By Keana Quitlong
SILVERDALE -- Our eighth grader Honors History and ELA (English Language Arts) teacher, Stephanie Render had both of her history classes start an assignment based on the immigration in the Washington state. The main goal of the project was to learn more about the culture in Washington through picture analyzation and to infer what the immigrants did in the past and why they decided to move in the state. When the students did their project, they had to choose a specific culture from either Chinese, Irish, Scandinavian, Hawaiian Kanakas, German, Italian, and the Japanese immigrants. They had to find pictures based on their lives in their home country and their lives in Washington and paste those pictures onto a poster board. “We do so much writing that anytime I can find lessons that can appeal to visual learners, I would like to try and use it,” said Render. She liked the idea of using visual images for others to learn, considering students can learn information by looking at a picture. “I felt it was complicated and challenging at some parts in the project, especially things specific to Washington,” said eighth grader Michaela Tran, after being asked what was the challenging part of her project. The project wasn’t easy, mostly for the students who chose a culture that wasn’t entirely well known to Washington State. For the past two weeks, the posters have been up in the hallways for others to look at. Story by: Stephanie Ryder
Here at Ridgetop Middle School we have a special and unique program that recognizes students for their growth. The program is called ERA. Today I will be interviewing the founder of this program, one of our own teachers, D.J. Sweet. Stephanie: What does ERA stand for? D.J. Sweet: It stands for effort raises averages. Stephanie: Why is ERA so important? D.J. Sweet: It's important because it allows kids to get recognized that wouldn’t be recognized in a traditional environment. We have a lot of kids that work hard in the classroom but don’t receive the best grades. Stephanie: How did ERA get started at Ridgetop? D.J. Sweet: It was started 9 years ago when I was at a Tacoma Rainiers game and I was thinking about how boys were falling behind; and I wanted to create a recognition program that appeals to boys. Stephanie: How is ERA encouraging students to improve their grades? D.J. Sweet: It encourages them to improve by recognizing and rewarding the small things, all you need to improve 1 class. It also recognizes 75% of students throughout the school, either by improving their grades or already having good grades. Stephanie: What is one of the greatest ERA success stories? D.J. Sweet: All of the students that are in the hall of fame, we have our ninth one this year. They are all so inspiring. Each student had to overcome a challenge. For some, it was illness; for others it was a family tragedy; for many it was just learning how to overcome the normal struggles of moving into a middle school. The common thread of all of them is that they worked hard. They didn’t let their previous struggles define who they were as a person or as a student. Stephanie: How does ERA connect to baseball? D.J. Sweet: The program uses a baseball theme to connect with classroom performance. Our awards take their names from baseball and all of our rewards are related to America’s pastime. |
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