the adult humor for children." Art is a great way for stu-dents to respond to literature. It helps them connect to the writing, identify main ideas and themes, and most impor-tantly share their unique views with their peers.

Students Bring Life to English Literature UPCOMING EVENTS:

• Honors Drama One Act Nov. 10th @ 7:00 in the PAC*

• Chorus Coffee House Nov 16th @ 7:00 @ Wando

• Fall Band Concert Nov 18th @ 7:00 at Wando

• Strings Spring Concert May 10th @ 7:30 in the PAC*

• Fine Arts Book Fair with Barnes &Noble Dec 4-5th @ Barnes & Noble in Mt. Pleasant

• Winter Chorus Concert Dec 7th @ 7:00 in the PAC*

• Holiday Band Concert Dec 9th @ 7:30 in the PAC*

• Winter Orchestra Concert Dec. 14th @ 7:00 in the PAC*

• Winter Honors Chorus Concert Dec. 14th @ 7:00 at Christ Church

• Winter Theatre Showcase I Dec. 14th @ 7:00 at Wando

• Winter Theatre Showcase II Dec. 16th @ 7:00 at Wando

• Fall Dance Concert Dec. 16th @ 7:00 in the PAC*

* Wando Performing Arts Center (PAC)

VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1

OCTOBER 20, 2010 School of Arts and Humanities WANDO HIGH SCHOOL

Master Lessons Engage Fine Arts Faculty

English Lessons with a Twist 1

Master Lessons 1

Get to Know an A&H Student 2

Math and Music Combined 2

Teacher of the Quarter 2

INS IDE THIS ISSUE:

At Wando, teachers meet on a regular basis in discipline-centered curriculum teams. This provides teachers with the chance to create coherent coursework for the de-partment and also provides a chance for professional develop-ment. This year, the Performing Arts curriculum team has created a schedule for a series of "Master Lessons." Master lessons are developed by one teacher and taught to colleagues within the department. This gives teachers an opportunity to see how other edu-cators incorporate differentiated strategies into their curriculum as a means to meet the needs of all student learners.

This fall, Mr. Eric Wilkinson taught an introductory choir lesson to the performing arts team. The lesson included choral concepts that address the National Music standards using "Takadimi" rhythm methodology and the Kodaly solfege system. The teachers became the students thus experiencing a little bit of a typical day in the chorus classroom. Ten Wando Chorus students were on hand to assist in creating typical cho-rus class environment as well as demonstrating additional advanced music literacy skills. The lesson was approximately thirty minutes long and afterwards Mr. Wilkinson dis-cussed some additional strategies used in choir rehearsals.

Faculty participants truly benefited from this professional development opportunity. Not only were teachers reminded how challenging it can be to be the learner, they also gained an understanding of new teaching strate-gies to engage all student learners.

Eric Wilkinson teaches Fine Arts teachers choral concepts.

Javonte Jenkins depicts a scene from Candide through a black and while line drawing.

Abby Wedlake, Keandra Williams, and Sarah Pitts visually depict a scene from Dante’s Inferno.

Get To Know Lizzy Willingham

Why did you choose to take coursework in the Arts and Humanities? I knew that I wanted to follow a career in art and my mind works best in a creative environ-ment. Taking coursework in the Arts and Hu-manities has allowed me to get college experience while still in high school through my AP Studio Art course.

What are your plans for the future? I plan to attend a four year college studying art and concentrating on photography. I would like to establish a career in editorial photography or photojournalism. I would also love to travel with missionaries documenting mission work overseas or to travel with mission organizations such a YWAM, the IMB, or World Vision.

Students in Math Create the Perfect Pitch

This semester, students in Mrs. Erin Crosswell and Mr. Larry Crosswell’s Honors Pre-Calculus classes are presented with a unique lesson on how to use sine curves and equa-tions to model musical sound. Many of these stu-dents are enrolled in per-forming arts classes in the School of Arts and Hu-manities, therefore, dem-onstrating an interest in the arts field. Evidence shows that interdisciplinary teach-ing is a way in which students can use knowl-edge learned in one context as a knowledge base in other contexts. Interdisci-plinary/cross-curricular teaching can also increase students' motivation for learning and increase their level of engagement. By creating a lesson that is applicable to the arts, the

Croswells have truly en-gaged their audience! The purpose of this as-signment was to provide the students with an enrich-ing application in which they could see how sinusoi-dal curves that they have been studying in theory actually apply to something they all love: music. It also provides some students with the opportunity to

showcase their musical talents within a mathemati-cal setting. The lesson proceeded as follows: The teacher would provide the sound of a note with a tuning fork and students would either hum, sing, or use a musical instrument (flute, trumpet, oboe) to match the pitch/note. A microphone cap-tured the sound waves and

a computer then created the corresponding sinusoidal graph. Students would then count the number of periods in 1/10 of a second and multiply by 10 to get the approximate frequency of the note. They would then use a table of frequen-cies chart (see below) to see if they could guess what note their classmates were singing or playing. Not only were students highly engaged and partici-pating in upper-level con-cepts, they were also cheer-ing on their peers and hav-ing educational fun!

Teacher of the Quarter: Ms. Lisa Velick

This semester, Ms. Lisa Velick, a teacher in the School of Arts and Humani-ties has embodied the idea of meeting every child's needs in the classroom. An English teacher at Wando for the past four years, she has been incorporating the arts into her curriculum by centering lessons around each students' individual interests as a means to en-gage them and foster a love of learning. Students in her classes have selected the School of Arts and Humani-ties for their career path, demonstrating their connec-tion with the arts. By inte-

grating the arts into lessons, Ms. Velick has provided students with the opportunity to become more invested in their learning and the level of student engagement in her classroom is evidence of the effectiveness of arts integra-tion. Students are provided with a chance to show off their individual talents (see article on front) and reten-tion rates of English con-cepts are enhanced because of the connection between the two disciplines. In fact, studies show that art can bring every subject to life and turn abstractions into concrete reality.

Ms. Velick currently teaches English I and II. She says “I have wanted to be a teacher since I was five and love sharing my passion for literature and movies with my students.” Thanks Ms. Velick for all you do to edu-cate and engage students!

Ms. Lisa Velick receives the Arts and Humanities globe for the first quarter.

Students check for accuracy in pitch based on the number of peaks in the graph.

This sinusoidal graph repre-sents an “F” chord in perfect pitch.

A table of frequencies is used to determine if notes are sung or played on pitch.

Students listen to the pitch before they sing or play a note into the microphone to test the accuracy of their pitch.

Dorethea Lange, 2010

Mixed-media from AP Studio Art

Outnumbered, 2010

Mixed-media collage from AP Studio Art

Self-Portrait Diptych, 2010

Photograph from AP Studio Art

Lizzy was nominated for the Editorial/ Story of the Year Award and winners will be announced Nov.

13th at the National Scholastic Press Association in Kansas City. Good luck Lizzy!